Going on a Hunt...An Architectural Elements Hunt!

Many artists, throughout the history of art, have painted, drawn and designed building, cities, maps, and even floor plans. Architecture is the profession of designing buildings, open areas, communities, and other constructions. This could include town planning and landscape architecture. Some of the elements you see on your architecture scavenger hunt today would be things planned and designed by an architect.

Frank Lloyd Wright is a famous architect and designed his buildings to fit with the environment and location such as Falling Water House. He designed everything from houses, schools, to museums and skyscrapers. He invented a cantilever to reach out over the falling water of the falls. If you wish to see an aerial video of Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water House, watch the video below.

If you wish to see more buildings designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and learn more about his life, watch the video below.

After your Architecture Scavenger Hunt, it's now your turn to be the architect. You have many options, you could ....

1. Sit outside your home and draw your house and all the trees and plants around it, using your skills in observation.
2. Design your dream house and include everything you wish you had during this quarantine.
3. Draw a floor plan for your current home, include the furniture and all rooms.
4. Draw a floor plan for your dream home.

To download a copy of the Architecture Scavenger Hunt, click here.

Up Close with Georgia O' Keeffe

Spring is my favorite time of year. I love to see buds on the trees, green shoots of grass reaching for the sun, and beautiful flowers such as tulips and day Lillies beginning to bloom. Today, we are going to look closely at the art of Georgia O'Keeffe. Born in 1887, Georgia O'Keeffe was an American artist who painted nature in a way that showed how it made her feel. She is best known for her paintings of flowers, skulls, and desert landscapes.

Although Georgia had a passion for art, it wasn't easy for a woman to become an artist in the early 1900s. She was often looked down upon and not taken seriously. This didn't stop Georgia, however. After high school, she attended the Art Institute of Chicago, and then, the Art Students League in New York.

She was the first female painter to gain respect in New York's art world in the 1920s. Her unique and new way of painting nature, simplifying its shapes and forms meant that she was called a pioneer of abstract art. Abstract art uses simple shapes, lines, and color. If you wish to learn more about Georgia O'Keeffe, watch the Brain Pop biography video below about her life.

If you wish to look closer into Georgia O' Keeffe's life, here is a read aloud book called "My Name is Georgia" by author Jeanette Winter.

When creating your own unique O' Keeffe inspired flower, use some of the same ideas that she followed;

1. Find a real flower, if you do not have a real one, use an artificial flower, or even a picture of a flower from the internet.
2. Look carefully at each of the flower's parts.
3. Make the flower bigger than real life, try to have the petals touch the edges of your paper.
4. Take your time to really look closely at the flower just like Georgia O' Keeffe.
5. If you don't want to draw a flower, find another object that you love, look at it carefully and closely, and draw it bigger than life.

Georgia O' Keeffe Quotes

I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say 

any other way – things I had no words for.

I’ve been absolutely terrified every moment of my life – 

and I’ve never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do.

Nobody sees a flower – really – it is so small it takes time – we haven’t time – 

and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.

Resources:

https://www.tate.org.uk/kids/explore/who-is/who-georgia-okeeffe

https://www.ducksters.com/biography/artists/georgiaokeeffe.php

https://jr.brainpop.com/socialstudies/biographies/georgiaokeeffe/

Here, Near, and Far. At Home Learning.

Artists are like magicians. They can create the illusion of depth and space in a painting or drawing by following a few tricks.

Trick #1. Artists create three areas of space; HERE, NEAR, and FAR. Objects that are HERE are found in the Foreground. Foreground is the area of space closest to you in a painting or drawing. FAR is considered the background. Objects are smaller in this area of space as this is the space farthest from you. As objects get further away, they appear to get smaller. 

Trick #2. Artists make objects in the foreground larger than objects in the middle ground or background. Notice the flowers in the picture below. They are larger in the foreground. As the flowers get further away, they become smaller and smaller.

Trick #3. As objects get further away, not only do they get smaller, but they get higher on the picture plane (paper). The largest flowers, found in the foreground, are at the bottom of the picture, while the flowers in the background, are closer to the top of the picture.

Trick #4. Artists overlap shapes to give the illusion that one shape is in front of another, which means that the object on top is closer. Notice the two flowers below. One flower is drawn on top of another flower to give the "illusion" that it is closer and in front.

Trick #5. Objects in the foreground have more details, than objects in the middle ground and backgrounds. 

If we look at the painting below by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, notice he used some of these same tricks to create the illusion of space.  The harvesters at the bottom of the picture are closest to us.  We can clearly see  their clothes, faces, and even the lunch they are eating. Their size is bigger than the harvesters in the middle ground and background of the painting.

