Gurest Blogger- Kevin

I like art. Clay is my favorite type of art because its more fun. My favorite project was my texture pot because it had nice texture. I don't think art would be as much fun with out Mrs. Davis. Art is my favorite subject in school and I look forward to it every otherday. I also like painting my clay sculptures.

Guest Blogger- Hayden

I like to make clay things and when I make clay things I usually like to make pots. I like to make pots that you can use at home, such as pots that you can put money or pencils or other things. My favorite pot that I used was when I made it last year. I took a giant brick of clay and then I hollowed it out, and made a lid that had a little hole in the top so that I could put money in it. Other things that I like to make are sculptures, but overall my favorite things to make would be anything that you can use.

Guest Blogger-- Sam

I have always loved art. The type of art I love the most is sculpting. Making shapes and seeing that I have created them gives me the best feeling. Some day I hope to build a life size model of an action hero and keep it forever.

Guest Blogger- Nick

I just finished making my "lazy" cow. He is an abstract work of art. I think he is abstract because to paint him, I used all different shades of blue.

Happy Holiday Break Everyone!

Finally able to post some pictures....8th grade art

There is more to making Art....

http://www.ahsd25.k12.il.us/~TriciaFuglestad/VisualArt/page14/page15/page26/page26.html

According to Tricia Fuglestad's art class....

There's more to making art than just pleasing your eyes

here is the place whre we learn skills for our lives

stratagise, compromise, plan and visualize

integrate, concentrate, learn to relate

exposed to cultures and eras in history

we're trained to be thinkers with visual literacy

we fine tune our motor skills while growing in self-esteme

we follow directions and understand sequencing

in ART.

New Art Materials? Cool, but now what?

For me, holidays meant new art materials. But sometimes I'd be so excited about using the materials, I couldn't think of what to draw. Here are some ideas for when you get stuck:

Worm's eye view: get down on the ground and draw things while looking up.

Design a new bedroom. If I had a million dollars, what would I do?

How about a mural? Would your parents let you paint one on your bedroom wall? What about on a huge piece of paper instead?

Try your hand at one point perspective. http://www.olejarz.com/arted/perspective/

Draw your hand. You can imagine it holding all sorts of shapes: a glass, a pen, an invisible dollar.... What do hands look like in American Sign Language shapes? Hands can keep you busy for days...

Texturize it. Look carefully at the textures of everything around you. How is the floor texturized? Does it have a rug on it? Is it shag or tightly woven? Is it embroidered? Is the floor wood? Is it Linoleum? Look at the couch. Is it cloth or leather? Tightly wrapped around the frame or stuffed? Fluffy or smooth? Look at the chairs, the tables, the bookstand. Everything has textures. How can you show those on paper?

Mirror, mirror: put things in front of a mirror and try drawing them and their reflection. Look at the reflections in things like a toaster, a frying pan, a pool of water...

Blow up an image. Make a giant drawing of a candy bar, or a piece of jewelry, or a toothbrush. How does it feel different when you look at it large? Blow it up another way. Imagine someone pumped up a toothbrush with air, or an apple or a notebook. What would an inflated leaf look like, or a fork or a computer?

On a Snowy Weekend....make ART!

Don't let a snowed in weekend get you down. Try some fun art activities.

Check out Portrait Detectives from East Liverpool Museums: http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/nof/portraits/

or

Make a sculpture and play games at Smithsonian for Kids:

http://www.si.edu/kids/

or

Make snowflakes by going to Snowflake Patterns for kids and fight back the weather with your own snowflakes:

http://www3.ns.sympatico.ca/dstredulinsky/kids_patterns.html

The Artful Teapot- Sculpture Class

Students are working on artful teapots. They will choose a form of clay manipulation (pinch, coil or slab) that works best with the design of their pots. They will be working with some new clay concepts: handles, spouts and lids; and will be designing a teapot that doesn't look like a traditional teapot. It may be different in shape (maybe it looks like a hershey's kiss or a kitten), in texture (it may look as if it is made of wood or leather), or in color (it may have a full portrait painting on the outside or an elaborate design painted in undercolors).

