PTA Meeting 10/1/13--Funding Art

The PTA will be discussing funding art education tomorrow (Tuesday) at 7 PM in the Andrus Library. We would love your input!

Foam plate printing

A visiting artist, Emily Fox King, taught our class how to do styrofoam prints.

Valentine Weavings

Students wove a variety of materials (string, yarn, ribbon, fabric strips, paper strips from magazines) across a homemade loom to create a multi-dimensional piece.

Sunprints!

This was an easy, fun art activity. We watched a slideshow I put together with various examples of sun prints, then talked about the process. There are a lot of neat examples to show the students. I bought my sunprint paper on Amazon.

Goldsworthy-inspired Nature Sculpture

One of the first art lessons we did in 3rd grade was in September, before winter set in. We watched a slideshow I put together about Andy Goldsworthy, the British nature artist, then talked about the challenges of impermanence. Photography is essential to the work.

2013 Spring Art Show

The kids did a great job with our Elevate the Arts Spring Art Show.

Idaho History Art Projects

This link takes you to a 17 page PDF document with multiple Idaho History Art Projects written by Maralee Turner.

Van Gogh Collaborative Project

One of my favorite projects we did was a collaborative mural based on one of Van Gogh's Sunflower paintings. I used this post and this post for inspiration. I ordered an 18x24" poster from allposters.com, cut it into pieces, cut black construction into same size pieces, and gave each student a piece of the poster and a piece of paper. I had the students replicate as closely as possible their piece of the mural using oil pastels on the construction paper. I numbered the back of the poster pieces so I could put the mural back together easier. I had the students write the number on the back of their construction paper, too. We talked about how artists are influenced by other artists and how most upper level art curriculums include the practice of copying famous works of art. After the students finished, we sprayed the pastel artwork, let them dry for a few minutes. I asked questions like, "What was it like to copy someone else's art?" "What challenges did you have?" "What do you notice about the way we each see the same color? Was it hard to replicate the colors you saw?" We hung the mural by the door so the students could see their handiwork all year long.