The Harvesters is a Northern Renaissance oil painting created by Pieter Bruegel 

the Elder in 1565. It lives at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

As the people recede in space or get further away, their size gets smaller. We can't see as many details, and they get higher on the paper. Notice the women walking away on the path in the wheat field. They are much smaller than the people in the front of the picture in the foreground (at the bottom of the picture).

Orchard Bordered by Cypresses (1888) by Vincent Van Gogh. 

In Vincent Van Gogh's painting above, notice he also uses some of the same tricks as Pieter Bruegel the Elder.

Trick #1. He created three areas of space; Here (foreground), Near (middle ground), and Far (background). The grass and hut are in the foreground. The orchard is located in the middle ground and the Cypress trees are located in the background.

Trick #2. (Relative Size) Van Gogh painted the trees closest to us much larger than the trees further in the distance. The trees in the background are much smaller. As the path recedes in space or gets further away, it also gets smaller and smaller.

Trick #3. (Location on the paper) The cypress trees in the background are not only further away, but higher in the painting than the grass and path at the bottom of the picture found in the foreground.

Trick #4. (overlapping) Van Gogh overlapped the orchard trees to give the illusion that one tree, the largest tree, is in front and closest to us.

Trick #5. (details) We can see the leaves and branches more clearly on the trees closest to us than the trees further away. The farthest trees have the least amount of details.

The Gleaners by Jean-Francois Millet in 1857. It lives in the Musee d'Orsay in Paris.  

Close-up of the background from the Gleaners.

Try to use some of these same tricks in your own art making!

If you wish to learn more about Pieter Bruegel the Elder, watch the episode of Mati and Dada as they travel back in time and meet the artist in person.

Day Two at Home Learning

Hello my wonderful artists and welcome to the second official learn at home day! I have another video to share with you about today's activities.

Today's focus is drawing. According to the chart, you have three choices; 

Look closely at a family member and draw his or her portrait 

OR 

Look in a mirror and draw your self-portrait 

OR

Find three items around your house and arrange them together. Draw what you see.

Many jobs, including doctors, scientists, detectives, and artists, require us to look closely at objects or people. Today, as you are drawing, remember to use your detective eyes and look closely at the objects or people you are drawing. Take your time when you look and walk your eyes back and forth over the surface like you were a tiny ant so you see everything.

One of my favorite portrait artists is Vincent Van Gogh. He is most famous for his self-portraits. He used self-portraits as a way of practicing portraits without having to pay models to sit for him. If you wish to learn more about Vincent Van Gogh, watch the following videos below.

If you wish to practice your skills in observation, the Tate Kids website has an online quiz "Spot the Difference". This is a fun way to practice using your detective eyes by examining famous works of art and spotting the differences.

www.tate.org.uk/kids/games-quizzes/spot-difference

At the end of your art making, reflect and tell me if you had any problems today while drawing from observation. You can share your reflection in Artsonia when you type your artist statement within the app.

Have fun creating and using your skills in OBSERVATION!

Art Resources:

www.Artsonia.com

www.tate.org.uk/kids/make/paint-draw/create-art-van-gogh

www.tate.org.uk/kids/games-quizzes/spot-difference

Superhero Staff

Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird….it’s a plane….no – it’s West Central Hartford Elementary Staff!

First grade students have been working on a comic book character theme in art, drawing faces and body proportions. Each student was assigned a staff person from Hartford Elementary as well as transportation employees throughout the district. 
We talked about how the staff at West Central Hartford Elementary had superhero powers and how those superhero powers help students everyday at school. 

Students looked closely at the photo of their assigned staff person and drew comic book facial features. Students, then added a superhero body with cape and details to the background to give clues to the staff person's job. The comic superhero portraits will be shared with staff and hang on display in the lunch room.

Wassily Kandinsky

Wassily Kandinsky was born on December 4, 1866, in Moscow, Russia. The young Kandinsky drew, wrote poems, and played the piano and cello. After graduating from school, he became a law teacher. Kandinsky began painting at the age of 30. He felt that painting possessed the same power as music and that sign, line, and color ought to correspond to the vibrations of the human soul. Many art historians believe that Kandinsky had a form of synesthesia, where sounds were linked to colors. Essentially, he could hear color and see music. The kindergarten students listened to "The Noisy Paint Box" written by Barb Rosenstock and illustrated by Mary Grandpre'. In the book, the author tells the fascinating story of Kandinsky and how he experienced colors as sounds.

