Painting, next session, and BAM

Dear Parents,
Today we painted our Mexican Suns with acrylic paint.  

We also finished adding dots to our Aboriginal art. 

Both projects are now complete and ready to go home next week.

Next week is our last class and we will be learning about and creating Polish paper cut designs.  I will not be there (I'll be at 5th grade outdoor education with my son), so Mrs. Fornia and Mrs. K will be the instructors.

All artwork will be going home with your child next week.

If you are interested in more after school art, we will have a drawing session after spring break.

"Back to the Drawing Board!”

In this session students will be challenged to build upon their drawing skills, whether they are a first-time art student or an advanced artist! We will begin with lines, basic shapes, shading, shadow, and spatial concepts. Then, we will challenge students with perspective, dimension, blending and texture. Whatever your skill set, this course is designed to challenge you!

We will explore drawing from observation and work with charcoal to render a still life piece. Working with soft chalk pastels, we will discover texture and spatial relationships in a cityscape. With watercolor pencils, we will create perspective in a landscape. We will culminate this session with an acrylic canvas painting that introduces value in color! Join us on this drawing adventure which will explore many mediums and challenge the artist inside of you!

 Every first Friday is a special event at the Bellevue Art Museum.   Please click on this link to see information about April's art event.

 

 

 

Mexican Suns

Today we learned about Mexican Clay Suns

Mexico is known for its many clay pottery and art forms. Mexican artist Timoteo Gonzales is thought to be the first potter to make the unusual and delightful clay suns, so much a part of Mexico's tourist trade and folk art. These clay sculptures are called Metapec suns and are painted in bright, expressive designs featuring a variety of facial expressions.

Today, we used air dry clay to create our own suns.  We will paint them next week.

Aboriginal Art and First Fridays at BAM

Today we learned about Aboriginal Art from

Australia. This art is unique and exciting to
look at. It is comprised of a series of dots and
meant to be viewed from any direction.

We created our own unique aboriginal
paintings using cotton swabs. The swabs
allowed us to develop the repetition of shape
and capture the circular designs.

We also have more chances for art.  Mrs. Fornia will be a facilitator for the first Friday events at Bellevue Art Museum.  Bellevue Art Museum is a wonderful place to experience art.
Here are the details:

Mary Lee Hu: Knitted, Knotted, Twisted and Twined

Date:  Friday, March 2nd
Location:  Bellevue Arts Museum
Workshop Name:  March First Friday
Time:  5:30 - 7:30 p.m.
Age:  5 and up
Cost:  $30.00/$25.00 for siblings
Register:  www.smartwithart.net/workshops.php

Your kids can discover the world of fine arts and crafts at the Bellevue Arts Museum (BAM) this Friday evening.  The museum is open late the first Friday of every month and we offer, in partnership with Bellevue Arts Museum (BAM), a kid-friendly workshop!  Kids get to meet other young artists from around the area, take an age appropriate tour of the highlighted exhibit, eat a pizza dinner, and create a one-of-a-kind masterpiece inspired by the artist they toured in the exhibit!  All while parents get to have a nice dinner out or do some shopping at local Bellevue Square.

Student's will create "copper cascading creations" by using copper wire and glass beads to create jewelry and sculptures similar to Mary Lee Hu's original work.  They will learn the art of wire wrapping and ancient jewelry making without heat or soldering and they can choose to wear their beautiful work home!  Join in on this creative experience in museum setting conducive for elementary age children!

Use the link listed above to register your spot for this fantastic evening event.

Reserve your spot now before they fill up!

Also.... today we used acrylic paint.  This paint can be hard to clean.  I've found (from experience) that it will wash out of clothes if you do a pre-soak in hot water and Oxyclean.  I'm sure there are other great methods, but I thought I'd share this one with you as well.  As a reminder, art can be messy.  Please dress for mess or bring an extra shirt to wear for after school. art.

Thanks so much.   Mrs. Fornia and I are really enjoying this group of students.
 

Huitchol Yarn Art

Today we finished our yarn art projects.

These will be kept at Sandburg until our last class on the 19th.
There is no class next Monday, but Janna and I look forward to seeing everyone on the 27th.

Huichol Yarn Art

We had a wonderful first class today.

We learned about Mexican Yarn Art.

 Huitchol Indians in Mexico created beautiful yarn paintings.  They melted wax in the sun on wood boards and pressed the yarn into the soft wax.  This process takes patience!
The yarn paintings are created for two purposes:  for religious purposes and to sell.
The deer is an important symbol and frequently seen in yarn art.  Much of the subject matter for the yarn paintings is based on natural subjects.

We started our own yarn art projects and will finish them next week.
Everyone is doing a terrific job.  I will post pictures of our finished pieces next week.

 

Georgia O'Keeffe and Andrew Wyeth

We had our last class today and our K-2nd graders have been busy learning about several American artists.

