Fourth Graders finished their old House Sculptures, inspired by African American artist Beverly Buchanan! Check them out here:
4th Grade House Sculpture Gallery
Kinder students just finished studying artist Piet Mondrian, and his use of primary colors. They made a collage using primary colors, and stamp printed their black lines with cardboard and paint. Look at them here:
Kinder Mondrian Collage gallery
2nd Grade artists finished their Austin cityscapes, using imaginary colors. These are always one of my favorite projects: see them here: 2nd Grade Cityscape Gallery
Third Graders have been learning about Prehistoric Cave Art and created their own versions - check them out here! 3rd grade Prehistoric Cave Art
1st Graders have been learning about free form shapes, and created these amazing abstract drawings with glue and construction paper crayons. See them here: 1st Grade Free Form Shape Gallery
Fifth Graders finished their Mexican Bark Paintings of an animal - these deserve to be hung in a place of honor at their houses! See them here: 5th Grade Mexican Bark Paintings
We have been really busy this Fall in Zilker Art Class!! Hope you enjoy the beautiful art in our online museum!
Kinder artists are learning all about free form shapes and the season of Autumn. Students used texture plates with images of leaves and rubbed crayons to get an impression of each leaf's free form shape. They covered their papers with many leaves of different colors. The next art class we learned how to paint and use our brushes gently. We added different colors inside our leaf shapes. Look for these on our online museum, Artsonia, soon!
5th grade artists are learning all about Mexican Folk Art and have drawn an animal surrounded by rain forest with a pattern border. Right now students are adding vivid colors to their drawings. The paper is brown to mimic the bark paper that Mexican folk artists use in their own paintings.
First grade artists learned about artist Paul Klee and looked closely at his artworks where he used geometric shapes to create villages or cities. Students then used paper geometric shapes to create their own villages, and are adding details like textures, windows, doors, and other shapes to their collages with construction paper crayons.
Fourth grade artists are studying the artwork of Beverly Buchanan, and looking closely at her sculptures. Students are creating their own house sculptures out of cardboard. Texture and variety of shapes and details are part of the criteria for this project. This is a favorite project of many students, and my fourth graders are finally working on their own this year after seeing past students house sculptures!
Second grade artists are studying the shapes of their city: Austin. Students drew a downtown view of Austin with the State Capital building as the centerpiece, and are now adding imaginary bright colors to their cityscapes, just like the Fauvist artists of the early 20th century.
Third grade artists are studying the very beginning of human-created art....Prehistoric Cave art! We looked carefully at 20,000 year old images painted in the Lascaux Cave in France, and then practiced drawing some of the same animals: bison, ibex, jaguars, cows, horses and bears. Students will pick their best idea to use in their final art piece!
First and Second graders listened to the story of "The Dot" during their first day of art class. We learned the importance of trying, and never giving up, which is part of the wonderful message in the book by Peter Reynolds. Students then choose to make either a dot, or a "not dot." Here is all of their beautiful dots and "not dots" hanging in the hallway at Zilker just in time for INTERNATIONAL DOT DAY, which is "September 15ish." Here's to an amazing beginning of the 2016-2017 school year!
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!
