Finding inspiration everywhere we go!

If you haven't yet taken the time to capture your latest adventures over the past week holiday, be sure to do so. You can draw at home, with any pencil and paper to capture your memories whether you were traveling, spending time with family, learning something new or just enjoying time off from school. Thomas saw some amazing tropical fish when he visited Thailand last week and use a page in his sketchbook today to record his memory of the fish. Way to think like an artist on holiday and draw the new things you saw! The drawing looks great too with such good detail. Grab a pencil and draw something you saw or did recently and put the artist in you to work!

Perspective Drawing in Grade 5

For the past five weeks grade five have been studying and looking into one and two-point perspective drawings with squares and rectangles. Perspective drawing looks easy and will be easy if you follow the correct steps. Here are the steps to make a successful one-point perspective drawing.

TOOLS YOU NEED: A ruler, a pencil, and an eraser...If you want to color it, crayons or color pencils.

1. Draw a horizon line somewhere on your page; A horizon line is where the ground and sky meet.
2. Add a vanishing point anywhere on the horizon line; A vanishing point is where everything disappears.
3. Draw a rectangle or square under or over the horizon line. It depends on what perspective you want it to look. 
4. Draw perspective lines by taking the vertices or edges and making a line toward the vanishing point but if the line would go through the shape, don't draw the line/s. 
5. Draw a parallel line from the side of the shape that has the perspective lines. Make sure the line goes touches only two of the lines; the ones that towards the side. Now on top of the shape, draw another parallel line on the part you haven't drawn lines.
6. Now, your drawing looks like a cube with extra lines. from the parts you drew the parallel lines erase the lines so that it looks like you are done. Now, if you want to make it a house or anything else, add a roof and background. Make sure the sky is ABOVE the horizon line. 

BY TESS & KAAVYA FROM 5A

Storytelling in Grade 3

In grade 3 we have just finished our big unit on shape.  Check out the masterpieces on display on the third floor near the grade 3 cafe. The Picasso Self-Portraits explored the use of geometric shapes to create portraits inspired by the Cubism style with beautiful colored pencil shading. The second project exploring organic shapes started with a wet-on-wet painting technique that evolved into a story telling process. Each third grader wrote a story based on the images they found in their colorful "blob" paintings. Here are links to the class Voicethreads from 3A, 3B and 3C sharing their narrated artwork: 

(students may need to log in to share with parents or friends to protect the privacy of our accounts)

Time is ticking Away

The proud grade 1 artists have finished there clock collages this week inspired by Henri Matisse showing where they are in place and time. Look out for their work that will be displayed soon on their floor.

Look for an artist you know on display on a floor near you!

This year we've decided to display each project throughout the school once it is finished in the art room. With so much space at this new school, every masterpiece in each grade will be able to hang at the same time! 

Today the grade two healthy habit collages and grade four printmaking self-portrait posters were hung on second and fourth floors around the learning spaces. Artists: Find your piece and look for inspiration in others! Be sure to point out your art to family and friends.  

Grade 2: Splish Splash and Fun in the Sun!

We have just started a new unit of art exploration using natural forces on earth in our artwork.  Just as we are beginning to see and learn in our classroom, the earth is always changing due to natural forces such as erosion.  Well changes can also happen in the art room due to these forces! The past few classes we have observed how water can affect the appearance of certain materials, while others will remain the same.  We got to work with new materials: watercolor crayons and watercolor-colored-pencils! (say that 5 times fast :) ).  We used charts in our sketchbooks to make predictions, gather data, and learn about some of the materials we use often in the art room.

This week we got to have some fun in the sun!  Using special paper that is sensitive to sun we created solar prints by placing objects on the paper in the bright hot sunlight for about five minutes. The paper magically turned white and we dunked our pages in water to stop the sensitivity of the paper from fading our prints. (water at work again!) We watched as the paper slowly turned back to blue, leaving the shape of our objects as white prints on the paper. Too cool!

"I was surprised that the sun can make a art with a special paper" -JooHee 

Printmaking Unit: Grade 4

In 4th grade we learned how to print on a paper by using a styrofoam stamp.

These are the steps.    

1.  First, we drew a picture of our selfs.
2. Then, we traced our styrofoam in our sketch book, so we know what the size is.
3. In the rectangle we drew our self-portrait again (the right size)
4.  Labeled two pages of our sketchbook and wrote "practice print" and "placing print"
5. We printed in our sketchbooks: using ink, brayers, and the ink plates
6. Then we started on our final poster after our practice prints
7. Then we printed on our sketchbook covers
8. We printed our self portrait three times on our posters with three different colors (with choices of 5 colors: red, orange, yellow, green, and blue) 
9. We wore aprons and got our art brains to work
10. On the last day we had a free printing day 

Vinay: I think this project was fun because I like getting messy. I like how I got to put the picture of my self on the front cover of my sketchbook. 

