The school year is flying by!!!

Sorry it's been so long since my last post. The art room has been busy lately!

The students have been working hard and have created some really amazing artwork. Check out the latest masterpieces on Artsonia. Remember that 15% of all sales from Artsonia comes back to Art at Irving.

Here’s a look at what we’ve been working on:

5TH GRADE

The 5th Graders looked at visual culture images of iPod advertisements as inspiration for their latest paintings. Using overhead projectors and cutouts from magazines, each student traced a silhouette of a person in motion. The students added lines around their person to emphasize the action.
In class we discussed complimentary colors, opposite colors on the color wheel. The students chose a pair of complimentary colors for their painting, one for the person and one for the background. We also talked about value and how to create lighter or darker values by adding white or black to a color. When a color is mixed with black, it becomes a shade. When a color is mixed with white, it becomes a tint. By mixing tints and shades of their background color, each student created 4 or more values in their silhouette paintings.

3RD GRADE

The 3rd graders looked at many examples of self portraits by famous artists such as Vincent van Gogh, Edvard Munch, Frida Kahlo, Andy Warhol, Chuck Close and Jean Michele Basquiat. We discussed the different styles the artists used and the basic proportions of the face. Then the students were ready to start their own self portraits! They drew themselves from memory, without looking in a mirror. Once the initial drawings were done, the students helped each other find colored pencils that matched their hair and skin color.

Everyone got a special treat before winter break when Robin, a local artist, came to talk to each of the classes. She showed the students some of her own portrait work and gave them tips for drawing people which they were able to use for their self portraits.

See if you can name the students from their portraits below:

If I could fly...

Faith Ringgold is a contemporary artist who combines quilting and painting to create her artwork. She is more well known among Irving students as the author and illustrator of the book "Tar Beach."

The first graders looked at images of Faith Ringgold's quilts and read "Tar Beach," a story about a girl who uses her imagination to pretend she can fly. Using Ringgold's artwork and story as inspiration, the students each created their own "quilts" that each tell a story.

The students used pieces of cut paper to make a patterned quilt boarder around the edge of their paper. In the center of the paper they drew a picture describing where they would fly to if they could go anywhere in the world.

Happy Halloween!

Ms. Zaragoza (Spanish), Ms. Linne (art), Mrs. Stachyra (library), Mrs. Hiolski (music), Mrs. Tarabus (music), and where is Mr. Hancock (P.E.)? He missed the picture.

It was a rainy day for Irving's Halloween celebration on Friday, but we still had fun parading around the school. The Specials Teachers were dressed in a costume that was a little tricky to figure out. Did you guess what we were?

Sound it out, we were "Spe-shells"!

Fall is here!

It is easy to see by the changing of the leaves that fall is here! During the past few weeks the second graders have been working on a fall tree collage. In class we discussed the techniques that artists use to make objects in an artwork appear closer or farther away. When objects in a painting or drawing are bigger and closer to the bottom of the paper, they appear closer. When objects are closer to the horizon line and smaller, they appear farther away. They learned that objects in a work of art that look close are a part of the foreground and the objects that look far away are a part of the background.The students drew a horizon line on blue paper then cut a tree out of brown paper and glued it onto the blue paper. The tree is a part of the foreground because the tree is big and close to the bottom of the paper. Each student then drew picture in the background making the objects smaller and closer to the horizon line so that they look farther away. The last step of the lesson was to cut leaves out of red, orange, and yellow paper and glue some on the branches of the tree and some on the ground as if they had fallen from the tree.

The finished drawings look great!

They can be viewed on Artsonia:

http://www.artsonia.com/museum/gallery.asp?exhibit=225390

5th Grade Pop Art Paintings!

Pop Art, short for popular art, was an art movement in the United States during the 1960s. It was called Pop Art because the artists used took popular images and objects and transformed them into works of art.

The 5^th grade students learned about three artists who lived and worked in New York City during the Pop Art movement. Andy Warhol was an artist famous for his silkscreen prints of 1960’s icons such as Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley as well as the Campbell’s soup can. Claes Oldenburg became known for turning everyday objects into large sculptures that can be found in cities around the world. Finally, Roy Lichtenstein is famous for his large paintings that resemble people and scenes you would find in comic books.

After learning about these artists and looking at their work, the students created their own Pop Art paintings. Each student chose an ordinary object to draw. Similar to Lichtenstein’s work, they outlined their drawings with black marker and painted using only primary colors.

The finished paintings can been seen hanging in the Irving hallways and on Artsonia (click the title of this post to view artwork).

4th Grade Op-Art

Op-Art is short for optical illusion artwork. After looking at and discussing some popular optical illusions in class, the 4th grade students created their own using complimentary color pairs. Check out the final drawings on display in the art hallway of school or on Artsonia.

See more optical illusions:

www.optical-illusion-pictures.com/art.html

Figures in Action!

During the past few weeks, the 3rd graders have been learning about the artist Keith Haring. They have seen pictures of his artwork and learned a little about his life. Haring is known for drawing and painting simple human figures that can be seen throughout his artwork in many different poses. The 3rd grade students practiced drawing figures in different action poses in the style of Keith Haring. They chose four figures from their practice drawings and created a final drawing adding color to the figures and line patterns to the background.

The finished drawings look amazing! They can be seen on display in the Irving hallways and will soon be published on Artsonia.

Want to learn more about Keith Haring? Check out www.haringkids.com/ for his bio along with fun coloring pages and other activities.