Mrs. Edwards' Art Class

Greetings to my 2012-2013 art students and parents!

I'm so glad to be back in the blogging world! After a year-long break from blogging, I really missed it and wanted to get it going again! Plus, there is soooo much beautiful art to see! Enjoy the next few blog posts as I have blogging fever and want to show all that we've been doing!

At the beginning of the year, I have to remind my students of all the classroom expectations. I try not to bore them the whole time, so after a quick review, I get to the fun stuff as quickly as possible! This year as an opening activity, some classes listened to a few musical selections then drew scenes depicting what they thought was going on in the music.

This activity is good for a number of reasons:

• We learned that art should have a meaning and story to it. Not just scribbles and chaos!
• We got our brains back to thinking creatively after a summer of no art class!
• This helps our new students feel more comfortable with a stress-free lesson.
• Studies show that listening to music aids in the creative processing when drawing!

Here are the selections as well as a few examples of Second Grade work!
1. Trumpet Concerto in C
2. Op. 289 Persian March
3. Everlasting Gobstoppers (from the soundtrack Willy Wonka{Mrs. Edwards' favorite movie!})
4. The Entertainer


Several students pictured a train of some sort for #3!




I love the evil snake being charmed!

All the students did a super job and their work is being displayed in the classroom now! Thanks for reading and please visit again!

(Note: Even though you are not viewing this until April 11, this post is actually from March 14, but Mrs. Edwards is sometimes "bloggically-challenged" and forgot to officially publish it!!)

Welcome to the art blog featuring the best students in the world!
It’s Second Grade’s turn to show you how to draw a realistic human eye! They created unbelievable sketches that included the following parts of the eye:
Iris                                    Pupil
Reflective Highlight           Eyelids
Eyelashes                         Eyebrows

Some of us decided to include wrinkles too! We also discussed that the eye can take on many different shapes depending on the expression on our face. Take a look at our beautifully and carefully drawn sketches of the human eye!

Great work, Alex!!

Ellen's shading makes the eyes look very nice!

Mackenzi just about mastered the "closed eye"!

Micah's eyes look so real!

Welcome back to the art blog featuring the most talented artists: GCS elementary art students! Make sure you catch up on everything we have been doing in art class for the past few weeks!!

We have been talking about the life and work of famous artists and this week we discussed the troubled, yet talented artist Vincent Van Gogh. We learned about his quite crazy personality, his missing ear, and also his posthumous fame. Although we think he was a great painter, we definitely do not want to act like him!!
This week, art students in grades 1st-6th created beautiful landscapes using chalk pastels. These are sure to take your breath away! Here’s how we made these masterpieces:

• We learned that landscapes should show both the land and the sky.
• Each student had to choose between a warm or cool set of colors.
• We used Van Gogh’s technique of blustery, windy, and wavy lines to make the sky.
• Next we used our finger to blend the colors together by slightly smearing the lines to create a windy or sandy effect.
• Some students used dark construction paper to create the land with a foreground shadow while others used pastels to draw the land.

This is a pretty city-scape in cool colors! By: Abby- 6th Grade



This warm-colored desert looks nice and sandy! By: Bryan- 4th Grade



I would love to visit this warm-colored beach! By: Lena- 2nd Grade

This night-time landscape is eerily beautiful! By: Dana- 4th grade

This cool color landscape reminds me of a breezy night! By: Lilly- 2nd Grade

We hope you enjoyed these vibrant landscapes! Come back for many more pieces of artwork!!

Welcome back after a long break! You will love what we have in store for you today!

Art students at GCS had a blast last week filming creative commercials for various items picked out by me!
Students used their knowledge of advertisement, character placement, and creative marketing to create a quality commercial for their product or service. They had to include a product name, phone number, and use for the product.

Take a look at some of these great commercials! I think we have some future actors/marketing gurus!

Welcome Faithful Readers and Brand New Visitors!

I have been waiting all week to share the exciting things we have been doing in art this week!! I wanted to celebrate Valentine's Day with each class, so this week was full of parties! I still wanted to incorporate a small addition to our study of possible careers in art. I chose to discuss the field of Culinary Arts!

We got to decorate cookies with lots (and I mean LOTS) of icing, sprinkles, colored sugar, and other things that will cause parents to shudder!! Before decorating, we played some awesome games and posed with our buddies in the Heart Photo Booth. Over all, it was an absolute blast! This is definitely going down in the top five most memorable weeks of art class! I

Now for a look at some of the fun we had:
(Click on any picture to make it bigger)

Kindergarten student, Gabe being a Culinary Artist!

 

Madelynne and Tessa in the Heart Photo Booth

Ashton and Cameron

2nd Grade boys get together.. We missed you, Alex!

Tomi and Skyler

2nd graders showing off their beautiful cookies!

Selena and Amy smiling big in the photo booth!

Gabrielle and Kaylyn- so sweet!

Some good-looking redheads: Levi and Grant

4th graders race to win the "Heart Toss."

Jacob, Isaac, and Luke cram into the heart photo booth!

Drew and Josh enjoying the Valentine Party!

If you're in the area, make sure you stop by the "Hall of Frame" to see even more pictures of the GCS art students having Valentine Fun!! Next week has even more great things in store! I hope everyone has a happy Valentine Weekend!

But wait!
There is more to graphic design week! Hopefully you already read about Kindergarten's wonderful creations! If not, check back to read all about how we learned what it means to be a graphic designer!

Art students in grades 1st, 2nd, and 3rd experimented with designing advertisements. What were we advertising? Only the best school in the world: Grace Christian School! Woo!! Go Soldiers!

Oh.. I guess I'll let the advertisements speak for themselves....

Well, I really hope you enjoyed these students' attractive advertising! Stay tuned for 5th and 6th grade's artwork from graphic design week!!

And yet another snow day has delayed the blogging of GCS Art Students! Thankfully, we are back on track, and you are going to love what we created last week!!

In case you haven't noticed, January is all about occupations in the art world! First we talked about illustrators, then we learned about inventors, and last week we learned about fashion design. Fashion design is not limited to run-ways, crazy outfits, and deathly high heels!! We discovered that "fashion" is all around us, and that somebody out there designed it!

Kindergarten art students got a chance to design their very own shirt or dress. We reviewed symmetry and patterns and colors. We carefully planned out the design with our pencil, colored it with crayons, then presented each one to the class. Then we voted (by applause) on our favorite patterns that we would love to wear some day! What do you think of these future fashion designers?



Gabrielle - 1st Grade



Jonathan - 2nd Grade

 

Selena - 3rd Grade



Jenna - 3rd Grade



Josh - 1st Grade



Lilly - 2nd Grade



Second Grade did not illustrate last week, because we were too busy celebrating our win in the No "W" Contest!! We narrowed down our theme to 2 choices- popcorn or playdough. The final choice? Both!

It's not really a party without popcorn, so we decided we could have a Popcorn AND a Playdough Party! Each art student spent the whole art hour molding, creating, bending, shaping, and playing with Playdough.