Wassily Kandinsky, Bright Picture, 1913

During art class, students pretended to by Kandinsky and listened to three composers introduced throughout the year during Mrs. Meirose's music class; Johann Sebastian Bach, Camille Saint-Saens, and John Philip Sousa. By listening to the sounds and rhythm of the music, each student determined how that sound should look in his/her drawing/painting as if they could also see the music and hear the colors like Kandinsky. For more information about Kandinsky and synesthesia, visit the following websites: www.Guggenheim.org, www.wassilykandinsky.net, and www.pbs.org.

“I saw all the colors in my mind; they stood before my eyes. Wild, almost crazy lines were sketched in front of me.” 

-Wassily Kandinsky  

Winter Projects

Winter projects bring lots of excitement, chaos, and mess to the art room, but students have so much fun creating with new materials. Kindergarteners created snowmen from circular sponge stamps and white tempera paint on 4"x4" blue paper. Then, they built houses for their snowmen to live from popsicle sticks, wood glue and a splash of color using tempera paint. 

We also experimented with mini winter landscapes by tearing small 5"x6" drawing paper into three strips to create our foreground, middle ground, and background. One edge of each torn strip was traced with blue or purple chalk pastels, and then, smeared to give it a hazy look. Students overlapped the torn strips to create the illusion of hills and glued the strips in place to blue construction paper.

Second and first graders learned special tricks used by artists to create the illusion of space in their own winter landscapes such as overlapping, changing the size of objects (smaller objects in background, larger objects in foreground) as well as the placement of objects on the paper (Lower objects in foreground, higher objects in background), and changing the value of objects so it appears lighter and hazier as it recedes into the background.

Second graders used double loaded and dry brush techniques to create their trees, while first graders cut their trees for their winter landscapes from green construction paper.

Recycled Snowmen are a tradition in second grade as a winter project. It gives second grade students the opportunity to use glue guns safely and choose materials that would be most appropriate to use with glue guns or craft glue such as buttons, pom pom, fleece, sequins, scrap paper, etc.

Baseline Portfolio Drawing, Rules and Procedures

The first two to three weeks of school for all grades allows for much practice of the art room rules and procedures. Each day students come to the art room, we quickly review the art room rules, procedures, and expectations, how to receive punches in individual Art "buck" punch cards and gain points for Rainbow Club as a class. A new activity I created to make the explanation of procedures and rules more exciting was an art room scavenger hunt. Second grade students, working with their table groups, were given a list of items to seek and find in the art room ranging from Art Jobs and Staplers to scrap paper drawers and sign language signs. First and kindergarten students were shown pictures from the art room in a keynote presentation and together as a class pointed to the found items in the room.

The first two weeks also allow me to gain valuable information about students' current skill levels in drawing and name writing. I call these drawings baseline portfolio drawings. Each year kindergarten through second grade, students will draw a self portrait and "My House" drawing without guidance on 9”x12” drawing paper and with a #2 pencil. These drawings usually take 2-3 days and students will add color with crayons (kindergarten) or colored pencils (first and second grades). For those students who finish early, we talk about adding "details" to give the viewer more information. For example, within the background of their self portraits, I tell them to draw items that tell me more about their hobbies and interests.

Second grade students this week will also list items to add to this year's Rainbow Club Chart and as a group VOTE FOR the ACTIVITIES they like best TO ADD to the RAINBOW CLUB chart.

Anchor Standard 1 (K-2): Generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work.
Anchor Standard 2 (K-2): Organize and develop artistic ideas and work.
Anchor Standard 10 (K-2): Synthesize and relate knowledge and personal experiences to create art.

Norman Rockwell: Artist of the Quarter

Norman Rockwell is an amazing illustrator, an artist who tells stories using images.  The artist was introduced to students through an examination of his "Triple Self Portrait" using VTS strategies.

"Triple Self Portrait" by Norman Rockwell

Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) allows each child to share what they see or find in a piece of art and connect their findings to visual evidence within the painting. Through VTS' rigorous group 'problem-solving' process, students cultivate a willingness and ability to present their own ideas, while respecting and learning from the perspectives of their peers.  Common questions asked during a VTS discussion include: 

What's going on in this picture?

What do you see that makes you say that?

What more can we find?

To learn more about Norman Rockwell and his life, Kindergarten and First Grade students listened to the story "Norman Rockwell" written and illustrated by Mike Venezia from the "Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists" Series.

A selection of books from our public library about Norman Rockwell.

After learning more about Norman Rockwell and his life, Kindergarten students worked as a class to develop a fictional story.  Students have already started illustrating their book pages. Each kindergarten class section has written a book and currently, each student is assigned a page from the book to illustrate. Today, students will be adding more details to their drawings with pencil and adding color with crayons. Students may need help reading the words on their assigned page as to remember what their assigned page says and illustrate accordingly. Students were also asked to help each other brainstorm ideas or details to add to their illustrations to make them better and to make sure the picture or illustration is “telling a story” like our artist Norman Rockwell.

