Check out what we're studying in ART!

Saturday, February 26, 2011

Wowing Wayne! (cool art game)

http://www.nga.gov/education/classroom/interactive/cake.htm

I just wanted to share this awesome, fun, Wayne Thiebaud 'Make a Cake' activity/game! So fun and educational. It's from the National Gallery of Art where I purchased a relatively inexpensive Wayne Thiebaud Cakes print that I laminated with love :-) I posted the link under my Art Games! on my blog. Basically you click on the different options and then on the "cake views" to decorate your cake. You can even print it out!

Friday, February 25, 2011

2nd grade finished their 3-D Op Art Self Portraits! Check these out!

 I just had to share how awesome some of these turned out!:-)















Arcimboldo Self Portraits


              


We looked at the very famous vegetable and fruit portraits of Renaissance artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo! We pointed out all different kinds of vegetables and fruits that we recognized and what part of the face they formed. We also looked at all of the vegetables and fruits we would be coloring in and what kind of facial feature or part of our face they could possibly be used for. Also, we discovered different foods could be used for more than one type of facial feature and explored possibilities. The class also helped brainstorm some ideas for what you could make for the head, such as a whole watermelon and what would that look like, a tomatoe? A giant lemon, or lime?! Pear? Maybe an orange? Cherry?Chocolate chip cookie?! Pickle? Why not!?


We talked about coloring in and doing a quality job then using the other piece of drawing paper to choose what fruit or vegetable we wanted for our head and to make it GIANT stretching and making sure it fills up the whole page. Draw first, so you can erase, then color in nicely.





The next step is to cut out fruit and glue down. The foods that you don't use, you can choose to use those to fill in a face or overlap for hair or discard. Voila! Arcimboldo self portraits!

























Wednesday, February 23, 2011

SPRING Newsletter 2011

Here is my new SPRING Newsletter! Enjoy and spring into Spring!


grinnell SPRING Newsletter 2010

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

William Wegman Dog (& cat) Art! Doggone Awesome!



student work "Toy Story!"



Miss Oetken's "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies with Degas' 'Star' dancer"



William Wegman is famous for his almost humorous, playful photography, positioning his Weimaraners (the gray breed of dog) as the head and then having human bodies in playful poses. We decided to use this idea and create our own William Wegman dog art thanks to old "Cat Fancy", "Dog Fancy", Dogs for kids magazines and  old cat/dog calendars  Take a look!







Egyptians taking a Pharoah mummy to the tomb



Knight in shining armor fighting off a dragon

Miss Oetken's Romeo and Juliet in her castle

 

Lord of the Rings!

Outterspace discoveries!

Add caption



Monday, February 21, 2011

Picasso's 3 Musicians...with our own twist!


Miss Oetken's own "3 Musicians": The Punk Rock "Picasso's". They're so emo.:)
I am a huge advocate of the arts and firmly believe that art, dance and music form a strong bond and work hand in hand. I for one was involved in everything music (vice president of music and band) and everything art in high school. Kandinsky proves this point, not only was a he a successful musician but his music inspired his art and vice versa. They're both cohesive in the fact that creativity, emotion, and personality mold the product. They also evoke emotion. There is an evident connection between these art forms. It's also something very relateable for young people.....and not to mention, FUN! We were already studying Picasso and cubism, so it brought me to his "3 Musicians".

 
Picasso's cubist "3 Musicians"

5th grade talked about 1st what they saw in the cubist compostion, 3 Musicians. I made them guess what the title was and we explained what we saw and why it looked the way it did. We looked for clues and then revealed the title! We then went into discussion about what are your favorite bands/ music groups? We talked about different genre's of music. What type of instruments are out there? What is a musician? Are singer's musicians? What can be a trio? What kind of look do certain genre's of bands create?




Students then began to design a stage with model magic and use markers to design lights and the 'vibe' they wanted to set for the type of genre of band. Then they stuck in their 3 popcicle sticks that represented the 3 musicians. They used google eyes and construction paper to create hair, costume, microphones and instruments for their band. Let the bands take center stage! Enjoy the wonderful student work!











On a roll with Kandinsky's Circles...get it?:)


student work

 We just finished up learning about the famous artist and composer, Wassily Kandinsky.
We focused on his famous "Colour study: Squares with Concentric Circles". Our take on it was to make measurements and divide our cardstock into 8 sections. Then do a crayon resist by drawing rings leaving spaces inbetween the rings of crayon. We learned about watercolor techniques and used this exercise to learn about color mixing, proper use of the brush and learning how it's all about the water and not the paint. I encouraged using lots of different colors within the rings and background square color.








After using the crayon/watercolor resist technique, I thought about just using watercolor, acrylic with pearl medium and adding a  3-D effect after the watercolor had dried by gluing on different color rings of yarn.







Finally it brought me to my last approach, glue drawing and chalk pastels. Draw with pencil, trace over with white glue, let dry, and color in with colorful chalk pastel!




Wowsah! Check out those colors!