Another year, another amazing Art Show!

 Before covid happened, the middle school would team up with the high school and have an art show on a weekend where there were home basketball games and the book swap. The book swap is where people from the English speaking community bring books they would like to swap then exchange them for different books. It's a highlight of the year. 

Well, the past few years, we have been unable to have a book swap but this year, it returned! Last weekend, we had home basketball games (high school), a book swap in our auditorium, food selling in the cafeteria for one of the high school classes to raise funds, the middle school art show in the cafeteria against the windows and the high school art show in a couple of the high school art rooms. It was amazing and I took photos and made a few short videos so you can have a sneak peek here. Enjoy! 

5th and 6th Grade Art

We began our year with a fun activity were they drew a boy or a girl following a YouTube video. 

Next, we looked at Atmospheric Perspective and pointed out how we can tell objects are near or far by size and color. We looked at photos of Californian vineyards, Joshua Tree National Park and the Redwoods. Students chose a photo to draw then watercolor. 

On the last day, while some students were finishing up, I presented a one day project where students drew abstract trees with a Sharpie then watercolored a halo around their trees. 

Our next project was inspried by Sonia Delaunay and students cut shapes out of different colored paper to make a collage. 

We did a few weeks of Dr. Seuss where first, we created our own Dr. Seuss character then created Dr. Seuss houses. For the houses, we read some Dr. Seuss stories, looked at some of his houses then drew our own inspired version on colored paper with a Sharpie. We then cut them out and glued them on white paper and could add other elements that fit in with the Dr. Seuss style. 

In this project, we created a textured background with tempera paints and materials like plastic wrap, forks and other items that would leave marks in the paint. While that dried, we drew our faces on white paper and colored in with colored pencils. We cut out our faces and glued them on our dried background and the last step was to add quotes, words, verses, etc. that described our personalities. 

Art Elective: Quarter 1

During quarter 1, my art elective students worked with painting projects where they explored different painting mediums and cultures around the world. 

Our first project was an agamograph that was created by an Israeli artist. We first had to create hills and valleys by folding paper, then we drew and painted three pictures, cut them into strips and glued them onto our folded paper. Depending on how you look at it, you can see three different pictures. This was a really fun project and took quite a bit of time to put together! 

Next, we looked at the culture of the New Zealand Maori people and created an artwork based on a local fern called the Koru. We drew the fern, colored it with oil pastel while leaving the edges (lined with chalk) then painted it with black ink. 

Many of my students enjoy drawing and reading about dragons! As I have shared before. For our next project, we drew and painted dragons with watercolors. 

For our last project, we looked at Chinese brush painting and painted tiny canvases with acrylic paints. 

Art Elective: Quarter 2

During quarter 2, we focused on different artists and began by learning about the life of Henri Rousseau and his fantasy jungles. Students looked at his artwork and drew a fantasy jungle and colored it in with oil pastels. 

For our next project, we created a whale in a bottle. We followed a video teaching series by Anna Bartlett and through many different layers, created a whale in a bottle with acrylic paints.  

Grandma Moses was an artist who did not begin painting until she was close to 80. We looked at her life and some of her paintings. In one of her indoor paintings, we looked at a fireplace scene and created our own version. 

In our final project, we looked at a few artists in the Fauvism movement and pointed out the bright colors and abstract shapes. Students chose one or two paintings to get inspired and began drawing their own version. We began painting them with acrylic paint but unfortunately, the quarter ended before we were able to finish them. 

Now, we are onto quarter 3 where the 5th and 6th graders are practicing sketching farm animals and began creating a farm animal in a style all their own. They had the choice to create their animal 3-D (which many chose), draw and color with colored pencils, draw and paint with tempera or create a pop-up book page. 

The ceramics elective is beginning their quarter by creating pinch pots and coil pots! Our next art show will be at the end of the school year!