Last week, the kindergarteners learned some artist's tricks to help them create a feeling of real space (depth) in their artwork. I had two students in each class stand together and then had one student move to the back of the room. It was clear for them to see that the student farther away looked significantly smaller than the student up close. We applied this rule to our artwork and made very simple forests. The trees in the background were smallest, followed by medium sized trees in the middle ground and the biggest trees up front in the foreground.
Since they are currently reading fairy tales in class, I encouraged students to choose characters or elements of a fairytale to add to their forests. I saw some great examples of grandmom's house way in the background and a path leading up to little red riding hood. See if you can figure out the characters shown below!
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I am so proud at how patient the second graders were the last two weeks. The last group of artists finished up their prints last class while other students were allowed to "free create". I gave them access to free draw paper as well as construction paper and they came up with some wonderful seasonal crafts.
It's the season to talk about perspective! In order to introduce this topic, I talked to the kindergarteners about what it means to have a different point of view. I read them the poem "One Inch Tall" by Shel Silverstein and asked the students to imagine if they were that small! I then showed them my sample snowmen that is viewed from the ground up. They told me that this snowman is different than a straight on view and we practiced lifting our heads towards the sky to understand why the nose is pointed up and not sideways. I love this project and think they did a great job sketching, cutting, gluing and customizing their snowmen. Kudos, kindergarten!
During a shortened class on 12/4, I talked to the first graders about 3D shapes and the word "depth". I read them a short book about rectangular prisms with really great photo examples. Some students already knew how to draw a shape in 3D and I showed them a few tricks to make it easier. Using a ruler, pencils and markers, the first graders did an excellent job drawing rectangular prisms and turning them into a house or building. I was so impressed!
This past week we talked about depth again and how to create it in a flat or 2D picture. Two ways to do this is to make colors fade as they recede and to make objects diminish in size. To demonstrate these artists tricks, we created nighttime winter landscapes. Students used simple shapes to create their landscape and trees. They were introduced to the vocab foreground, middle ground and background and placed the biggest trees in the foreground, the medium sized trees in the middle ground and the smallest trees close together and way way in the background. A job well done! Sorry for the delay in posting! Parents, as you know we had half days during the first week of December. Thankfully we were still able to find time for art. I talked to the second graders about printmaking and how it's a great way to create texture, another one of our elements of art. The students were asked to choose two ideas that are related, either as in opposites or complimentary in theme. We had a great array of ideas ranging from a Lego Luke Skywalker and his light saber to night and day. I absolutely love these! This past week, they worked diligently to begin the printing process. We will continue this week. Can't wait til they take them home.
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