Rizzi City for Meet the Teacher Night!

First artwork of the year is up! I wanted to have some work for the parents to see at meet the teacher night. Grades K-8 learned about NYC artist James Rizzi. Rizzi lived his community and you can see it,in his playful paintings. We focused on his buildings that seem to take in a personality of their own. Students were asked to think about their community and specifically our school community here at St. Leo's. After discussing the important, favorite and their own role in the community students were asked to create a building that commucates their role or something about their personality.  Put them all together and you get a Rizzi city of unique and wonderful artists!

Mask Making: Venetian Style

I adore Carnival in Venice, Italy.  I few years back, my grandparents gave me a beautiful Venetian mask from their travels there.   I knew that eventually I wanted to teach a lesson inspired by these gorgeous wearable works of art.  I started this lesson during Mardi Gras which is our equivalent to Carnival.  I  showed some videos from past years festivities and many of the gorgeous masks and costumes.  I had my 7th graders look for themes in the costumes and masks.  There were ones inspired by music and love and much more.  We then started with brainstorming some themes of our own.  Their mask had to represent a specific theme.  Many of them were very literal in their first sketches.  After sharing we discussed literal versus interpretive.  I wanted them to take bits and pieces from their inspiration. 
After sketches were locked in, we moved onto constructing our masks.  This masks were constructed by applying plaster strips directly onto the face, making each mask a custom fit to the wearer.  This is my second year teaching this lesson and boy, did it go differently.  Last years group at first giggled when applying the petroleum jelly and plaster strips to each others faces (they worked with a partner) but then there was complete silence in the art room.  I believe it was the quietest it had been the entire year.  This years group, however, has a few perfectionists and could not stand the thought of someone else applying the strips to their face, luckily I have plenty of mirrors.  And the complaining....these kids didn't want their hands dirty for more than a minute.  Regardless, I always get a hoot at how they react to this very messy art.

Can you guess what their themes are?  

St Leo's Auction 2012-2013

St. Leo's Auction was a success!  All of our group artwork found loving homes.  It's taken some time but I finally have photos of these wonderful works! Above is the Starry Night Chair inspired by Vincent Van Gogh.  This chair was hand-painted by my 7th graders.  I was very tempted to keep it!
5th grade learned about the work of Louise Nevelson She creates this amazing sculptures from found materials that have incredible depth and details. Each 5th grader received a puzzle piece and built it up with foam shapes and other found objects. Spray paint it a solid gold, and voila!
  4th grade made a reproduction of Vincent Van Gogh's Cafe Terrance at Night. Each student received a square of the painting to recreate with oil pastels. Precision was the key in order for lines and objects to match up and I think they did an excellent job! They were so proud of the work, once they saw it put together. 3rd grade did a super quick and easy work with Popsicle sticks. Each students had to create a pattern or design on these small canvases. I love the quilt effect that it created once all together. 2nd grade experimented with alcohol ink, special ink that stays on smooth surfaces like ceramics. These tiles were sitting around my artroom, begging to become coasters! We were able to auction off a three bundles of these beauties! 1nd grade learned about the hearts of Jim Dine just in time for Valentine's day! They created these lovable hearts with oil pastels.
  Kindergarten colored on sandpaper with crayons. These designs were ironed onto fabric and sew together to create this darling pillow! 8th grade did a screen-printing unit earlier this year. We used these screens to create a class quilt! It was backed with fleece to make this a super comfy blanket to snuggle with! Last but not least....This was a super quick project that K-8th all added too! Inspired by the movie Up, students colored their finger with washable marker and contributed their print to make balloons to hold up our school. Luckily our school principal got this one!
 

St. Leo's Auction Sneak Peek

Saturday the 16th is St. Leo's auction! They asked me to create some group work with my classes to auction off. Kindergarten thru 8th grade each made a different project, from quilts to framed art to pillows and more! Here's a sneak peek!

One Fish Two Fish

Kindergarten learned their primary colors by creating some adorable artwork inspired by Dr. Seuss, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish! They are so whimsical just like one of my favorite authors drawings. I certainly can use some more Dr. Seuss in my classroom.
 

1Point Perspective Dream Rooms

7th grade got a little HGTV in the artroom earlier this year. They designed and drew their dream rooms in 1 point perspective. It was not a easy task but I think they did a wonderful job! Though some obviously added more than others. Which room would you want to live in?

Haunted House Prints

These were made in October, but never got around to posting the pictures. But I absolutely adore these little house prints. 1st grade took a look at Victorian homes with their peaks, round windows and towers. They immediately thought they looked like haunted houses and lucky for them, the pictures progressed to some spooky looking ones.

Using chalk pastel, students created a colorful background of either warm or cool colors. I had them lighted spray them with water and blend with a tissue. We then added a bit more chalk onto our papers. While a clear coat of fixative dried, we moved onto our haunted houses. They were carved into foam, cut out and them printed. I love the detail they added, and even the little ghosts peaking out of windows on some of them.
 

Prehistoric Cave Discovered at St. Leo's

The Tuesday before Thanksgiving a cave was discovered in the art room!  It had ancient prehistoric cave paintings on the ceiling!  Kindergarten and Pre-K, toured the Lascaux caves in France. (take tour here)  We found lots of bulls and deer written on the cave walls in charcoal and red clay.  We then drew our own creatures on the artroom cave walls.  I'll be posting some of our cave art in the next week or two!  

Geometric vs. Organic

It's Geometric vs. Organic Shapes here in 1st grade! Well discovering these different categories of shapes we learned about two different artists. Piet Mondrian and Henri Matisse. We discovered that Mondrian loved using the Primary colors: Red, Blue and Yellow, while Matisse used both Primary and Secondary colors! Mondrian used geometric shapes while Matisse used organic! However, both loved listening to jazz music while creating their artwork. In fact, Mondrian named one of his paintings Broadway Boogie Woogie! So of course we had to listen to some boogie woogie and jazz while creating ours!