Dia de Los Muertos

Although the Mexican tradition of Dia de los Muertos and its celebrations look very similar to Halloween, there are actually many differences between the two holidays. Third grade art students have been learning about Dia de los Muertos and about all of the amazing art that surrounds it. They looked at artwork such as calacas, paper flowers and calaveras. 

After seeing all of the bold, colorful Mexican crafts, they were excited to get started on their own Dia de los Muertos artwork!

Here are some of their paintings of calaveras in progress:

Trees in 3-D

Last week, Kindergarten students created Fall tree collages on paper. This week, they took their study of trees a step further by creating these fabulous tree sculptures. They learned that a sculpture is an artwork that has a top, bottom and two sides. You can walk around a sculpture and see it from many different viewpoints. A person who makes a sculpture is called a sculptor. 

Students sculpted their trees by twisting and turning brown paper bags. They added leaves using tissue paper and glue.

A Completed Tree

Fourth Grade Self Portraits

Fourth grade has been studying monochromatic color schemes and cubist styles in painting. They looked at many of Picasso's Blue Period works and discussed ways that color expresses feelings in art. 

We then looked at later works by Picasso done in the cubist style.

Students then combined the two styles to create their self portraits. 

Here are a few of the finished paintings:

Second Grade goes Concentric

Second grade is working on concentric circle prints this week. 

They learned about Kandinsky's famous work of art, "Squares with Concentric Circles" for inspiration.

They are using found objects like coffee cans, cardboard tubes and plastic cups to print with. When the paint dries, they will fill in the rest of the space using pastels, markers and watercolor. 

Here are a few action shots!

FALL is in the Art

Kindergartners learned how artists express the season of Fall in their work. They looked at many paintings of Fall trees like this one by Vincent Van Gogh:

Then, they created leaves using texture rubbings, collage and oil pastel. 
They used the drip painting method to "grow" their tree trunks and branches. 

Here are a few of the finished products: