Symmetrical Insects

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#symmetrical #bugs by @waitsfieldschool #gradesthreeandfour

A post shared by Nora (@artclass_allday) on Oct 18, 2019 at 7:33am PDT

Acceptance Affirmations

Each month Waitsfield School will focus on a different Social and Emotional Learning theme. This month's theme is ACCEPTANCE. After talking about what it means to accept yourself and accept others, students chose their own "Acceptance Affirmation" to write and paint on a puzzle piece.

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#gradesfiveandsix wrote their #acceptance #affirmations to share with the school for our monthly school-wide #socialemotionallearning theme #weallfittogether @waitsfieldschool

A post shared by Nora (@artclass_allday) on Oct 8, 2019 at 11:02am PDT

Beautiful Hands

Kindergarten artists read "Beautiful hands by Kathryn Otoshi and Bret Baumgarten.  They traced their hands and colored them with construction paper crayons, then painted with liquid watercolors in warm or cool colors.  They observed the watercolor resist technique.

Ancient Greek Vases

#greekvases by #waitsfieldschool #gradesfiveandsix

A post shared by Nora (@artclass_allday) on Jun 11, 2018 at 5:10am PDT

BE SURE TO SCROLL THROUGH ALL IMAGES!

What Lifts You? Collaborative Zentangle Feather Wings Inspired by Kelsey Montague

Street artist Kelsey Montague creates large interactive murals of wings for people to stand in front of and ponder the question "What lifts you?"
Montague writes,
As many of you know I started the What Lifts You campaign last year to provide people with the opportunity to share more about what inspires them in their life… I never expected the response I would receive. After just a week in NYC my first set of What Lifts You wings had a line down the street of people wanting to take a picture with the piece and post about what inspires them in their life. I realized that people love the opportunity to become a ‘living work of art’ by stepping into the wings and they love getting the chance to talk about what inspires them in their lives!

Click here to see more of Montague's work 

We created Zentangle Feathers to piece together to create a collaborative wing mural inspired by Montague's work.

#waitsfieldschool #gradesthreeandfour were inspired by #streetartist #kelseymontagueart to create #zentangle #feathers for our #whatliftsyou #wings

A post shared by Nora (@artclass_allday) on Nov 7, 2017 at 7:16am PST

Here's a short video of Kelsey Montague creating her street art wings:

Flowers!

Watercolor Weavings

Color Mixing with Kindergarteners

Kindergarten Artists explored the wonderful world of Color Mixing today in Art Class! We examined the Color Wheel and discussed how we can mix the three PRIMARY COLORS to form all of the other colors on the Color Wheel. 

We mixed colors using eye droppers and colored water. Then Kindergarteners gave their new color creations creative names, like "turquoise blurquoise."

After observing the color mixing process with the colored water, we painted squares using Red, Yellow and Blue liquid watercolors. Once again, Kindergarten artists observed the Primary colors mixing to form new colors.

Painted Trees inspired by "Where's the Elephant?"

 

Elephant, snake and bird live in a beautiful jungle. Then someone starts cutting down trees and soon their home is destroyed. This book uses colorful, whimsical illustrations to make kids think about the effects of deforestation.

Artists in grades K-4 read "Where is the Elephant," by Barroux and discussed the author's message.  Then we used Sharpie markers and liquid watercolor paint to create many different types of trees inspired by the illustrations in the book. To inspire our tree paintings we went outdoors to observe our surroundings and used the inspiration guide below.  This reminds us that there is no "right way" to draw a tree.  Our bulletin board also features a hiding elephant, snake and parrot, just like the book.

 

"Wind paintings" or painting with straws

Fist and second grade artists used their breath to move liquid watercolor paints across the paper using a straw. We started with the primary colors and observed color mixing when the paints crossed paths.  What do you see in the paintings? Sometimes they contain hidden pictures! 

Van Gogh Sunflowers / Third and Fourth Grade FUNflowers

 

Third and fourth grade artists looked at Vincent van Gogh's famous sunflower paintings.  Then we thought about how we could transform the flowers into FUNflowers.  We challenged ourselves to draw the craziest flowers we could think of and add lots of color and detail!  

Check out these fabulous FUNflowers!

Kindergarten Heart Watercolor Paintings

Kindergarten Kandinskys

KThis lesson has become a Kindergarten "rite of passage" in the art room.   I use it nearly every year, almost always with fantastic results.  I recently was pleased to discover that when a group of first and second graders saw the painting "Squares with Concentric Circles," they immediately recognized it and remembered this lesson.

Kindergarten artists created their own Kandinsky-inspired circle drawings using oil pastel and liquid watercolor.