AustinISD's Youth Art Month Display

 Last month Austin ISD held their annual district-wide Art Show.  Each art teacher in the entire district has a small space to display their top artists at the One Congress Plaza building.  It is always a difficult task picking only 10 to 15 artworks to represent Zilker Elementary.  These amazing artworks created by Zilker's fantastic artists represented Zilker Elementary this year!

 Congratulations to second graders Chris M. and Mathew A. whose great wild thing watercolors were displayed!

 Shout out to fifth grade artists Luka V. and Kensley M. for their well-executed Aboriginal dot paintings.

 First grade artists Dash S. and Micah M.  rocked it with their beautiful oil pastel interpretations of Van Gogh's Starry Night.

 Second Grade artists Reyna G. and Laurel J. created beautiful tropical bird collages inspired by artist Eric Carle.

 Fifth Grade artists Emma S. and Hailey L.  also made amazing Aboriginal Dot Paintings that represented Zilker at the district show.

Last but not least, second grade artists Genesis C. and Aislyn T. had their tropical birds chosen for the display.

A big congratulations to these artists who honored all Zilker Elementary artists by representing our school in the district show!

Kinder Fish Sculptures

Pattern, Pattern Pattern!!  We are all about pattern in Kindergarten art class, using the elements of line, shape and color to create the principle of design: pattern.  Students started with a 12 x 18 piece of paper and folded it so that there were eight sections, and then added bright patterns with crayons.  Next, we painted watercolor on top of the patterns to create a crayon resist painting.

After the paintings dried, we cut and glued and transformed them into fish sculptures!   We added more line patterns to the fins, and stuffed the fish with paper so that they were three dimensional and not flat.  We also talked about how the patterns on the fish's bodies were a symbol for the actual scales on real fish.  Our next project concerns symbols, so this was a perfect introduction to our next big idea: Symbolism in Art!

3rd Grade Weavings

Third grade art students are learning about fiber art and creating weavings on a loom. Students learned the tabby weave, the Egyptian knot, and added a shape as well as tapestry slits beside the shape.

Students also created a beautiful frame for their weavings, decorating it with patterns and neutral colors.  Check these out at the 2014 School-wide Art Show.

4th Grade Clay Cupcake Sculptures

Fourth Grade students have been studying the American Pop artist Wayne Thiebaud.  We created relief prints of desserts in his style, and then moved on to a three dimensional clay project, concentrating on his cupcakes.   We used clay methods of slipping and scoring to attach separate clay pieces, and created a cupcake sculpture that is also a container. A quick shout-out to the great site The Art of Ed for providing a free lesson plan that inspired me to try this with my students!

With the amazing low fire glazes, these cupcakes look real enough to eat! Here is a sneak peek of the sculptures; all will be on display for Zilker's School-wide Art show opening on Friday, April 11th at 6pm!

2nd Grade Flower Sculptures

After my second graders had studied American artist Georgia O'Keeffe and created their own enlarged flower paintings, we talked about the difference between form and shape. We had our two-dimensional paintings, and we were going to now create a three-dimensional flower sculpture.  We used a plastic bowl as a mold to form our flowers into a bowl shape.  Students then used the slip and score method to add the stigma of their flower.  Finally, we glazed the bowls.  I used a low fire glaze, and did a combo bisque and glaze firing in one.  The colors came out bright and vivid!  Students are excited to bring these home soon!

Kinder Jasper Johns Paintings

Kinder students are studying the Pop artist Jasper Johns.  We looked at several of his paintings that included letters and numbers and talked about how you can find letters and numbers everywhere out in the world: signs, buildings, telephones, microwaves, etc.   Students then folded their papers to get a grid, and started drawing numbers or letters.

 Then the most fun part was painting!  Each student added four different colors to each letter or number, which made the works a little more abstract like Johns' style.  We talked about the science of how the water-based paint resists the oil pastel lines and sticks to the paper instead of the letters or numbers.  Check out all of the wonderful finished paintings here at Zilker's Online Museum:  http://www.artsonia.com/museum/gallery.asp?exhibit=766073

Writing in Art Class

Writing...in Art Class?  Yes, we do it.  Not as often as I want, because I only see my students every three days for one 45 minute class, and most students are eager and excited to be painting, cutting, drawing, and otherwise engaging in the making of art - especially my students who struggle in academic classes.  When I tell them we are writing, they get much less excited, but I feel it is an extremely important part of learning about art.
As you can see from the Bloom's Taxonomy chart above, when students are creating their artworks, they are working at the highest level of thinking.  Right below "Create" is "Evaluate." Evaluating their finished pieces of art is essential so they can reflect back on the concepts we learned during the project, as well as articulate through words how they feel about their finished works.

Here are some actual student exit tickets from different grade levels.  I really enjoy reading what their favorite part of their artwork is, and seeing how they feel about their finished works.

These are also a great summary of what they learned, so when students bring home their artwork, and their exit ticket is attached to the back, parents or other family members can see some of the concept or big ideas we were learning about in class as well as enjoy the finished art work.  Look for exit tickets coming home with some of your child's artwork!