Getting Ready for the Spring Art Show!!

I bet you are wondering what in the world GCS art students are doing!!

We have been very busy creating some amazing looking artwork for our Spring Art Show!! Our Spring Art Show will be open the night of the elementary concert on May 19 at 6:15. We held our very first art show back in December the night of the Christmas concert. I hope to continue to have a Christmas and Spring art show every year too! The students and their families really enjoy looking around at all the wonderful art projects. For our first show, each class made a Christmas quilt that was displayed along with several samples of projects we had worked on during that semester.


Since you are a dear and loved blog reader, I will fill you in on some of the exciting things you will see at the Spring Art Show. Last week and this week the students have made and will be painting clay pots. We learned about different techniques to create these pots and now we are going to paint beautiful designs on them! Another cool exhibit will be our wall of self-portraits. You will NOT want to miss this amazing display of each elementary student's self-portrait. You may also see some other famous GCS staff on the wall! Along with these two special exhibits, I will feature some of the exceptional pieces of artwork from weeks past that show all visitors what we have learned this semester.

I am looking definitely looking forward to the unveiling of our awesome clay pots and other artwork! Be sure to come to the BEST art show around!! Also, at 7:00 pm the elementary will put on a wonderful spring concert! It will be a fun and beautiful night for everyone!

I might put some sneak peeks of our pots on here since you are such a great group of blog-readers, so stay tuned for a special surprise later this week!! But you will have to come to the art show to see them in all of their glory!
Have a wonderful first week of May! (My birthday month!!)
Mrs. Edwards

  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • RSS

The Highly Coveted and Thought-Provoking Art of KINDERGARTEN!!

Kindergarten art is anything but boring! We have learned so much this year! I wanted to share two fun projects that we have done recently. These projects can be used with children as young as two, so take notes if you are a stay-at-home parent who is interested in bringing some artful fun to your home!

String Paintings
Everyone really enjoyed this colorful, unique, and hands-on project! To begin, I sat out several different colors of paper, and several colors of paints. I chose the quiestest, best-seated students to go first. Each child had to pick a color of paint and paper. Together, we dipped a very long string (about 2 feet) into a bowl of paint. We made sure the whole string was coated. Next we laid the string down in the pattern of our choice, being sure to include lots of loops! On top of the string designed paper, I placed one more colored paper followed by a heavy-duty piece of cardboard and a heavy-duty can of paint. Next the students had to pull with all their might to get the string out from between to two papers. Most students needed help pulling that stubborn string out, but it was well worth the beautiful result! When you unveil the two papers, you will find mirror reflections of the string designed pulled out in a manner that resembles a flower. Some looked different than flowers, but all were unique and abstract! We had such a good time laughing and cheering for each new piece of art that was formed that day! Here is a sampling of what we did:


Stunning, One-of-a-Kind Masterpieces!
 Clay Day Snails
On Clay Day, students had a blast experimenting with 3-D art. When I first passed out the clay, I had students quickly form whatever object I called out. It was a race to create a tooth, flower, snake, balloon, bowl, and other fun objects. Then I let the students create anything they wished. It wasn't long before one student discovered how to make a nice looking snail! Soon after, many of the students decided to present a friendly little snail to me. This project helped the kindergarten practice their fine motor skills as well as learn about form and shape. Take a look at the family of snails from this fun day!

An exciting day ended with some snail pals!
 Well, I hope you enjoyed hearing about the wonderful artwork of our Kindergarteners! They have really grown in their art skills this year!

  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • RSS

Second Grade Sketches of the Human Eye

(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!


(There were 4 different eye expressions that the students were taught how to draw.)

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!
Didn't second grade do a wonderful job! Their quick learning and teachability is extremely... eye-opening!
Mrs. Edwards

  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • RSS

Good Point, Seurat! (Our Experimentation with Pointillism!)

Yes, there is more wonderful pieces of art to see!!

As we continued our study of famous artists, we took a look at a man named Georges Seurat. Art students have been learning all about pointillism! Pointillism is the art of making a bigger picture out of little dots (or points!) Did you know that French artist, Georges Seurat used pointillism to create the picture seen above? Did you know that GCS artists are almost as talented as Mr. Seurat?
  • Students planned out a picture they could create using dots.
  • We used water colors and Q-Tips to make our colorful dots.
  • Students learned that dots closer together would create a darker shade, and the spaced out dots made lighter shades.
  • No lines were allowed at all! Only dots!
  • If you squint, you may be able to make out the object of our pointillism paintings!
This pointillism pie looks good enough to eat!
By: Rachel- 6th Grade
Nice looking sunset!
By: Noah- 5th Grade

A baseball complete with light source and shadow!
By: Nathaniel- 5th Grade

Two little apples hanging from a branch!
By: Bryan- 4th Grade
We hope you enjoyed these creative pointillism pictures! We worked very hard on these! Come back soon for more art!
Mrs. Edwards

  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • RSS

Vibrant Landscapes- Van Gogh Week

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!!
Mrs. Edwards

  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • RSS

Bold and Beautiful Flowers in the style of Georgia O'Keeffe

Welcome Art Friends!
We keep having this little glimpses of spring recently! I absolutely love the breezy weather, bright colors, and green goodness of spring! God is such a wonderful Creator to have given us these gifts of beauty! Can't wait til spring is here to stay!!
"Red Poppy" by Georgia O'Keeffe
Last week art students created breath-taking watercolor paintings of huge and colorful flowers. We learned about artist, Geogia O'Keeffe who is famous for her larger-than-life flowers. She used a variety of colors and sometimes abstract designs to make unique and exciting pieces of art. We painted lovely flowers with petals bursting off the page, and I have to say I love the results! Enjoy!

Josh- 6th Grade

Noah- 5th Grade

Reagan- 1st Grade

Lindsey- 3rd Grade

Cameron- 4th Grade

Brynne- 6th Grade

Zach- 3rd Grade

Well, I hope you enjoyed these sweet and happy flower paintings! Thanks for stopping by! Please remember to pray for the GCS High School students who will be participating in a Fine Arts Competition this Friday! I will try to post pictures of some of their art submissions next week! 
Mrs. Edwards

  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • RSS

Videography- Filming Commercials

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!

2nd Graders Lily, Tyler, Mackenzie, and Jonny tell us about the Umbrella 5000!

3rd Graders Cassie, Hannah, Zach, and Jenna show off the Super Duper Sweeper!

4th Graders Bryan, Dana, Moses, and Tyler are selling the Stainless Steel Super Bowl!

I hope you enjoyed this small sampling of our commercials! Our big goal was teamwork in coming up with a great idea that everyone could agree on and be involved with! I am so proud of their hard work!
Make sure you check back later to see what we are working on this week! You will love our masterpieces!
Mrs. Edwards

  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • RSS