<p> Art Room News November </p><p>Kindergarten: The Kindergarten classes have been busy in art class. We have made clay leaves- we chose a leaf, rolled it into a slab of clay, used clay tools to cut extra clay off from around the leaf and set it to dry. After our leaves were completely dry they were fired in the kiln. We are now just beginning the glazing process to make them colorful and shiny! In between the steps for our clay leaves, we have completed our art portfolios. We stamped six colorful shapes across our large papers. The following week we stamped circle shapes with multi-cultural colors of paint on top of our shapes. Finally, we have been using crayons to make our shapes into people (our “friendshapes”). We used line patterns to decorate the clothes, added arms and legs, and added details to the circle heads. Some students still need to finish up their details. We have also read a book by Edouard Manceau called “Wind Blown”. After reading the story each child received the same shapes and was asked to create a new picture using the shapes. After the shapes were arranged and glued down to the paper, we used markers to add details to finish our ideas. Last week we read the book “Go Away Big Green Monster” by Ed Emberley. We began practicing our small motor skills by cutting out shapes and gluing them down to create our own “big green monsters”. We are still in the process of completing this project in between working on our clay leaves. </p><p>First Grade: The first grade artists have been working on completing their portfolio designs. We had read a book about LitterBugs and Neatos. They were asked to design their own litterbug or neato on the front of their folders. As the portfolio designs were completed, we began our fall tree project based on part of Gustav Klimt’s “Tree of Life”. We learned how to blend colored chalk to create our background sky color. Next we painted a tree with swirly branches filling our papers then painted the ground. After our trees were made, we added organic shapes with black and gold metallic paint on the ground, in the tree trunk and on some of the branches. When the paint was dry, we used oil pastels to add geometric and organic shapes as well as line details to our trees. This week, some of our friends were ready to move onto the next project, so we began to talk about implied and actual texture. Some of us have just begun to cut out paper shapes and glue them to cardboard as the first step in our texture project.</p><p>Second Grade: The Second grade classes have just finished up their portfolio designs inspired by reading the book “Fairy Houses” by Tracy Kane and watching a companion video called “Kristen’s Fairy House”. On the front of the portfolios the students were asked to draw a design of their own fairy house. As the fairy house pictures were completed, we started working on a new project, tracing leaf shapes all over a paper without having any touch or overlap. Then they outlined each shape with a Sharpie marker and color heavy in dark around the leaves with a black or a blue crayon. After the crayon is colored (heavy and dark) leaving no white paper, they painted the leaves with water color paint using only the “warm colors”. A few students have completed this task and were ready to move ahead, so they were asked to draw a close up (cropped) picture of a flower. Now they are drawing on top of the pencil lines with liquid glue- this is hard work! After the glue dries the next step will be learning how to blend chalk to add color.</p><p>Third Grade: The Third grade classes have been busy working on their portfolio designs. We took a break from our fall leaf positive and negative space project and will go back to that after our portfolio designs are completed. We are creating a name design that focuses on line patterns as well as positive and negative space. First we used a 4” wide ruler to draw a grid on our papers, then we traced out the letters of our names into the squares of the grid and outlined it all with a Sharpie. We are drawing line patterns to fill in the background space of each letter’s box. After all our patterns are drawn, we trace over the pencil lines with a Sharpie before adding color. We are only adding color to the line patterns leaving the letters white. </p><p>Fourth Grade: The Fourth grade classes have been working on finishing up their portfolios with a Surreal Picture. We looked at examples of the artist Rene Magritte. Next week they will be answering some evaluation and self-reflection questions. As our surreal pictures were finished we moved on to observational drawings of leaves. We outlined our drawings with a thin Sharpie and used a light table to transfer our small pictures onto a larger square forming a radial symmetry picture or a kaleidoscope design. Transferring our drawings takes a little bit of time since we are sharing just a few light tables. A few friends have moved onto coloring their leaves with oil pastels. </p><p>Things that are needed in the art room:</p><p> Tissues</p><p> Clorox Wipes</p><p> Styrofoam trays- not used for meat</p><p> “YoCrunch” small yogurt containers with covers</p><p> Parent volunteers are always welcome to help out in the art room</p><p>Thank you! </p><p>Jodi Stoddard </p>