Don't you just love clay? Me too! Second grade artists recently finished a unit learning about coil pottery. We used model magic clay and talked about the difference between air-dry and "real" clay. During the lesson students shared what they know about potters wheels, the purpose of pottery, and how to add color to clay. Pictured below are a couple of the coil pots next to 3rd grade found object sculptures and 1st grade pinch pots. (Most of the pots went home.)
Students also created collages inspired by African-American author/illustrator Faith Ringgold. Ms. Ringgold actually started out as an artist and wrote the amazing book Tar Beach. We learned about quilts and students created quilt square boarders around drawings of their favorite place. I don't know about you, but I'd love to be flying in a starry night, on a beach, riding a turtle car, or eating s'mores around a campfire!
Now our students are learning about glass artist Dale Chihuly! I can't wait to share with you the amazing glass-inspired artworks they create!
January 22, 2012
Second grade finished their wonderful winter sunset paintings just before break! Don't they look amazing?! (They are mixed in with the first grade winter collages.)
Currently our second graders are learning about weaving and next they will be creating Amate Bark Paintings inspired by folk art from Mexico!
December 3, 2011
Greetings! Second graders are in the midst of learning about sunsets, silhouettes, and resist! Why? Because science + art = awesome learning! Don't you sometimes wonder why the sky fills up with such wonderful colors during a sunset? It's all science, my dear Watson! The molecules in the air usually grab onto blue light, but as the sun sets it goes through layers of dust that grab onto orange, yellow, and reds, which are the longest rays of light.
This upcoming week we will be starting winter birch tree paintings using a resist technique. In order to prepare this past week we created sunset drawings. (The birch tree paintings will have sunsets in the background.)
Please stay turned for our birch tree paintings. I can't wait to see how they turn out!!
The weeks before we created awesome tribal mask collages, inspired by Native American and African tribes.
November 6, 2011
Second graders are just finishing up making paper plate macaras for the second grade music program! No pictures yet, but come see the finished works in person at the performance!
October 21, 2011
We are having fun in art in second grade! Students just finished up a printmaking unit and are now creating maracas for their second grade performance in music! (Pictures of maracas to come soon.)
To print we painted on plastic lids, printed or stamped them on to white paper, and cut the prints out and glued them onto decorated construction paper. We also viewed one of my favorite artworks, The Great Wave by the Japanese artist Hokusai.
September 24, 2011
Greetings Second Grade Artists!
We are just finishing up abstract portraits inspired by Picasso's Kitchen (see link below).
http://www.oilpaintingonline.com/htmllarge/large-8138.html
Students started the lesson by identifying kitchen-like objects in Picasso's work. Then our artists created their abstract kitchens by drawing dots, connecting them, adding kitchen objects, and lastly adding color! Check it out! (Click pictures to enlarge.)
Next our artists will be learning about Printmaking! Come back soon!
September 9, 2011
Our very talented second graders started out the year by reviewing the color wheel! We talked about primary and secondary colors by looking at famous artworks.
Second graders created color wheels by cutting out "funny shapes" of each color, arranging them carefully, and adding line designs with fancy silver markers. How cool!
Click on the picture to enlarge. (Hopefully next time I will take some less blurry pictures!)
