1st Grade Clay Dinosaur Sculptures

1st grade artists learned all about dinosaurs!   Each student chose a dinosaur to sculpt out of clay.  Here in these photos students are carefully adding texture and details to their dino sculptures.

We talked about how clay changes physically and chemically in the kiln.  When the dinosaurs came out of the kiln - they are no longer clay - they are ceramic, which is a chemical change.  Students added color with tempera paint and used their imaginations to create very colorful dinosaurs.

Last, we created a habitat for our dinosaurs.  We talked about all the basic things the dinosaurs needed to survive: air, water, food, shade, and warmth.  We drew all of those things onto our diorama, and added other non-essential details, like a volcano and some rocks.  Now the dinosaurs have a home!  This is one of my favorite art projects out of all of the things I create with all grade levels! It is also a favorite memory for many of my older students.  Enjoy!

5th Grade Faith Ringgold Story Quilts

Fifth Graders studied the African American artist Faith Ringgold and her story quilt "Tar Beach." We also read her book named "Tar Beach" and discussed the main idea: no matter what your circumstances in life, you are free to chose where to go in your imagination.  Students chose a place in the world that they wanted to visit if they had nothing holding them back from visiting. They wrote a short two sentence story about why they wanted to visit that particular place. They each brought in a photo of the place that included an important landmark or natural feature.  They then had to chose how they were getting to that place.  This is where they were able to use their imagination to think up fun ways to get there: jet pack, flying animals, or magical shoes were a few of the choices.

After drawing themselves flying to their place, students added watercolor to the sky.  They then used color pencils to add details to their drawings and portraits.

 After students finished the drawing in the center, they added the patterned paper and fabric for the quilt edge. Finally, they wrote their short story on two slips of paper, and glued those to their artwork.  Enjoy these beautiful fifth grade story quilts, and see all of them at our online museum on Artsonia at http://

www.artsonia.com/schools/school.asp?id=105385. 

Kinder Jasper Johns Paintings

Kinder Art students are learning about the Pop artist Jasper Johns.  We looked at several of his paintings and especially focused on his number and letter paintings.  After brain-storming about where we can find letter and numbers all around our world ( license plates, clocks, signs, watches, phones, computers, etc.), we practice drawing numbers or letters with crayons.  Then we drew our numbers or letters on the white paper with oil pastels.  Next, we added paint just like Jasper Johns: putting a small amount of each color inside each number or letter box.  Here are some photos of students adding one color at a time with paint.

Zilker's 2013 School-wide Student Art Show!

Zilker's annual School-wide Student Art Show is up - making our hallway at Zilker turn into an amazing museum!  It is so hard to photograph the ceiling to floor class banners with all of the art work, so this year I have zoomed in on a few artworks so that our internet viewers could see the beautiful details of a few artists in each class.  If you can, please come up and see the art in person - each student has a piece up, and each is unique and beautiful in its own way.  Great job Zilker artists!

 4th Grade Self Portrait Paintings, Ms. Irvine's Class

 5th Grade Mexican Bark Paintings, Mr. Woodage's Class

 Kinder Owl Paintings, Ms. Caroline's Class

 Kinder Piet Mondrian Animals, Mr. Garland's Class

 3rd Grade Keith Haring Collages, Ms. Rakusin's Class

 4th Grade Self Portrait Paintings, Ms. Thompson's Class

 2nd Grade Henri Matisse Collages, Ms. Dailey's Class

 5th Grade Mexican Bark Paintings, Ms. Thompson's Class

 1st Grade Joan Miro Paintings, Ms. Avant's Class

 4th Grade Self Portrait Paintings, Ms. Brosko and Ms. Hardwick's classes

 3rd Grade Laurel Burch Cats & Dogs, Ms. Buono's Class

 2nd Grade Georgia O'Keeffe Flower Paintings, Ms. Side's Class

1st Grade Pop Art Cupcake Sculptures, Ms. McLendon's Class

 Ms. Russell's 5th Grade Mexican Bark Paintings

 1st Grade Joan Miro Paintings, Ms. Murphy's Class

 Kinder Owl Paintings, Ms. Wolden's Class

 3rd Grade Laurel Burch Cats & Dogs, Ms. Kent's Class

 3rd Grade Keith Haring Collages, Ms. Lugo's Class

Kinder Owl Paintings, Mr. Aziz's Class

2nd Grade Fish Sculptures, Ms. Wynn's Class

2nd Grade Georgia O'Keeffe Flower Paintings, Ms. Saucedo's Class

Kinder Owl Paintings, Ms. Caswell's Class

1st Grade Joan Miro Paintings, Ms. Shapiro's Class

3rd Grade Keith Haring Collages, Ms. Weaver's Class