5th Grade went outside in Jabo's Garden, chose a plant to draw, and are now adding watercolor techniques to their plant drawings. It was great to get outside to work in nature!
4th Grade Artists are busy creating relief Pop Art prints of cupcakes, based on Wayne Thiebaud's art style.
Third Grade artists are weaving. We are learning four different weaving techniques: tabby weave, Egyptian knot, tapestry shapes and tapestry slits. We will mount these on paper once we get them off of the cardboard looms!
Hydria Black-Figure Pot
Amphora Black-Figure Pot
Second Grade artists are studying the paintings on Ancient Greek pottery, and drawing Greek gods and goddesses as well as Greek patterns on either an amphora pot shape, a hydria pot, or a krater pot. We will be adding color with color pencils. Students are either drawing Black-figure or Red-figure style.
Krater Red-Figure Pot
Hydria Red-Figure Pot
1st Grade Artists are studying Impressionist painter Vincent Van Gogh, and using his technique with oil pastels to each create a "Starry Night Over Austin."
Last but not least, Kinder artists are studying American pop artist Jasper Johns, and creating their own paintings about letters or numbers. Most of these projects will be up in our Artsonia Online Museum when they are completed, so check them out at the following link in a few weeks.
I cannot believe it is already near the end of the 2015-2016 school year. Thanks so much for your support of the Fine Arts at Zilker Elementary, and stay tuned for some new fun projects for the new school year, including a surprise outdoor art room!
5th Graders always do a Peer Evaluation at the end of the year. We go out into the hallway and look at all of the art in our school-wide art show. Students have to pick a different grade level to write and evaluate; they cannot pick their own fifth grade art. Students answer six questions about the artwork they chose.
One of the questions asks why they chose the artwork out of all the others on display, and another asks if they could change anything, what would they change in the artwork. This gets at higher level thinking skills and makes students look very carefully at other students' artworks. This is an excellent way to get students to look at the school-wide art show and also evaluate, write and use art vocabulary, all at once!
5th Grade artists are studying the art of the Totem Pole, which are created by Native American tribes who live in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States and Canada. Each student is creating a design that includes their name, the years 2015 - 2016, and an animal or human face that is in relief. Two students are sharing one cylinder piece, and the pieces will be assembled into class totem poles once they have been fired into ceramic form. My plan is to have the three different totem poles installed by the end of May, before our 5th graders graduate from Zilker. The totem poles will be in the fifth grade courtyard, and will be permanent art sculptures for future Zilker students to enjoy. For now, enjoy the process through these photos!
