Our Little Hands art group met this month. We went over cool and warm colors. I had the children divide their papers in 1/2. On one half they drew something with cool colors and on the other half something with warm colors.
For our May Little Hands Art meeting we learned about Aboriginee Art. Lisa taught the class. We learned what down under means, and where down under was. ( Below the equator, Australia)
take my camera to the group. I shot these pictures of my children's work after we got home.
For the process you make a pattern out of cardstock or cardboard, then you trace the pattern repeatedly on paper. You color the images alternating colors. This allows for a negative space and a postive space. But each space is the same design. It was really neat to learn how to do it.
This month our Little Hands art group met. The artist we were studying was Michelangelo. I prepared the lesson.
First we read a little about him, his life, etc. We learned that while he was a great painter, he really preffered sculpting. The pope commissioned him later to paint the Sistene chapel, which he did-reluctantly. it took him 4 years to complete the ceiling. The technique he used is called Fresco. It is a method where you apply paint to wet plaster. The two dry together and form brillant colors.
His other famous art works were David, Peita, and Moses.
We simulated a sistene chapel feel by taping paper under tables and letting the kids draw.
Then we had them sculpt their own statues. (Marble holds up much better than soap. We did have fun, but it was quite a mess.)
This is a sculpting of Michelangelo, and how he felt about having to
Today our Little Hands Art Group met. Rhonda taught the lesson on Pablo Picasso. One thing I learned was that he was much more recent than I thought. In fact he died in 1972. (My lifetime.) He was born in the 1890's. He lived a long life. The book she used for the project information and instructions was:
The Usborne Art Treasury. It is a great resource for kid friendly art projects.
We looked at examples of his art work. She talked about his Blue Period and his Rose Period.
We also learned that he loved clowns.
We did a collage of a clown with curtains and a stage. The kids had alot of fun with this one.
This month we learned about Cave art. Prior to people writing on paper they first wrote using picture drawings in caves. It was a way to communicate and also they believed it could protect them. They would put the art on the walls to form a sort of sanctuary.
We also talked about God giving the 10 commandments to Moses on Stone Tablets.
We read a chapter out of a book called "Days of the Cave People". The chapter discussed the tools and materials they would gather together.
These are similar to the pictures I passed around. I actually swiped these from my friend Lisa's Blog.
I assembled a cave from tables and taped on brown paper so the children could feel like they were in a cave. They were given nature colored crayons (reds, browns, sepias, blacks, and greys) and were told to pick a part of the wall to draw something on.
We played a couple games. One was duck duck goose, but we used Cave, Cave, Art.
And then we played Caveman says. (A clever improvise by one of the moms.)
After the drawings were complete we cut out each child's art work and let them take it home for their portfolios.
For our project this month we made self portraits. Ms. Holly showed several different artists' self portraits. We let each child choose the type of medium they wanted for their projects.
A couple moms were brilliant and thought of some very clever ideas for their "perfectionist" children.
One idea was to print a black and white photo of the children on 81/2 X 11 paper and allow them to paint it. Another idea was to give the child a picture of themselves in a puzzle format and let them piece it together. ]
The children loved it and we had some really great self-portraits.
This month Ms. Lisa taught the class printmaking. We learned about Hokusai, and located Japan on the map.
We learned that he is most famous for his series of prints called "Thirty-Six Views of Mounth Fuji. "
This is also one of his famous paintings called "The Great Wave Off Kanagawa." and this technique of printing is what we learned today.
First we began with a piece of styrene, Lisa got us all chopsticks to use to draw our pictures into the styrene..(Keeping with the Japanese theme and all -so clever I might add.) So we drew our pictures in the styrene the lines with paint.
Then we used a hand roller to roll over the print.
Above is the styrene with paint.
Below is the print once transferred it is reversed-it looks more abstract but
I was still pleased with the effect.
Here is DD's print. The ink smeared a little. But I thought it was good.
I'm guessing now it matters which way you roll it.
We read the book "The World That God Made." We discussed God being the master artist and creator of art. We also talked about how we are all special in his site and are his masterpieces.
We looked at the Mud Handprint Circles by Richard Long. We used our hand and fingerprints to designe our new group t-shirts. We will use them each month when we meet.
Since we are studying one artist a month, I thought this would be a great idea each month for one of our at home projects. So each month we will create a different insert for our mug and we will drink from our Artist of the Month Mug. I thought it might help the children remember the Artist and the technique name.
Today was our Kickoff day for our new Art Co-op. We voted to call the group Little Hands. The ages of our children are Pre-K -2nd Grade.
We are really excited about learning more about art. Each mom volunteers to teach one month. There is so much to glean from each mom and her different perspecitve.
Our plan is to meet together once a month to learn about one artist and do a project related to his/her technique. (At home we study more about the artist during the month.) We are also putting together 3 ring binders with page protectors. In this we store any handouts, our art examples and a few pictures of the artists paintings/work.
Linda taught us about George Seurat and Pointillism. We learned he was from France. So we learned to count in French to three. We also recieved a short bio hand out, an outline map of France and flag of France Page. (We plan to practice pointillism at home on those pages.) She read a book about Art and showed us a few pictures of George's work. You can see the dots placed together closely to make the colors meld.
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