Kindergarten:

Kindergarten artists are working on a Mondrian style painting.  They learned about the artist Piet Mondrian, who used primary colors, only squares and rectangles, and straight black lines.  They used tempera paint and construction paper to complete their own Mondrian inspired paintings. 

1st Grade:
First grade artists are just finishing up a painting/collage inspired by the story, Matthew’s Dream by Leo Leonni.   They used lines, shapes, and colors to create their own abstract painting.  This week and next, they will be working on a Native American style wall hanging compete with symbols and geometric patterns. 

2nd Grade:
Second grade artists just finished up festive fall harvest still lifes.  They studied the artist Paul Cezanne and they learned how to draw from observation, mix their own secondary colors and arrange a still life into an interesting composition…pictures coming soon! This week and next we will be working with clay and the second graders are so excited! We are creating pinch pots with patterns. 

3rd Grade:
Third grade artists just finished up exciting watercolor weavings using warm and cool colors.  The results were beautiful, pictures coming soon! They also completed a fancy tree drawing inspired by Gustav Klimt’s “tree of life”, they focused on swirly lines and repetition! Were are just beginning a new collage project.  We are studying the interesting paper cut-outs by Henri Matisse and the students will be creating their own personal collages using shapes, lines, colors to represent personal symbols. 

4th Grade:
Fourth Grade artists just completed a study of nature in art! They started by observing the lines, shapes, colors, and textures of leaves.  They completed a bold drawing and painting, the results were so realistic.  We then moved into a 3-demensional version of leaves, the students created a ceramic leaf bowl.  Look for both of these two to be coming home this week and next! We are currently working on a class quilt! Students are creating their own personal quilt patches after discussing the colonial American quilts.  They are using a variety of techniques and soon we will be putting it all together to form one class quilt.  

5th Grade: 
Fifth Grade artists have been busy working on plaster action figures.  We started off by completing a series of gesture drawing studies.  They focused on proportions and the lines of the human body in motion.  They had a blast drawing each other in different action poses.  The second part of this project was all about form… the students had to create an armature using foil and then wrap in plaster.  This project is just about complete and has really challenged the students to construct something 3-demensional.  They continue to find new ways to solve problems they encounter with this new medium.