First and Second grade students discovered an interesting comic on the front of the "Norman Rockwell" book written and illustrated by Mike Venezia.

"Hey Mr. Rockwell! Why don't you paint some cool modern stuff like us?"

I wanted to make sure students understood why this quote was so important, so we examined other art created around the same time of Norman Rockwell's illustrations and made notes using a Venn Diagram.  I think the category that was most difficult for students was finding words to describe what was similar between Norman Rockwell's illustrations and the modern abstract artwork that was created at the same time.

Working together in groups of 3-4, students compare art using a Venn Diagram.

First and Second grade students also designed a cover for "The Saturday Evening Post". This lesson puts the student in the role of illustrator with the assignment of designing a cover for “The Post”. Students were shown examples of Post covers by Norman Rockwell from the books in the above photo. Students were reminded that Norman Rockwell felt that the idea of a cover must be readily evident, the viewer should be able to understand the situation in about thirty seconds for the cover to have the desired impact. Grades K-3: Remember that the drawings may be only somewhat representational. Continue to be supportive of the efforts and open to spontaneous or unrealistic use of color. Next week, students will be creating Norman Rockwell inspired artwork of their own!

"The Saturday Evening Post" Cover Design

SD Visual Arts Standards

Anchor Standard 8: Interpret intent and meaning in artistic work.

K.VA.Re.8.1.a. Describe what an image represents.

1.VA.Re.8.1.a. Compare images that represent the same subject.

2.VA.Re.8.1.a. Categorize images based on expressive properties.

Drawing from Memory

Two simple drawings from memory I consistently assign after break include student's favorite Christmas gift and favorite Christmas break activity. These drawings give us an opportunity to practice grabbing art supplies using our Art Supply Inspectors, placing unfinished projects in our colored table drawers (Drawer Inspectors), putting supplies away at the end of class, quietly working without talking during "Quiet Working Time" and sharing our art during "Share Time" at the end of class.

Another key word/concept that is emphasized during the drawing activity is "details". Students are encouraged to use details to help develop the visual story of their Christmas memory. Examples of details are discussed at the start of class and brainstormed together as a whole group on a sample drawing on the marker board.

This assignment is completed by all grades K-2.

This activity usually takes two 30 minute art periods and finished drawings will be placed in our "End of Year" Portfolio. Even though we are drawing from memory now, by the end of the year we may forget what this drawing was all about, so, I use Avery Address Labels to stick to one corner of the paper describing the front and back drawings. This makes it easy to remember the drawing assignment and easy for students to describe it to parents at the end of the year. If the child has forgotten the drawing assignment, they need to only read the label in the corner. I also use this same address sticker to label our baseline portfolio drawings completed at the start of the year (same label size, different description).

Avery Address Label 5260

Students in 2nd grade are also choosing one of their drawings, either "My favorite gift" or "My favorite activity", to upload to Artsonia by using Artsonia's classroom mode and scanning a QR code with the iPads to access the "Drawing from Memory" exhibit online. Students were also required to give their art a title and type a brief artist statement describing his or her drawing using complete sentences, capital letters, and punctuation.

K.VA.Cn.10.1.a
Identify art that tells a story or expresses a mood about a life experience.

1.VA.Cr.2.1
Explore safe uses of materials, tools, and procedures to create works of art or design.

2.VA.Cn.10.1.a
Create art that tells a story or expresses a mood about events in home, school or community life.

First Grade Origami Neighborhoods

After working on their collaborative three dimensional neighborhoods made from milk cartons and scrap papers, first graders are now creating their own individual neighborhoods to take home using origami houses.

To make origami houses, fold an origami square paper in half to make a small card or book. Make sure to crease the fold really well using fingernails and applying pressure to the fold line.

Fold paper in half again to make a smaller card or book. Open fold to previous step. You will now have a rectangle with a vertical fold line in the middle.

Next, fold left and right ends of paper to middle fold line made in previous step. Make sure that the ends DO NOT overlap, but instead lay side by side in the middle.

Place index finger inside side flap to open flap.

Place pincher fingers inside the crease (at top of paper on left flap) and pull the corner down until flap opens and corner touches the middle line of flap on left side. Flatten to make the triangle shape for peak of roof.

Repeat with right side.

Add extras to the house both on the inside and outside, such as windows, doors, shingles, bricks, rocks, plants, etc. using pencil and colored pencils.

Students will glue their origami houses to a large 12 inch x 18 inch sheet of drawing paper and add additional details such as streets, sidewalks, mailboxes, etc.