Georgia O'Keeffe and her giant abstract flowers

Here are some pictures of their work.....

and Andrew Wyeth inspired perspective artwork

Thank you so much for taking our class this semester.  Linda and  I have thoroughly enjoyed your children.   We will be teaching more after school art starting in late Janurary.  Our next session will focus on world art.  I think your children would love it.

Have a wonderful holiday.

Robert Rauschenberg

 

 1925–2008. U.S. painter and sculptor Robert Rauschenberg is considered one of the major artists of the latter half of the 20th century. During his early career he devised new techniques of three-dimensional collage and assemblage. Within his artwork Rauschenberg used subject matter drawn from the popular culture, history, and mass media of the United States. 

His works are called COMBINES.

Today we used recycled items to make prints and took images from magazines and wrappers to create our own combines in the style of Rauschenberg.

Retroactive by Robert Rauschenberg

calder mobiles

Here are some pictures of our mobiles as we are getting ready to put them together.

Smart with Art, K-2 - Calder Mobiles

 On Monday, students learned about Alexander Calder and started creating their own mobiles using model magic.    Mobile pieces are drying and will be put together next Monday so you can see their floating creations.

Alexander Calder  (July 22, 1898 – November 11, 1976) was an American sculptor and artist most famous for inventing mobile sculptures. Because of Calder, babies all over the world are lulled to sleep by colorful dangling shapes!  In addition to moving and stable sculptures, he created paintings, toys, and household objects.  Calder also created an entire miniature circus which could be packed into briefcases and carried back and forth between America and Europe. He was certainly a unique artist.

Born in Pennsylvania in 1898, his parents were both artists. His father was a sculptor and his mother painted portraits. They knew it was difficult to earn money as an artist so, though they encouraged Calder to create art, they did not want him to choose to art as a job.

Alexander Calder’s talent could be seen even in his first sculpture, which he created when he was four years old. As he continued to sculpt, Calder became interested in sculpture that moved. He created a duck that rocked when tapped and a train that ran down a track.  He followed his parents’ advice and studied engineering in college. However, Calder wasn’t happy in any of the jobs he worked after college and decided to become an artist after all.  Many babies are very thankful he did!

k-2 Smart with Art

 

Quilts made in the style of Faith Ringold's Flag Story Quilt

Today we learned about Faith Ringgold. Faith is an African American Artist.   She is most recognized for her painted story quilts. 

Many of her quilts depict realistic scenes.

Her story quilts were more that works of art, they tell a story.

One of her famous quilts is also now a book, called Tar Beach.

We looked at her quilt of the American Flag and created our own collage based on Ringgold’s collage style.

Smart with Art- K-2

Take a look at our finished K-3 Romare Bearden Inspired Collages!

Smart with Art Classes - K-6

Dear Parents,

Mrs. K and I have decided to team teach our Monday classes since we have 20 artists.   Your child will have both of us as teachers each and every Monday.  Class is from 3:40-4:40.   Mrs. K and I will also alternate teaching grades 3-6 on  Fridays.   Please scroll down to see the 3-6 grade amazing Warhol cats.

Today we studied about, African-American Artist, Romare Bearden.  Many art historians consider Bearden to be one of America’s most important and inventive artists of the 20^th Century . Bearden loved collage, combining painting, magazine clippings, old paper and fabric together like a jigsaw puzzle.   Bearden was inspired by music, he loved Jazz.

Students  created their own Bearden-esque collages.    We will have a chance to continue to work on these Friday (for the 3-6 grades) and next Monday (for the K-2 grades).   We will also be beginning a new art lesson.

Here are some of our finished  (K-2) pieces and some of our works in progress.  More pictures to come!

Warhol Cats by 3-6 Graders

Smart With Art K-2

These Kindergarteners - 2nd Graders did an amazing job learning about Andy Warhol and painting these adorable cats in the style of Andy Warhol's Red Sam

Smart with Art students will have their artwork displayed in the hallway.  All artwork will go home with students on the last day of class.

Andy Warhol  (August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American artist who was a big influence in the 'Pop Art' movement.  He began as an illustrator for advertisement companies, which greatly influenced his style as he crossed over to doing fine art.  He is probably most widely known for his Campbell Soup silk screen rendering.  He can be credited for the term “15 minutes of fame” as he used this term in an interview and later a book he wrote.  He is a chart-topper in terms of value of his art; one of his paintings, “Eight Elvis’”, sold for over $100 million dollars.

Pop Art – an art movement of the late 1950s that challenged tradition by showing that common or commercial seen in popular culture can be translated into a “fine art” perspective, blurring the lines between the two.

Cats – early in his career, he created several whimsical drawings of cats and created a book titled, “25 cats named Sam”.  We used his love of cats and his drawings as inspiration for creating a watercolor depiction using his love of color and whimsy to give it a setting and unusual hues.  Each artist used pencil to draw their cat, pick their colors, and provide a background – creating their very own one-of-a-kind masterpiece!