Line is all around us

Kindergarten

Having recently completed their Line Variety Paintings, Kindergarteners were ready to move on to a literature-inspired line drawing activity, making Line Owls in either chalk or oil pastel!  Though a bit messy, students enjoyed experimenting with the unique medium in creating owls like Sarah, Percy and Bill from Owl Babies.

*Special thanks to our very first art room volunteer, Mrs. Bennett, for joining one of our kindergarten classes this Friday!*

Here is another look at some Line Variety Paintings!

First Grade

First grade put the finishing touches on their yarn line paintings this week!  See a selection from our display in the hallway below.  Great job, first grade!

Early finishers worked on an activity in which they drew lines and added color inside.  Students were encouraged to color in carefully moving back and forth with the markers rather than scribbling, and to cover all the white on the part they colored.  Results were lovely and quite Miro-esque!

Second Grade

Second grade completed their line cities or worked on the drawing lines and adding color activity.  Way to go, second grade!

Third Grade

Third graders who had been "light helpers" in the shadow drawing process last week took a turn at drawing this week!  Next week we will complete these unique projects.  Check back soon to see the results!

Fourth Grade

Fourth graders drew their backpacks in contour line this week, carefully putting into place what they have learned about drawing what you see.  Students did an excellent job using the large paper by drawing full scale backpacks.  Well done, 4th grade!  Next week we will begin the fun process of applying bleeding tissue paper to add vibrant color to these compositions.

Fifth Grade

Having completed their pencil contour line drawings, fifth grade was ready to move onto the next step of creating emphasis on certain parts of their drawings by varying their line thickness.  In other words, students used thick, dark lines in Sharpie to emphasize a focal point that appeared closer to the eye on their organic subject.  Lines that were farther away were drawn lightly to appear to recede backward.

Sixth Grade

Sixth grade completed the drawings of their still life fruit subjects, learning to layer colors over one another and to use varying pressure with their colored pencils to create depth.  Then, they set to the fun process of drawing spontaneous doodles in the background.  These contrasting doodles in black and white are known as "zentangles" and can be quite relaxing!  Students worked to soft instrumental music to enhance focus and relaxation.

Seventh Grade

Seventh grade is combining math knowledge with art in learning the principles of 1-point perspective!  Students were excited to learn that they can create dramatic bird's eye view drawings of a city simply with the knowledge that parallel lines going off into the distance appear to converge upon a vanishing point.  Students practiced using a guide before they create their own cities next week on drawing paper.

Eighth Grade

Eighth grade blind contour drawings were so fun and lively that we couldn't leave them alone just yet!  To add to the abstract quality (though they are attempts at representational art in an exercise to train the eye), we painted in a variety of styles and techniques.  Some students painted an array of colors as a background; others used a "splatter paint" technique.  Still others painted gently and carefully with purposeful use of negative space. Some let colors move about the water and bleed into one another.  It is so fun to see our images reflect our unique personalities!

Here's hoping you enjoy the beautiful weekend and the vivid colors of nature this time of year!

Learning All about Line

September's focus across grades is using one of the Elements of Art, line, in new and challenging ways.  Read on to see the variety of activities students tried.  We definitely left our comfort zone.  Fortunately for us, that's where the learning happens.

Kindergarten

Kindergarteners continued to explore line this week by finishing their Line Variety paintings!  It was a lot of fun to watch their lines drawn in white oil pastel pop out once we applied a coat of watercolor paint.  Students remembered terms such as "broken line" and "dotted line" in discussion.

First Grade

First grade also worked in watercolor, carefully applying paint around the yarn lines they glued last week in unique ways.  Students enjoyed working in mixed media for this project.

Second Grade

Second grade worked on completing their Line City drawings this week.  After cutting them out, students backed the buildings and their skyline on black paper.  Students used a wide variety of lines and techniques in crayon!

