Clay Pendants and Totem Poles

Kindergarten had a mini unit on Native Americans. 

We made clay totem pole necklaces, and some big class collaborative totem poles!

To make the clay pendants, we rolled balls of air dry clay and stepped on them with their shoes.

These left really unique imprints!

After they were dry, we painted them. After painting them with one color, we wiped the paint off with a paper towel. This cause the paint to stay in the crevasses and be wiped off the high points- drawing attention to the textures.

Keep Creating!

-Mrs. Hartford

Watercolor Galaxies

4th Grade began by learning about watercolor techniques! We learned 7 different techniques that give different effects when using watercolors.

For the first step, we did lighter washes. These are the galaxies after their first day of watercolors.

The next day we added more saturated colors and then added the black around the outside. Here they decided what shape their galaxies would be! We could finally see them taking shape!

Once they completed their galaxies, we added paint splatters with white paint. This gave the appearance of thousands of stars!

Finished! This was such a fun project! I love how each galaxy looks unique.

Keep Creating!

-Mrs. Hartford

Radial Paper Designs

These were radial paper designs created by the 6th graders!

First they learned how to make 4 different folds (they were also allowed to invent their own).

We talked about radial design and how all symmetry radiates out from a center point.

Clay Ladybugs

 1st Grade spent their first day of this project forming ladybugs out of air dry clay.

They formed the head and body, and then added features like wings, spots, and eyes.

Once the clay had dried, we painted them with black and red gloss acrylic paint.

Louise Nevelson Assemblages

1st grade learned about the artist Louise Nevelson. She creates monochromatic, abstract sculptures.

Her art is called "Assemblages" because she makes them from junk and wood scraps she finds. Then she assembles them into her artwork.

First the students collected junk for their sculptures. We had lots to choose from! Plastic bottle caps, buttons, keys, clothes pins, toy cars, shells, wood blocks, beans, noodles, and pretty much anything else we could find!

Then the students laid out all their pieces to create an interesting composition.

Once they had that figured out- they glued it all down!

(Everything stuck fine with just elmers glue, but the plastic bottle caps needed hot glue).

Then the students chose one color that they wanted to paint their assemblage.

We love how they turned out!

Keep Creating!

-Mrs. Hartford

1 Point Perspective Shapes

4th Grade learned about 1 and 2 point perspective and then made these awesome projects! 

First they learned how to draw shapes that seem to be exploding from one vanishing point.

Then they colored their shapes with markers and the sides with colored pencils.

Last, they cut out their shapes and made a warm or cool colored background collage with strips of construction paper and magazines.

Here is a great student project example!

Keep Creating!

-Mrs. Hartford