Lunch with Ms. Kelly

Ana (4th grade) has placed the highest bid for the "Lunch with Ms. Kelly" prize at our school's WinterFest fundraiser. In fact, she placed the only bid. How is this possible?!! 

Last year, Ana won, as well, and she chose Maven to join us for lunch at Bene's Pizza (with chocolate for dessert, yum!).  There was an excellent hail storm that pummeled us on the walk back to school and made us laugh out loud. I wonder who Ana has chosen to bring along this year?

Fifth Grade Printmaking

Fifth Grade Printmaking

We have finished our "Animal and Environments" printmaking unit.  Here are some student comments about their experience:

"It was challenging to transfer the mouth of my polar bear drawing to my foam plate but I got it."  -Jonathan

"I liked the clicking noise of the ink!"  -Ruby

"I liked how the green and white mixed for my background. To me, it describes nature, like the outside world, animals, life..."  -Joshua

"I thought it was challenging. I learned how to draw a detailed fish."  -Lucie

"I felt that the different colors we could print personalized the print. I learned how to make a perfectly consistent ink palette."  -Steven

" I learned how to draw a frog better."  -Gia

" I learned how to get the right consistency for the paint. I learned depth perception. Two thumbs up!"  -George

"Under the Sea" Collages, Kindergarten

We start this unit by reading one of my favorite books, Swimmy by Leo Lionni. The language is poetic, the story is tight and the illustrations are loose, watery and magical.

I read to the youngest children in the art studio regularly. I like to read for the beauty of the story. Often it relates to what we will be making, but sometimes it doesn't. After the excitement of walking to the studio, the listening to the story has a calming effect on the children before the materials exploration begins.

This collage is an "accordian book" unit that spans three weeks. The first week is a color mixing experience of cool colors, as children paint their water. The next two weeks is devoted to adding the collage sea creatures to their pages of blue, green and purple.
This project was inspired by artist, teacher and friend , Melissa Dold, now teaching in Seattle.

3rd Grade Portraits

The 3rd grade students have finished their oil pastel portraits, focusing on the proportions of the human face. Do the eyes really fall at the halfway mark of the oval of a face? It seemed an odd idea to many of the students. I asked them to give it a try. Put the eyes half way down. See what happens, even if it feels incorrect. Some did, some didn't.  The drawings had expressive impact whether the eyes were placed centrally or not. I felt like the guidelines made everyone slow down and think about their preconceptions.

We had mirrors but I didn't ask that they draw themselves. It simply had to be "humanoid".

Some of these are currently displayed in the halls and in the "Petit Gallery" in front of our school.

5th Grade

We have a fabulous 5th grade class this year!

I received a Donor's Choose materials grant for a fifth grade "Animals and Environments" printmaking unit. Ms. Sheehan's class was the first 5th grade to make practice prints, focusing on line texture. We looked at Albrecht Durer's print of a rhinoceros for inspiration. Students analyzed in a group discussion the many line patterns that Durer engraved to show texture on his rhinoceros. Using a variety of tools, 5th graders scratched line textures into small foam plates to experiment with the range of potential line possibilities for their final prints. Everyone printed once to review the technical process.  Drawing for final designs has begun and we should have brayers rolling and animal theme prints pulled in the next few weeks! Look for them drying in every available spot in the MMR.

Favorite 5th grade question- "Can we start?" 

More later...

Skirmish

You may ask yourself, who is the kneeling character in the last post? Why is he there? Well, he is a misplaced archer and should be here.

The Chinese warriors (246 B.C.) have returned to the 3rd grade this year. We are building Emperor Xian's army in miniature. We would need to use all of Prospect Park to build it to scale. Last year, I got a grant for the model magic to create this project and this year the generosity of our PTA has made the project possible.

Here are the basic facts:

Emperor Xian was the first emperor of China. He managed to unify China and begin work on the Great Wall but he was a generally nasty, violent and warring leader. When he began to think of his afterlife, he knew he would need protection, so he had artists recreate his army, in larger than life form, to be buried with him in his tomb. This huge army of several thousand soldiers remained buried and forgotten until 1974 when a few farmers were digging a well and struck something hard. They had found the most exciting archaeological dig site of the 20th century.

I want to give credit to Eva Lewandowski for doing this project first, a few years ago, with Mr. Greller's class. I loved it and, with her blessing, adapted it to the art studio.

There are always a few students that ask questions like " Can I have multiple arrows wounding my warrior in the worst, most violently possible, way?" I have already discussed the weapons of 246 BC with them so they know that guns were not invented. We have also talked about the fact that the weapons of Emperor Xian's army are mostly gone. Some weapons were taken in tomb looting thousands of years ago and some wooden handles have disintegrated over time, leaving only the bronze blades. So when they ask if they can show the effects of war, I tell them that we need to be historically accurate and that the emperor's army was poised for battle in case he needed protection in his next life. They have not engaged in battle yet.

I , usually can guess which students might ask this question because their drawings and paintings have already shown a leaning towards high action.

My favorite part of teaching art to children is the surprises that inevitably arise. This is also my favorite part of making art. One moves forward with intention and suddenly the unexpected moves in and the meaning of the endeavor receives a twist. Suddenly, the process is funnier or more dramatic or a meaning crops up that wasn't there in the beginning, deepening the experience.

So, my surprise this year happened in Ms. Goldberg's class on our 2nd day of painting the warriors. I had talked about glazing to the class to achieve depth and richness in the painted surface. I had talked about European painters building up their surfaces in layers. We were using acrylics and matte medium to add more color. This would be our last class producing the Chinese warriors before we held our "mini-museum".

At table 5, always a table of quiet self-sufficiency and concentration, I was unaware that Chinese warriors were engaged in a silent bloody battle. Anjali and Ana had decided to make ghastly crimson wounds in their warriors. The students in the class who had been eager from the get go to make sculptures from a violent war had listened to my argument that no war had taken place. These girls decided they didn't care about historic accuracy and went for it.

What do I think? Well, when someone does something out of character, I generally applaud it. I was pleased. I admired the students that held back when their impulses would have wanted bloody arrows covering every limb of their sculpture and I also admired the quiet decision these girls made to let the impulse flow. The crimson color was appealing, after all.

James, in Mr. Greller's class, told me that that "China's Terracotta Army" is coming to Washington. I looked it up and James is right. The show that was at the British Museum last year (they produced a really great teacher resource packet) will be in Washington in the fall. I'll be there. Thank you, James.

Blogio

I am hoping to get the art studio blog into action for the next school year. At this time look upon it as entirely experimental. I am learning and defining, for myself, what purposes and functions it can perform. I am expecting to have a bit of fun and, hopefully at the same time, commmunicate about goings-on in our wild and wooly art studio.
Best,
Ms. Kelly