Third Grade

Third grade learned about contour lines before tracing the contours of an object's shadow!  This is much more challenging than drawing or tracing the object itself, and the resulting irregular lines are sometimes quite entertaining.  Students embraced the challenge, even as shadows cast by a partner moved a bit.  Students also practiced concepts of overlapping and constructing a composition, setting up shadows across the page.

Fourth Grade

Fourth grade learned about the concept of value, or how light or dark something is, and two new ways to show value: hatching and cross-hatching!  In this way, a student can show value even while still drawing entirely in line.  Students created traditional value scales in their sketchbooks before making "creative value scales," showing value through hatching using an object of their own choosing as their subject.

Fifth Grade

Fifth grade reviewed concepts of contour line drawing learned in 4th grade.  Then, we learned the difference between organic and geometric line.  Next, we reviewed our knowledge of scale drawing.  Finally, we put these many concepts together and began our large scale organic contour line drawing!  Students chose from leaves, feathers, sea shells and pine cones as subjects to draw using organic, or natural, lines.  Next week, we will learn to vary the thickness of our lines to add emphasis.


Sixth Grade

Sixth grade learned that a still life is a composition featuring inanimate objects such as fruit or flowers.  Then, we began the construction of our compositions, remembering to draw as we see, not as we think we see.   For example, if you are looking at a jar from above, the line of the bottom appears curved, not straight.  It is tempting to draw it as we know it looks from eye level, instead, with a straight line on the bottom.  We will continue to practice this skill, which can help us to challenge what we know and observe something as it truly is.

(Note the sixth grade friend below using a viewfinder AND closing one eye to flatten what he sees -- making it 2-D, like the paper!)

Seventh Grade

Seventh grade learned a very entertaining and challenging way of capturing movement with line in the creation of their gesture drawings!  Additionally, this lesson allows students to pose for a series of movements in a natural sequence.  Both students and models enjoyed this activity.  We learned to draw from our shoulders, not our wrists in this exercise, which should take roughly 30 seconds to complete.  Students used geometric shapes and overlapping.  Great work, 7th grade!

Eighth Grade

Eighth grade also did a challenging but entertaining exercise in line:  blind contour drawing.  The challenge in blind contour drawing is to follow the lines of a subject with your eye, while you coordinate your hand to draw -- but without ever looking at the paper.  In fact, your pencil never leaves the page.  This trains you truly to draw what you see.  The results brought about quite a bit of good-natured laughter in the 8th grade.  Thanks for having a good attitude and being willing to take on a challenge, 8th grade!

Ready for International Dot Day! (Reminder: Remember to bring your SMOCK to class!)

Students in grades K-8 finished up their International Dot Day activities this week, just in time for them to be on display for Sept. 15, 2014!  Take a look at more finished dots, including some that are 3-D:

Kindergarten

Having completed their "purple crayon dots," students in Kindergarten learned about different kinds of lines, including dotted lines, broken lines and even continuous lines, in addition to the more familiar wavy lines, straight lines and zig-zag lines.  Students identified these types of lines in a PowerPoint slideshow before sharing in a read aloud from This Is the Sun ... Or Is It?.  This story engaged students in using their imagination as well as pointing out the types of lines the author used to transform ordinary objects into something different.  We practiced drawing different types of lines on graphic organizers, and then we jumped right in to making our oil pastel lines!  Next week, when we paint over the oil pastel in watercolor, the pastel will resist the paint; and the lines will seemingly pop off the page!

First Grade

First grade is also starting the year with the study of line, the very first of our first elements of art to be examined.   Using yarn and glue, students created a variety of types of lines in different colors.  We will apply paint to these lovely compositions next week!

Second Grade

Second grade took a different perspective on line:  looking at the city skyline!  We saw that if you trace the skyline of a city photo, and then remove the photo, what is left is a line that takes a most unusual path!  We drew our own city skylines, and then we filled in the individual buildings making up our skyline with many varieties of lines using crayon.  Next week, we will cut out the buildings, which were drawn on white paper, and paste them to black construction paper.  This creates the effect of the buildings really seeming to emerge off the page, while the dark background appears to recede into the distance.  Great work, 2nd Grade!

