4th Grade: Drawing to Music

Fourth Grade was able to listen to six different songs and create lines to match the rhythm and beat of each song with various lines. After we created out lines with oil pastels, we added watercolors on top of the lines to create beautiful pieces of art. 

What is ART?

What is the big question for 5th and 6th Grade Art this year?

These are some of the answers that students came up with: 

6 Leafe:

What people use to express themselves

Colors put together to make a pretty picture

Anything that person makes

The world

Everything

Visual imagination

5 Doucet:

Everything

A bunch of colors put together to make creativity

Masterpieces

Beauty

A bunch of NOT colorful things

Letting your mind go crazy

Designs

Creativity

Imagination

Sculptures

Anything you call art 

Mrs. Gagne:

Art is creative

Art is making a mistake

Art is musical

Art is imagination

Art is thinking out loud

Art is visual

Art is an experience

Art is full of color

Art makes a statement to those that don’t have a voice

After we brainstormed, students came up with a visual way to show what they think art is. Take a look at these outstanding examples they made...

Dot Day!

On September 15th CSDA celebrated International Dot Day!
What is International Dot Day you ask?!? Well good question....
The day is based on a fantastic book  with a fantastic message ...

The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds

This story focuses on a girl Vashti who finds she "cannot draw" anything in art class and with a little help from her art teacher, she starts to make dots as her signature style. Of course I LOVE this idea of a student who feels like they cannot draw who pushes through the challenge and takes a mistake on paper and makes it into beautiful art...

Students were asked the big question after reading this story: HOW WILL I MAKE MY MARK IN THE WORLD?
And some great conversations happened over this one question, dots were made, and more risks are being taking on paper in the art room this year!

Ready for an awesome art year?!? 

2015-2016 here we come!

Now that everyone  has had some summer adventures and time to relax it is time to get back to work getting creative in the art room at CSDA.
This summer, I was lucky enough to bring my daughter Lilly into the world which has given me a new life perspective as a mom and as an artist.  Having a newborn to hang out with all summer has helped me find enjoyment to being in the moment and watching a small human grow right before my eyes. This experience brought me to thinking about the simple questions in art: What is creativity? What makes me feel creative? What is art? Why do we make art?
These questions are what have started conversations in the art room this year with the focus on having students thinking about taking creative risks this year and not just always drawing what comes easiest to them.

 Here is where the creative magic happens! Nice and clean at the moment but once the kiddos get painting it will look very different...

New addition to the room! 

This coming week we will be celebrating international dot day at CSDA- so stay tuned! 

Artist and Residency

Last week, the wolf pack at CSDA was lucky enough to have a visiting artist last week: C. M Judge. Students were able to be introduced to the artist and a few pieces of her artwork as well as participate in painting a section of some large murals which will be displayed around the school! Students were able to add their own design and colors to their section of the canvas. This week students are being shown the painters tape coming off in between each section that was painted. The next step will be to make wooden frames to stretch the canvas around and them mount onto the walls around our school. 

Enjoy a few pictures from our creative work this week and stay tuned around for the final pieces to be hung! 

2015 Art Show

Welcome to the show!

 This year we had the art show a wee bit early which was a good excuse to get out during the cold snap we had this February.  Every year I am happy to sit back and watch all the families come in with their students and appreciate not just their own child's artwork, but other students hard work with their art!
Here were some of the projects featured this year:

 4th Grade African Masks 

5th Grade Keith Haring Clay Figures

6th Grade Andy Goldsworthy Outdoor Sculptures

 4th Grade Dia De Los Muertos Clay Masks

 6th Grade Cubistic Faces

5th Grade Optical Illusion Boxes

 5th Grade Art History Reproductions 

 4th Grade Hero Character Traits

 6th Grade

Egyptian Sarcophagus

Now the art show has happened we can look forward to the snow melting (by June let's hope!), flowers growing, being outside eating ice cream in flip flops! I know I will be happy, my pup Rigby already is...look at that smile! 

5th Grade Optical Illusion Boxes

Optical Illusion Boxes

This project is one that has been cooking in my art teacher brain for a little while. Optical illusions are a good intro for students to practice with perspective. 6th grade is really when we focus on a perspective unit, but this project is a good introduction to thinking about making lines look like they are overlapping or moving back into space. Some students were able to apply different values (lights and dark areas) to their designs which was going above the project expectations. Our artists always are able to surprise me by rising to a challenge! 

After being introducted to the artist Bridget Riley (her artwork can hurt the eyes to look at, but really outstanding!), students were able to practice some different ways to draw lines in their journals before we started their final box design. 

Here is an example of the flat template students drew onto before the box was assembled: 

Once we were able to complete six different designs with colored pencil, we cut out the template and glued it into a 3-D box. Here are some of the fantastical designs the kiddos came up with! 

 Look at the complementary colors in this one!                              This reminds me of the 4th of July!

Some completed boxes...

         Boxes in one big box.... these are from Ms. Mayorska's class:

Overall success! Something I will be using in the future with other 5th grade classes in the coming years! 

Stay tuned because next week is our BIG art show!!! 

Happy New Year!

What have we been up to in the art room? 

Lots of good old fashion creative, messy, fun projects! 

Mexican Day of the Dead Clay Skulls 

Here are the final clay skulls made by 4th graders. We were able to paint them with acrylic paint after they came out of the kiln. The colors 4th graders mixed came out very well which is something we have been mastering in art this year! 

Native American Shields 

This is an integrated art project done with Ms. Mayorska's 

5th Grade class. We were able to take what students have been learning in Social Studies class and apply the art and history of Native American Shields by making our own! The goal was to add symbols with specific meanings to create a story on each shield. 

We used cereal boxes and oil pastels to add color and symbols. Watercolors were also another medium choice to add colors onto the shield. Feathers and yarn were added for  final details. 

6th Grade Hero Mirror Images

For the specialist integrated art project this year, we embarked on a theme based on heroes. In Library, each class brainstormed a list of character traits that represents a hero. Each class used their list of hero character traits to inspire the theme of their artwork. The goal of this project was to create a mirror image of the character trait students picked. Take a look, they came out very spectacular!