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).