Third Grade

Third grade had their very first class of the school year this Monday.  Students learned classroom procedures before studying line, like their other classmates at ICSJ.  We drew different lines on small paper plates in markers to express our individuality alongside the other colorful dots that now wind around the art room!  Next week, we begin some serious fun with shadow line contour drawing.

Fourth Grade

Fourth grade created three-dimensional dots by having table groups collaborate to make two large circles.  These large circles, which students decorated, were stapled almost entirely together.  Then, students stuffed them with crumpled newpaper pages until they made fluffy dots!  We completed the stapling and moved them around the room.

Fifth Grade

Fifth grade was very receptive to the concept that anyone can draw anything if only he or she looks carefully enough!  We learned tools at our disposal in this process, such as the viewfinder to set up/frame our compositions.  We even learned to close one eye as we look through the viewfinder, in order to flatten our subject like our paper plane.  Students practiced sketching in their new sketchbooks various organic objects, such as pine cones, leaves and seashells.  This activity will segue into next week's large-scale study of the organic contour lines of such objects.

Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Grades

Middle schoolers also practiced drawing what they see, though their end goals will be different.  Sixth grade will be drawing contour line still life compositions.  They will eventually "Zentangle" the backgrounds of these drawings and color their subjects bright colors to pop off the page.  Seventh grade will apply skills of drawing what they see to capture people in motion through the use of gesture drawing.  And eighth grade will take perhaps the biggest challenge of all: drawing what they see -- but not seeing the paper --  in a series of blind contour drawings next week!

Welcome back to school!

"Fall is here, hear the yell / back to school, ring the bell / brand new shoes, walking blues ... "

Well, it's back to school time, which means it's time for our ICSJ artists to brush off their smocks and dive into a new year of learning about the elements of art, principles of design, art appreciation and multicultural art!  All grades, after practicing art room procedures, began the year in preparation for International Dot Day.  This is a day to celebrate the lovely picture book by Peter H. Reynolds encouraging all students to "make their mark and see where it takes you."  In other words, this is a book about bravery and taking risks in art in order to accomplish new things!  It's also a book about taking pride in what you do.  Students at ICSJ embraced a variety of "Dot Day" activities.  See The Dot animated HERE, and read below to see our artists in action!

Kindergarten

Kindergarten students shared in a read aloud of Harold and the Purple Crayon.  After reading about Harold and all the adventures on which his imagination took him, students made dots in purple (and other colored) crayons.  We reviewed and demonstrated scissors safety before cutting these unique dots out.  They now adorn our art room!

First and Second Grades

First and second grades drew on coffee filters with vibrant colors in marker before spraying them carefully over the sink, one at a time.  We watched our colors bleed across the paper and mix in spots to make a beautiful mark!  Then, we dried them on paper towels, which sometimes added a new texture/design.  These marks are absolutely stunning!

Third and Fourth Grades

Third and fourth grades did not meet this week because of the Labor Day holiday.

Fifth Grade

Fifth grade drew upon their knowledge of famous artists from last year and made larger dots with tempera paint and oil pastels to hang around the 4th-8th grade art room.  A popular choice was to make a Kandinsky-inspired dot with concentric circles in bright colors.  Other students chose Paul Klee, Van Gogh and Rene Magritte (Magritte is currently on display at the Art Institute through Oct. 13).  See if you can pick out the Magritte-inspired painting below!

Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Grades

Middle schoolers created "trees of life" dots by making concentric circles that, like a tree's rings, tell their age.  For each ring, students wrote a memory or a special event.  (This will be particularly helpful for the sixth graders, who are beginning the prewriting stage of the writing process for their memoir!)  Students also added symbols and decorations before painting their rings carefully in watercolor.  These dots are going to wind around our art room to show our individuality and our spirit.  Great job, Middle School!