Winter Scenes

Well, I try to steer clear of cutesy projects, but we managed to get all kinds of vocabulary in with this mixed media snowman! The kids did a nice job and they look festive.

Magazine Ornaments / Op Art Sculptures

Well, I have to thank Ms.Copley for this lesson because she taught me how to make Magazine Bowls. This is a fun project for the upper-level students and makes a great gift!

This is a great process of transforming something that is 2-D into a 3-D object.

3rd Grade Magazine Sculpture

What is your "secret identity"?

My 2nd graders have been exploring their identity. First we created a self-portrait with a 'bad case of stripes' and now they have completed their secret identity masks. Anytime they need to transform into their amazing super hero self, they just put the mask on and save the world.

  <><>

<>

<><>

2nd Grade Paper Masks



Leaf Man!

I recently discovered the book "Leaf Man" by Lois Elhert and it was inspiring. I collected natural materials from my backyard and allowed the kids to compose their own leaf man using those materials. It was a 'cute' project.

Kindergarten Self-Portraits

My kindergarteners are really smart and did a fabulous job drawing their faces. They followed step-by-step directions and painted using watercolors.

Go Green to Keep Nashville Clean!

Once again, we are doing the Go Green to Keep Nashville Clean contest! We have two fabulous winners from Mt.View and I'm really happy with everyone's effort. The wall of posters looks great in our hallway and it's always encouraging to spread the word about Going Green to the future of America....:o)

4th Grade Winner

3rd Grade Winner

Wall of Go Green Posters!

2nd Grade "Bad Case of Stripes" Self Portrait!

Thanks Mrs.Jahnig! I completely stole this fabulous lesson from Crystal's blog and it a winner! We utilized the website: http://www.storylineonline.net/ which has famous people reading stories for FREE. It's so awesome, and now I use it all the time.

This lesson was derived from the story "A Bad Case of Stripes" and really jazzes up self-portraits for 2nd graders. Anyway, here's some of the finished products. This is a real crowd pleaser....



1st Grade Architects Create Houses for Insects!

I formulated this lesson after seeing Mrs. Sturgill teach something like it at the Frist one summer. We read the story "Roberto the Insect Architect" to inspire us to "Be Creative!"

The students created blueprints and designed a house or building for a bug! After they painted their drawings blue, they sculpted their 'bug' out of model magic. Once those dry, we'll add bright colors.

Here's that worksheet about Architectural Details...I found it in a green book called Art Starters? (I think.)

Art Teacher Workshop @ the Frist with Renowned Potter: Regis Brodie

I just love getting to attend beneficial workshops and this was one of them! We all got the chance to present our own work! We learned all about Regis Brodie, his influences and his body of work. It was a great experience and towards the end of the workshop we made a Japanese tea bowl for a traditional Japanese tea ceremony. My favorite piece of information from learning about Japanese tea ceremonies was that no one speaks before, during or after the ceremony and once you leave the ceremony you are leaving with the understanding that could be the last time you ever see each other again. That seemed really beautiful to me.
Anyway, here are some photos I took while attending the workshop. Enjoy!

Below you'll see Regis Brodie and Mr.E being silly with some samples of our tea bowls.

Chihuly Tower Installation

We went outside today to spray our elongated armatures with clear gloss to add that extra 'glassy' look. Below are some photos of our outdoor adventure. I let some of my responsible students take turns being the "photographer". I think they did a nice job.

Lucky Find!

I bought one of my favorite books, "Roberto the Insect Architect", for $1.00 on half.com and you'll never guess what was on the inside!

Check it out...

It's signed by the author! And, best of all, she drew Roberto!

Chihuly Unit Continued....

My 1st and 2nd graders are exploring color through Chihuly as well. We too have learned about warm and cool color families. They are discovering how colors can work harmoniously together with this Chihuly-inspired project.

We looked at several images of Dale Chihuly's glass sculptures and especially at the Macchia series! They are enjoying learning lots of new vocabulary words too!

The first step in our Macchia sculpture project is creating an organic shape using a coffee filter.We are creating designs using warm and cool colors. . One coffee filter will show warm colors and the second will show cool colors.

After we have filled the coffee filter with designs, we wrap them around balls of aluminum foil secured with a rubber band. Each student then sprays their macchia forms with starch. We are getting ready to unwrap our sculptures, once they have dried, and we will be playing with composition to create a "Macchia Forest" with our forms. 

Okay, here's some of our "Macchia Forests"!

                                                (Macchia Forest and Drawing Wall)

Chihuly Unit!

We are diving into Dale Chihuly's artwork with our extraordinary unit written by fellow Metro art teachers! My 3rd and 4th graders have been creating "Chihuly Drawings". We started by reviewing two very important color families: warm and cool.  We looked at Dale Chihuly's drawings and made some sketches of our own. The students created their backgrounds using either cool colors or warm colors. We then drew our Chihuly-inspired organic forms on our dried backgrounds with oil pastels. We also used paint right out of the bottle to splatter lines and designs over our drawings to give them that extra "Chihuly touch"! . 

Once we finished our spontaneous splattering we signed our drawings with our "artist signature."

Our next endeavor will be a collaboration sculpture project. Each student will create a Chihuly organic sculptural form and we will attach them to a post being built by my wonderful fiance, Daniel. This will be an installation piece located somewhere in the school. We will research and decide on the installation location, inside or outside, and then we will document our installation process and product. 





Here's our beginning phases of the Chihuly Towers!

We are still working on these, but it's a great start!