4th Grade Goes Green with Recycled Newspaper Sculptures

In recognition of Earth Day 2011, 4th graders recycled newspaper into beautiful works of art. They learned about the local artist, Diane Sikes who transforms recycled books into magnificent sculptures. They also learned about the Senegalese artist, Mamadou Tall Diedhio, who makes bird sculptures out of old cell phones. 

After seeing the artworks of these two artists, fourth graders were excited about getting to work on their own projects. Below are a few snapshots from class. Be sure and stop by the glass case upstairs to see more examples of these sculptures! 

Summer Art Camp

This time of the year, I get lots of questions about summer art camps. I always direct people towards our local art museums because really, how can it get any better than learning about art surrounded by the real deal?

The DMA just posted their art camps and they sound really cool this year.
I want to go to all of them! 

Here is the link:  

http://www.dallasmuseumofart.org/Family/SummerCamps/index.htm

Google Art Project

Have you seen this? It is so cool!

http://www.googleartproject.com/

Fourth Grade Giants!

 

Fourth graders are having fun combining two ideas from art history: 

cityscapes and giants! 

 
They learned about Goya’s painting, “The Colossus” and about the many different ways busy city life has been portrayed by artists old and new. We talked about perspective and design techniques artists use to give the feeling of depth in their cityscapes.

 

Students are now designing their own cities and giants. 

 

Here are some pictures of their work so far...

The Colossus

The Dragon Factory

Third Grade art students are still working on their papier-mache Chinese dragon puppets. They are beginning to paint and add details and should finish up soon!

Dragons, dragons everywhere!

Cats a la Klimt

Kindergarten art students just finished up a lesson about the Austrian artist Gustav Klimt. They learned that he not only loved the color gold and swirly lines, but cats too! Inspired by his art, they created cat collages!

Chinese New Year in the Bradfield Art Room

Third grade and Kindergarten students have both been learning about the tradition of Chinese New Year. 

Third graders are building dragon puppets from papier-mache. They don't look anything like dragons yet, but hopefully in a few weeks they will look more like this:

This week, they are working on building an armature from newspaper and cardboard:

Armatures ready for papier-mache!

According to the Chinese calendar, this year is the Year of the Rabbit.

In Kindergarten art classes, students have been learning how to draw a rabbit!

Happy New Year!

Third Grade Family Paintings

Family is a popular subject matter in artworks by Mary Cassatt, Romare Bearden and Carmen Lomas Garza. Third grade art classes have been expressing their feelings about family and friendship by creating paintings that depict a scene from a family tradition or daily routine.

Here are some of the paintings in progress. They are turning out great!

Still Life Painting in Fourth Grade

Fourth grade art students are focusing on realistic drawing skill this week. They are learning about contour lines and different ways to use line for shading. They are also studying value and contrast. 

Currently, they are creating a still-life painting inspired by artworks like this one by Paul Cezanne. 

Here are some pictures of the artists in action:

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!