Early Spring 2020

 

 

 

Love and Kindness are in the Air at CHS! 

Also, there is worry and concern as we wonder what the near future holds. In the event that you find your family at home with a lot of time to make art, here is a list of great materials to have on hand at home and a few ideas of things to create. Creating can be a great calming activity and distraction for anxiety -- for you and your children!

Basics:

• paper of different sizes and thicknesses, white and colored
• thick and thin felt tip markers
• crayons
• colored pencils
• oil pastels -messier, baby wipes are good for hands while using
• collage paper- old magazines, old wrapping paper, old newspapers, tissue paper, origami paper
• scissors that work- round tips for younger kids
• stapler
• hole puncher
• masking tape, decorative tape, any tape
• odds and ends - small pieces of wood, cardboard, pipe cleaners, or other soft wire, pieces of ribbon and yarn, buttons
• natural items like acorns, pine cones, twigs and stones

Additional items:

• Painting for younger children- Buddha Board (on Amazon- only water used on it)
• Painting for older children - Watercolor pallets, watercolor pencils or crayons
• 3D Construction is fun with small pieces of cardboard and masking tape until children are old enough to handle a glue gun. Glue Guns should be supervised. I use them with 2nd and third graders who are ready- supervised.
• Model Magic- air dry modeling clay. You can make a cardboard base and then put model magic on it and stick tooth picks, brads, and paper clips into it.

Ideas to spark creativity:

• take some chalk outside, wet or dry
• get out the watercolor paints
• keep a drawing journal ( I liked sharing one with my kids when they were little and we sent messages back and forth to each other through drawings and words. It was on the breakfast table to greet them each morning)
• get a white board and markers for drawing
• make a  weaving loom out of a cardboard box (a cereal box is easier to cut into)
• make a hide-out from a large box and decorate it
• draw in the sand or dirt
• make a sand castle (it you have a sand box or are at the beach!)
• make a collaborative drawing on a napkin
• get some air-dry clay and create small sculptures
• dumpster dive and make a cool recycle object of art
• read a book and imagine the pictures...then you can illustrate it.

 

Primary Artists: After exploring color and lines, the Primary Artists are beginning to focus on  visual textures in the Art Room. We read a book about collage in class, Colette: A Collage Adventure by Kathryn Horn Coneway; and now the students are busy making different textured paper to use in collage. They created crayon rubbings, painted paper with texture tools and paint rollers, and bubble wrap prints. Once we've made all of the different textures, we will start making some collages out of these materials!

  



Kindergarten Artists: In the winter the kindergarten students created model magic snow people. They added paper clips, buttons, beads, feathers and yarn to give them personality! Yarn bombing  was out next exploration. The students heard the book, Extra Yarn, by  Mac Barnett and illustrated by Jon Klassen. After this unusual story they were surprised to learn that there really are places where trees and bicycles wear sweaters! In preparation for some watercolor painting, the students learned about special techniques they can use with watercolor to create visual textures including oil pastel resist, tape resist, and various types of blotting. They enjoyed moving around to different watercolor stations to explore these various techniques. At the culmination of this learning the students identified these techniques in each other's work and made their learning visible.
 

 

 

 

First Grade Artists: The first grade artists were very invested in their "Not a Box" Challenge. After reading a book about imagining a box to be all sorts of things (a car, an airplane, a house, etc.), the students painted boxes and then added found objects to create an extraordinary construction. They planned their projects by drawing ideas, picking their favorites and then interpreting the plans in the final 3-D piece. It was especially fun to have some third grade students assist them with the glue guns! After displaying the box creations with their "artist statements", the first grade artists continued to travel the world in art class, parallel to their classroom studies. Japanese Kimono Paintings were created based on their knowledge of Japan and Japanese art's focus on nature. While in Australia they created ceramic boomerangs. These boomerangs are objects of art, not to be actually thrown (much to their disappointment!).

 

 

 

 

  

Second Grade Artists: Second Grade Artists have been creating art related to their Native American Social Studies in the classroom. They created Cooper-foil Copper Foil Medicine Pouches using special tools to imprint Native American symbols into their pouches. The students enjoyed working with some new materials and creating in an unfamiliar way, rising to the challenge of stretching their comfort zones! After our pouches, the students made individual weavings and were remarkably skilled at keeping the tension even. Coming up are ceramic pots and ceramic "animal fetishes" (small animals decorated with beads and feathers who are thought to have special powers- somewhat like a good luck charm, but more spiritual).

