Fourth and Fifth grade architectural drawings are on display at Zilker! They are intricate and amazing to look at in person. Students worked so hard and created wonderful patterns, all with a sharpie pen. Thanks to the blog Deep Space Sparkle where I got the lesson idea!
Fifth Graders are working on one-point perspective drawings of art galleries. Students had to use six perspective techniques in their artwork: converging lines, size, overlapping, color, detail, and placement. Here students are using their creativity to design the artwork on the walls and sculptures on the floor. Students are also paying close attention to their color, and using atmospheric perception to try to make the artworks on the side walls appear closer than the artworks on the back wall.
Second graders are learning all about Georgia O'Keeffe. We read the book "My Name is Georgia" by Jeanette Winter, and students took notes about Georgia's life. We looked at several of her paintings, concentrating on her flower paintings.
Students then drew a technical drawing of a flower, labeling the separate parts. Students will be drawing expressive flowers in preparation for a flower painting. We will also be studying the intermediate colors and choosing one of them for the larger petals in the final flower painting.
Students created paintings using the cool colors: violet, green, and blue.
Students also created warm color paintings using red, orange, and yellow.
Kinder art students are working on a whole unit about their Five Senses: Hearing, Seeing, Touching, Smelling, and Tasting. Each art day we have an experience exploring each of the five senses. Students draw about their experiences, and after we have explored all of the senses we put the drawings together to make a book. In these photos students are touching objects that are hidden inside cups and socks. This way students have to rely only on their sense of touch to identify the hidden objects. They then try to draw the objects. 
Fourth graders are working hard on their house sculptures. First we brain-stormed adjectives that could describe older houses that had been neglected or abandoned. Some adjectives students thought of were: spooky, old, worn, tired, rickety, crooked, scary, sad, creaky, suspicious, dusty, rough, cold, forgotten, mysterious, and different. Then we started constructing the bottom walls of the house. Students learned that this project uses a lot of glue! Next we added a second level, roofs, and details like windows, boards, and shutters. Because the sculpture is three-dimensional, students are trying hard to make each side of the house interesting and varied. Check out some of their work in progress!
Third Graders are studying artist Laurel Burch. We concentrated on her beautiful paintings of cats and dogs. Each student practiced drawing different dogs or cats with imaginary patterns and human expressions. Students picked their best one to add oil pastel to. Before adding the color, students outlined their pencils lines with glue. Then students planned out their colors, making sure they had one pair of complementary colors. Complementary colors are colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel. Then students added oil pastels.
Shapes, lines, and imaginary colors...that's what second grade artists have been studying. Students drew part of Austin's downtown skyline, then choose the time of day and added a few details in the sky and on Ladybird Lake. Here you can see them adding imaginary color to their drawings with watercolors. LOVE the colors!!
It is officially Autumn, although it still feels like summer with our triple digit temperatures. Kinder students explored free form shapes in art class and created rubbings of leaves in honor of Autumn. The next day we painted our leaves with watercolors.
Students had to learn how to use their brushes gently - they all did a great job!
Color! Color! Color! Second graders' animals look wonderful with the addition of watercolors.
