Kindergarten Sculptures

I've been realizing lately how much simple art activities are often the best and most rewarding for kids, especially when they involve opportunities for exploration and lots of creativity.  Artwork should be more about the process of the creation than the actual final product.  A good final product often follows when there was a successful process of thinking and problem solving along the way.  I think that the thinking process and creative exploration was very evident in the work below.  The kindergartners made wood scrap sculputures after looking at the artwork of Louise Nevelson.  They loved sorting through all the junk and gluing everything together and had to learn what sorts of pieces would work for the bottom to sustain the weight for the top. 

Snow Art

Welcome back everyone.  I hope you had a nice break and enjoyed the time off.  Last week we jumped right in to making some snowy art, which is a little ironic since there hasn't been much snow.  In any case, we now have lots of bulletin boards filled with snowflakes and snowmen.  Below are snowflake collages that the second graders in Mrs. Leckrone's class made.  They stamped the paper with empty spools of thread, legos, and other items and then glued the snowflakes on top.

The second graders also created winter collages after reading the book Snow Family by Daniel Kirk. 

Below are pictures of the winners for the yearbook cover design.  The fifth graders all had a chance to create a design, and then two winners were selected.  Congratulations to Rebecca and Chris for their outstanding work!

1st Grade Friends

Our first graders finished making some multimedia imaginary people sculptures using all those paper grocery bags that everyone has been sending in to art class.  The kids had a lot of fun creating these because they were able to do use many different art supplies including paint, markers, yarn, and crayons.  They were also suprised when we finally turned the bag into a person to create their new "friends."

Chihuly Artwork

The 3rd graders have been learning about glass artist Dale Chihuly.  First we made some preliminary sketches of his work.  I am always impressed by the details they include when they are really focuing on observing the artwork.  After sketching they created their own Chihuly inspired pieces by creating a printed background using styrofoam.  On top they drew and painted Chihuly inspired glass bowls and added a border of brightly painted paper.  This assignment was a great opportunity to utilize multiple media in one project including printmaking, painting, drawing, and collage.  Thanks goes to http://elementaryartfun.blogspot.com/ for this project idea.

Holiday Art Around the School

The 1st graders created these beautiful tree sculptures.  Isn't it amazing what you can make from pasta?!

Below are some Kindergarten tree collages.  They were able to practice cutting shapes for to create this artwork.

Finished Clay Pieces

Finally, I am nearly finished firing all of these clay pieces.  The 5th graders created some delectable desserts to go along with our unit on Pop Art.  These food sculptures are making us all hungry!

 Below are clay flowers created by the 3rd graders.  They learned about the artist Georgia O'Keefe and the giant flower paintings that she created.  Then they sculpted some of their own miniature versions of flowers.