Young at Art

Art Room Update

It's hard to believe we are already halfway through the first quarter! Where has the time gone?!
I am happy to report, however that there are some amazing things taking place in the art room!  I am always so impressed with the creativity and quality of work produced by our USM students.  While I can't share all their work on my blog, I do encourage you to visit our school gallery on Artsonia to periodically see our updated online exhibits.
Here's what's happing at each grade level:
Our fifth graders started the year with an outdoor painting project inspired by fauvist painter Henri Matisse. With giant clip boards, paper, bamboo brushes, and ink, we headed out into our front circle to capture the USM landscape with only about 30 minutes to actually paint!  Students are now adding wild and expressive watercolor to mimic the fauvist style.

The sixth graders are just finishing up their beautiful paper-cut molas inspired by the Kuna Indian women of the San Blas Islands.  Each student created a stylized drawing of an animal/insect/creature of their choice.  Students then cut out the first(top) layer, glued it to a contrasting color, outlined it with a 1/4inch border, cut it again and then repeated all the steps a 2nd and 3rd time to achieve the 3 evenly cut and glued layers of paper.  Using the leftover paper scraps, students add edshapes onto their animal and to incorportate multiple repeated shapes  into the negative space.  Here are just a few of the amazing works of art from my students:

The seventh graders finished some spectacular monoprints focusing on the style of non-objective art.  Students created an inked plate during one 45 minute class period balancing color, space and texture without incorporating any recognizable objects.  I loved the range of values some students achieved, as well and the beautiful variety of color!  Aren't these fabulous?

And finally, my awesome 8th grade elective class, Art Explorations, completely impressed me with their skills in slab construction.  This is a new project, and essentially a new class for me as I only taught one quarter of it upon my return from maternity leave last fall.  Whenever you teach something new, there are always things you learn through the process and ways you can help your students improve.  While I did have a few moments like that, I am still super proud of how well my students did with their construction.  You'll have to check back once they are glazed, but here are a few pics of them as before firing.

Don't forget to check out our great student exhibits on Artsonia.  Here you can see more examples of student art!