 

 

 

 

Third Grade Artists: One of the highlights of the third grade this year has been their visit to the East Wing of the National Gallery to see the Calder Exhibit, arranged by their classroom teachers. Inspired by the exhibit, the students created poetry in their classroom, mobiles in the maker space, and "Found Object" Circuses in art. They have been working on the circuses for several weeks in teams of four, and have been learning a lot about planning, organizing, creating, and assessing their work as a group. In addition to these skills, they are using their imaginations to visualize and collaborate in order to incorporate each of their visions into one project! Here are some photos of their work in progress:

 

 

 

MOREART: If you are planning to enroll your child in MOREART for the Spring Session, please watch for registration information coming from the school. MOREART is part of the Afterschool Activities Program. The Spring Session is for First Graders, Kindergarteners, and any Second Graders who could not get into the Winter Session. Your child can go from art to Cub Club when the class ends at 4:20.

 

 Enjoy your creating!

Jan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 



 

 



Winter 2019-20



School-wide and Auction Art Projects: Recycled Rolls

 




General Art News:
We are celebrating the earth this year as our school-wide art theme. One way to celebrate is to honor the earth with our actions: Recycle and Repurpose! We used toilet paper rolls to create a mixed-media art piece. Each child painted and decorated a roll for the CHS Auction and a roll for the school-wide project. Even the teachers contributed their creativity to make some of the rolls! Be sure to go to the Auction to bid on this one of a kind art piece!

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Primary Artists are continuing to learn about colors, mixing colors, and lines. In art class we have mixed colors with tempera paint, watercolor paint, and paint sticks. Recently, we took a line walk around the school and looked for vertical straight lines (standing up lines), horizontal lines (lying down lines), diagonal, curvy, and zigzag lines. The students were VERY observant and found examples of all kinds of lines right here at CHS!


                               

 

 

 

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Kindergarten Artists learned about creatures under the sea in their classroom studies, and enjoyed creating some individual and collaborative paintings together in art. They also engaged in some extended time with clay. The kindergarten students are fascinated with what you can make with clay and how to do it. We have decided to continue with clay learning through the early winter season. They started by learning to make slabs and leaf imprints. Then they moved on to pinch pots. One of their favorite activities is to make their own creations using the methods of attachment they learned-- so that their snowmen, dogs, duck cups, and snakes will survive the kiln! Clay can be finicky and teaches a lot of life lessons: fragility of material objects (thin objects often break in the kiln), non-attachment (clay is delicate while drying), perseverance (many objects need practice to master), shared vision and inspiration (classmates encourage and teach each other based on their own successes and trials), and I could go on and on!

 

 

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First Grade Artists created Mixed-Media Fall Trees. Their trees involved learning about the background and foreground in a piece of artwork, horizon lines, collage, and layering. Their beautiful creations are currently displayed in the main hallway. In addition, these young artists have been enriching their classroom learning about India through a variety of mandala projects. They made tile mandalas, metallic mandalas and played a cooperative game to make oil pastel mandalas. In the game, Pass the Picture, the students each create the center of a mandala. When the chime rings, they pass their picture to the right and the next child adds on to it. By the time each mandala goes around the room it is complete, and everyone has had an opportunity to contribute to it. The person who started the mandala gets to add color to the design and keep it.

 

 

 

 

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Second Grade Artists have been revisiting the concepts of printing, collaging, painting with watercolor and paint sticks, and observational drawing. They created mono prints of fall leaves, explored watercolor through Hidden Name Paintings and the Different Kinds of Lines Challenge. They created colorful paint stick paintings after seeing and discussing their observations of the colorful city paintings of Stuart Davis. Most recently they are working on their self portraits using proportion guidelines, which we call "whisper lines" to help them visualize where their eyes, nose, mouth,  and ears belong in relation to each other. This has been VERY challenging; I am so proud of these young artists and their perseverance!

 

  

 

 

 

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Third Grade Artists began the year creating drawings of figures "dancing like no one is watching", which is a theme Mr. Dennison has been exploring during Morning Meeting. They used wooden figures as models for their poses and created textural backgrounds by using rubbing plates. The next project was a deep dive into Thinking Like An Artist as they used view finders to select compositions from beautiful photos of the earth, in order to make a series of paintings. Their paintings included watercolor, acrylic paint, and acrylic paint with textures. Most recently the students were introduced to the portraits of Amy Sherald (the local artist who painted Michelle Obama's Portrait- which is in the National Portrait Gallery). The students were then challenged to create their own self-portraits using proportion guides. Their self-portraits are still in progress, and are part of a series.

 

 

 

 

 

Registration for afterschool MOREART will be in mid-December or early January. Please keep an eye out for the email about Afterschool Activities. Third graders who did not have an opportunity to take MOREART in the Fall will be given priority in the Winter. The rest of the spaces will be for second graders.

 

Have a wonderful THANKSGIVING!

 

Warmly,

Jan