Each student will make a matching cup, and we will have a tea party with our pots and cups on the last day of class.

In past years we've had teapots shaped as presents, dragons, pigs, candy, money and houses. I look forward to seeing this year's selections.

Fun Stuff for free time.... Making interactive art

The ARTIST'S TOOLKIT:

lots of fast cool games based around art concepts, but done in fun ways such as a shooting arcade or videos of artists making their art. Worth checking out!

http://www.artsconnected.org/toolkit/

Inside Art- help! I got sucked into a painting....

I yawned and rubbed my eyes. I tried to focus on the wall of paintings in front of me. My feet were killing me. I'd rather be anywhere—outside, playing with my friends, even brushing my teeth—anywhere but this art museum. Then I heard a strange sound behind me...

http://www.eduweb.com/insideart/ Great Fun!

Utilitarian Objects- 6th grade clay projects

Utility means useful. You've heard of a utility knife, or a utility shed? These are useful items because of their versitility. Utilitarian means useful as well. Utilitarian art is art that has a useful purpose, such as a box, mug, pot, vase, etc. These art items can be highly decorated, but ultimately they are useful. As we look back through history, we see that even cave artists made their utilitarian items beautiful by carving or painting on them.

Non-Utilitarian art means art that is meant to be looked at aestetically, art that is pretty on the walls or nice to look at as a sculpture. Non-Utilitarian art is decorative. It can move you emotionally or spur you into action through depicting social themes, but it has no physical use other than as something to look at.

Sixth grade students have been working on clay manipulation, learning how to change clay into objects by using pinch, coil and slab for construction methods. They are presently working on a Utilitarian object that is decorated with relief and incised artwork. Some are making mugs, bowls or plates. But all the objects have both a useful purpose and a beautiful design to them.

Expressionism- 7th grade study on styles

Expressionists distort or change an image to express the emotions of the artist.

Throughout history, people have distorted images to show emotions. Medieval artists exaggerated faces to show deep religious feelings. Mesopotamian artists made kings larger and more powerful looking than the rest of the populace. Famous speakers are shown looming above the crowds. But expressing emotions did not become a international style until the early 1900's. Starting in Germany, artists began focusing on their feelings and emotions rather than what the world looked like. They exaggerated, left out, extended, colored and erased parts of their drawings in order to push the emotional response to the image.

Did it work? Do we care about these emotions the artists tried to show? How many of you recognise the emotions in "The Scream" ?

7th grade students are experimenting with showing emotions through their art. How do line, shapes, texture and colors effect emotions?

Splatter Painting

http://www.jacksonpollock.org/


Who doesn't like to splatter paint? This site allows you to experiment in a Jackson Pollock-like way. Have fun splotching, splattering, dripping and spillling your way into art.

Cool Online Drawing/Painting program

http://artpad.art.com/artpad/painter/

Use a virtual pencil, brush, spraycan, etc. to do your drawings and paintings. Watch a replay of your own drawing skills and hang your work in the gallery. Or watch other artists paint and see how they make those great pictures.

One of the better, simple drawing sites. Lots of fun.

Fun Art Detective Game

http://www.eduweb.com/pintura/

The Case of Grandpa's Painting....

Photo Mosaic: a cousin of pointallism

Robert Silvers invented a form of mosaic that could be called a cousin to pointallism. Each picture consists of hundreds of tiny photographs.

He starts with a picture, breaking it down in tiny pixals. He substitutes each pixal for a full photo which has the same value and color as the original pixal.

When viewed close up, Robert Silvers' pictures look like thousands of images. But when viewed from a distance, we see the images as colors, creating a larger overall picture. Just as Seurat relied on the viewer to blend his dots together with their mind's eye, Robert Silvers asks his viewers to blend the tiny photos together into one large image.