Fresh artworks up at the Dryden Community Center Cafe!

Third grade alter egos

Students whose artwork is on display will have a note delivered to them at school.

Artworks will be up until the end of November…Stop in and take a look!

Fourth Grade: Willow Pattern

Fourth graders are finishing up these beautiful Blue Willow pieces! I wasn’t sure what their reaction would be to a love story, but as I read this story to each class, you could hear a pin drop in the room.

Every artist picked a part of The Willow Pattern Story to illustrate…

And here are some of the finished products! I’m SO proud of their work!

“When Koong Shee and Chang are transformed into immortal doves”

“When Koong Shee and Chang are transformed into immortal doves”

“When birds deliver messages between Koong Shee and Chang”

“When Koong Shee and Chang escape in their vessel”

“Koong Shee and Chang live happily together as immortal doves”

Aren’t they beautiful?

Thank you to Anne of Use Your Colored Pencils for this lesson idea!

In the clouds…

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Second graders at Freeville have really taken to this first step in our landscape project. They’re just fascinated by clouds, and they have loved the problem-solving element that cloud identification requires!

We used this interactive website to look at clouds in art!

Also, thank you to New City Arts Blog for this lesson idea and cloud resources!

Third Grade: Alter-Ego Self-Portraits

This project just might be at the top of my favorites list…I know because the pieces shown above were completed at 3:08, and they were hanging up by 4:15 🙂

We looked at work by Pablo Picasso, taking note of the different angles represented in his Cubist work, which led us into a conversation about showing different sides of ourselves. Using complementary colors (colors opposite of each other on the color wheel) third graders began creating alter-egos.

Fast-forward a couple of lessons later, and Jack, my calm and collected artist was creating lightning-bolt hair

Matthew, one of the biggest sweethearts in the world had created this very mysterious and menacing character, complete with a very serious “mustachio”

Rebecca, one of my most confident and bubbly artists created this very frightened queen-from-another-world-like character 

Mason, who so incredibly respectful and has such impeccable manners, created this very goofy character who looks like he could stand to grab a tissue or two

Caleb, who barely makes a peep in art, created this screaming character with electric purple hair

Aren’t they just fantastic?! I’m so inspired to write about each of these characters, and I want to know more about each of them…

…but I think I’ll leave that up to them to share 🙂

First Grade: Channelling Georgia O’Keeffe

Second Grade: Value Studies

Second graders created these beautiful pumpkins as a foundational exercise for an upcoming lesson. In my teaching, I strongly believe that art projects should never be only technique-centered, but I have found that giving students an opportunity to practice a technique before we begin talking about concepts and ideas can be extremely beneficial! As an ELA tie-in, second grade artists will also be writing a piece of poetry to go with their pumpkins.

Fall is in the air…and in the art room 🙂

Coming Soon…Third Grade Alter Egos!

Picasso-Inspired Alter Ego

Third graders have begun working on one of my favorite projects! Come back soon to see the finished results and discover how we got there!