Fifth Grade Art

Ravinia Fifth Grade Art Thus Far...

Now that I have my blog up and running, I am going to show you what we've been up to so far this year.  It's been an exciting year so far!  We've learned about careers in art, made oil pastel flowers, sculpted plaster cakes, and painted mini masterpieces.

Careers in the Arts

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a landscape architect, video game designer, or work in advertising? At the beginning of the school year we discussed these different careers and many more. Click on the link below to learn more about different careers in the arts!

Learn about careers in the arts here!

vanGogh's Oil Pastel Flowers

Fifth grade students examined the painting “Sunflowers” by Vincent van Gogh and created large blooming flowers of their own design.  Concepts included in this composition were the construction of a radial design, highlight and lowlight placement, and leading parts of the composition off the edge of the design surface.

Students began by drawing their flower outlines in pencil. They colored each petal using a monochromatic range or a spectrum of colors utilizing the color wheel.  The center of each flower was filled in using a radial sunburst coloring effect.  
Students followed colors around the color wheel to create a natural flow of color.  They concentrated on creating highlights in the petals, stems, and leaves.  The final touch was a black oil pastel outline to clean up edges.  They are currently on display in the first & fifth grade hallways.

Wayne Thiebaud Plaster Cakes

Wayne Thiebaud is one of the original Pop Art Movement artists. He painted everyday objects like gumball machines, popsicles, and you guessed it...cakes!

Using his art and the food art of reality shows such as Sweet Genius, Cake Boss, and Ace of Cakes, students designed their own cakes. They created their cakes using molds and plaster gauze, painted them with acrylics, and embellished them with items brought from home or sculpey clay creations. Can you guess the theme of their cakes?

Each one is different and unique!





Mini Masterpieces

Wayne Thiebaud is one of the original Pop Art Movement artists. He painted everyday objects like gumball machines, popsicles, and cakes.

Students chose a simple object to make a mini painting. They drew multiple sketches to develop their composition and transfered the image through a reverse transfer method or by simply drawing it onto the canvas.

Once the image was on the canvas, they applied color theory to mixing the appropriate colors with their paint.

Lastly, they embellished their painting with Sharpie markers.

Fourth Grade Art

Ravinia Fourth Grade Art Thus Far...

Now that I have my blog up and running, I am going to show you what we've been up to so far this year.  It's been an exciting year so far!  We've created Darumas and been working diligently on an Art Book that will blow your mind!

Clay Darumas

Fourth grade students created Darumas, a Japanese good luck talisman, out of clay.  Students were instructed to think of a reason either they, or someone they care about, might need a little luck in their lives. They created a theme for their daruma around this need.  Darumas originated as a Japanese talisman of good luck.

Their armless and legless design is inspired by the story of the Bodhidharma, a Zen priest.  The daruma represents determination in achieving your goals, seen also in the non-toppling design (darumas wobble, but they don’t fall down). Daruma dolls are often depicted as wearing red robes, because this is the color worn by the Zen monks who have achieved the highest level of spiritual attainment.  Students exercised their artistic license and created animal, sport, and other unusually themed darumas.

Elements of Art Books

Students spent many weeks learning, processing, and exercising the elements of art: line, color, form, shape, space, texture, & value. They applied their knowledge in observations and discussions of artwork, evaluations of fine art, and through the creation of accordion style art books.

The elements of art are well know as the building block descriptors of western art.  We use these terms to guide students on how to conceptualize the construction of their own art as well as describe and evaluate art they observe.

They learned the constructive process involved in the creation of the books then inserted creative examples of the elements into their pages.  Please feel free to pick up their books and read them.  They are currently located in the library, of course!

Third Grade Art

Ravinia Third Grade Art Thus Far...

Now that I have my blog up and running, I am going to show you what we've been up to so far this year.  It's been an exciting year so far!  Students studied Andy Warhol and made some amazing Pop Art postage stamps.  Around Thanksgiving we learned the song "Over the River and Through the Woods" and created some block prints to go with our song.

Andy Warhol Stamps

Andy Warhol is one of the most well known artists of the Pop Art movement. He changed the art world when he took common everyday items and exhibited them as art in and of themselves. His Campbell's soup can is one of his most popular pieces.

Students chose an everyday object and drew it onto a stamp and painted it with watercolors. By putting it on a stamp, we transformed it's ordinary quality to special. The Post Office only puts unique and special people and objects on their stamps!

Over the River

Third grade students studied the music set to Lydia Maria Child’s popular Thanksgiving poem, Over The River And Through The Wood.  The poem was divided into one sentence phrases and distributed among the students.  Using their special line as inspiration, students created a drawing to reflect the poem’s phrase.  Printmaking techniques such as positive and negative space, image transfer, reverse imaging, and inking/printing were applied to create their finished product.

Second Grade Art

Ravinia Second Grade Art Thus Far...

Now that I have my blog up and running, I am going to show you what we've been up to so far this year.  It's been an exciting year so far!  Students created a chalk pastel seashell still-life, a dry-brush painting inspired by the art of Chris Raschka and a colored pencil pumpkin dip-tych.

Ravinia's Seashell Contour Line Drawings

Have you ever tried contour drawing? It's created when you put your pencil on the paper to draw a picture and you can't pick it up until the picture is finished. It's very challenging, but these second grade students took on that challenge and created some amazing sea life inspired drawings!

When they completed their drawings they traced them with marker and filled them in with chalk pastel. Students used liquid watercolors to spray paper for the background.

Pumpkin Dip-Tych

What's a diptych?

Why are you displaying jack-o-lanterns in January?

Great questions!  A diptych is a 2 panel painting usually hinged together.  The objective of this project was to teach students the method of positive/negative transfer using tracing paper.  We began examining different pumpkin faces from the book Play With Your Food by Joost Elffers.

Using these faces for inspiration, we designed our jack-o-lanters.  We examined a real pumpkin and used it as a guide for our drawing.  When the drawing and tracing portion of this project was completed we used many layers of colored pencils to create a three-dimensional effect. The last step was to use a variety of papers to create a background.  They are currently on display in the second grade hallway!

We're displaying them in January because we decided to take a break from them in October to make our Simple Gifts project and used our time in December to finish them.  Perhaps we should have added some snow to our pictures too!

Simple Gifts

Students were introduced to the book, Simple Gifts, in art class. They carefully examined author Chris Raschka’s style of illustration from his heavy black lines to his lighter more expressive brush strokes. We discussed simplification in art and how to find the fundamental shapes that make up all living creatures.

After our discussions students were instructed to choose their subject matter: flora or fauna. They drew their pictures first, outlined them with black oil pastel, and completed them with tempera paints mixed to match the colors used in Raschka’s illustrations. Students worked very hard to capture the style Chris Raschka by using a limited amount of paint and a dry brush technique. They were displayed for our recent first and second grade show.