Nina: I thought this project was exciting to learn how to print.  I thought at the end everything looked really pretty: our posters and our sketchbooks. 

Aarushi: It was a wonderful way to put our art brains to work!

Kennedy: It was so fun I'm speechless. 

Blog update brought to you by 4C

Zentangle Reflection

Fifth grade had just currently finished their unit of Zentangles. We learned that a Zentangle is a drawing style that has many shapes and designs in it that repeat, it is usually around a shape. We started our unit by drawing a Zentangle on our sketch book covers. We were divided into 4 groups and each group created a poster, in the middle there was a big peace sign. Around it was a Zentangle created by our group members! We all could not wait until we would start drawing on the mural. Before that our teacher painted each of our hands blue, so we could make handprints on the mural. After that we designed Zentangles around our own handprints and later we were allowed to design others.

Seoyeon:I felt really excited to do this fun project because drawing the Zentangle were awesome to draw many shapes with black and white. I really enjoyed this project!!

Enen: I thought that it was fun and challenging because we got to design our own creations! I really loved the mural!

Amelie: This unit was challenging for but also fun. I learned how to draw new designs and how it feels when some other people add and edit your work.

We really enjoyed this unit!

 By: Enen, Seoyeon and Amelie in 5C

A Week at a Glance

Now that our murals are (nearly) all complete, we're back in the art room conjuring up creative ideas for our first projects. Here are some photo highlights of the week from grades 2, 3, and 4!

Be sure to check the grade page tabs at the top of this blog for more detailed descriptions of the current projects while the blog posts will feature more day to day updates and memorable moments.

Printmaking + Self-Portraits

This morning 4A and 4C printed their self-portraits in and on their sketchbooks as well as the first corner of their self-portrait poster.  As we know, pop art is well known for its' repeated images and bright colors. Both classes did a fantastic job cleaning up the art room also- showing responsibility for their materials and respect for the classes coming to use the space after. Great teamwork in both classes!

3B got to explore the wet on wet watercolor painting technique this morning to create "crazy-fuzzy-porcupine-blob-shapes" I can't wait to hear the stories we'll be telling with these organic shapes next week! 

Blessings of a big basin

Those of you who have seen last years art room will recall that we had a tiny inadequate basin in the corner of our room with two taps for supply and student clean up. Often the nearest bathrooms recieved a colorful splash on messy days in the art room with clean up overflow. This year we are blessed to have a long trough sink with not 2, but 10 sink taps! It's taking a break today with conferences but know our artists have already been testing it out with paint filled brushes, sticky fingers, and ink covered printmaking supplies. We are so happy to have our new sink! (it's the little things in life... Really)

Where we are in place and time.........

This week our grade 1 artists learned drawing their self portraits using mirrors. They learned the proportion of the face and positioning of their eyes, ears, nose and lips. After having practiced in their sketch books they began working on their master pieces with crayons and water wash.

The artwork they are working on is inspired from the french artist, Henri Matisse, and during the week they were introduced to his life and works. The final art pieces will be collages and the students are excitedly progressing towards completing their works.

Healthy Habits with Grade 2

Grade two has completed their analogous color background and are now working on the subject for their masterpiece.  We are using the theme of the current unit of inquiry: as inspiration.  Each artist brainstormed healthy habit images and symbols in their sketchbook, finalized their plan including color coding, and has begun drawing and cutting out their designs using construction paper in the opposite analogous colors.  (If the background was warm colors, the collage on top is cool colors)

We're having fun using art to create posters to show and remind our family and friends about habits they should follow to live a healthy life.  Some of us are drawing fruits and vegetables, some are drawing sports for exercise, some are drawing toothbrushes and paste.  I wonder what good habits we should develop in the art room?  We'll be finishing these projects in the next week and look forward to deciding on a display area for our art to make an impact on others!

Mural mania finished today!

This afternoon grade 5 finished their Zentangle mural on 5th floor, making all 6 murals at ASB complete. They spent several classes learning this new doodle drawing technique based on repetition and practicing creatively collaborating a piece of art inspired and influenced by designs drawn by other artists. Each artist will be leaving their signature on a banner to be hung above each masterpiece along with student artist statements as soon as they are printed but the artwork is completed and hung. Stop by each floor to admire the work our amazing artists have done this year to leave their mark at ASB if you haven't yet (Thursday while you're at school for conferences would be a great opportunity to see the pieces as a family) Way to go guys! So proud of the work you've done!

Art up on our walls

You'll notice that our student artists have been busy beautifying our school even after the impressive murals on each floor. Notice the grade four posters hanging in their cafe as well as the keep left signs hanging in our hallway that not only add color and life to the walls but also help remind us to pass through the school safely and responsibly.