4/5 Sculpture with White Clay

October 22, 2012 was week #2 working with clay. This week students had a choice of what they could create with clay. We are working toward building skills in the use of clay to make a larger sculptural portrait. Students will use techniques of creating a coil pot and then attaching clay by slipping and scoring to connect facial features to the pot.

more images @ the  4/5 page on tbsartstudiok-5.blogspot.com

4/5 Terra Cotta Clay Tiles

Students in the 4/5 classes begin work with clay. Terra cotta clay is a red earthenware clay that when fired loos like red clay pots. Clay tile work allows students to build skills; wedging and prepping clay, working with tools, measuring for size, getting thickness correct, and drawing or creating relief designs on the surface.
for more images of students at work see the 4/5 page @ tbsarstudiok-5.blogspot.com

K/1 & 2/3 Paper Pumpkins

There's noting quite as fun as a great Halloween craft!

K/1 & 2/3 students made dozens of paper pumpkins and Jack-O-Lanterns during art studio this week. Many students expanded on the work by making tiny ones, larger ones, yellow, green and brown ones. There were vines and leaves and even one marionette pumpkin that sings opera.

for more images take a look at the k/1 & 2/3 pages @ tbsartstudiok-5.blogspot.com

ECC Magnolia Class Birds - Paint Paper Collage

In my weekly Wednesday visit to the Early Childhood Campus the Magnolia students used the paint papers they made last month to create bird collage. I guided students in breaking down the bird form to its basic shapes - ovals, a circle, and triangles. Students drew shapes, cut them out, and glued them to the background paper.
for more images of Magnolia students at work see the ECC page @ tbsartstudiok-5.blogspot.com

K/1 Drawings - Maps "From Home to School"

K/1 students in Blackberry Creek made map drawings of the path from their home to school or school to home. 
See the K/1 page for more images @ tbsartstudiok-5.blogspot.com

Art Encounters - Early Childhood Drawing, Professional Development

teachers at the ECC working with materials that their students will be using for drawing.


On October 17, 2012 I prepared a professional development experience for the teachers at our Early Childhood Campus. The topic was stages of drawing in young children. There are studied stages of development that children go through in their mark making and drawing life. We reviewed the stages of drawing that children pass through as they grow. We looked at photographs of some of our own students at work and observed where they are in their drawing life.  We shared experiences of our teaching practices with children and their drawing. For a fully hands on experience I brought drawing materials; Black paper, white conte crayon & chalk pastel, black ebony pencils and colored chalk pastel for teachers to try. It's alway great to work with materials that our students are going to experience.


See this Illustrated table
Drawing Development in Children 
http://www.learningdesign.com/Portfolio/DrawDev/kiddrawing.html

Alexander Calder's Circus

© Alexander Calder with Calder Circus, still image from Carlos Vilardebo's 1961 film of Alexander Calder's "circus". Courtesy of Fondation Calder.

Alexander Calder enjoyed experimenting with materials and working making contraptions. He used this love of making things to create a circus that he would animate and perform for his friends. Much of the collection is housed at the Whitney Museum in NY.(visit the 2/3 page on tbsartstudiok-5.blogspot.com to view a delightful video) 

2/3 students in Sweet Briar and Temescal Creek have started a four week sculpture experience working with the inspiration of Alexander Calder's circus. Students are making circus performers and circus acts using corks, wire, rubber  tires, wood, felt, wool, yarn, string, nails and tacks. 

K/1 Here I am In October...

A Blackberry Creek student working on drawing her self portrait with glue. The next step is to let the glue dry and add chalk pastel to the paper. The glue areas will remain black while the mixing of chalk pastel colors "pop" on the black paper. 
(see more images at tbsartstudiok-5.blogspot.com, K/1 page)

Blackberry - Glue self portrait

ECC Euginia students work on drawing a self portrait.

      

"One Community Many Faces" 

One of The Berkeley Schools' 2^nd year students traveled to Coppenhagen on summer vacation with her family. She and her Mom participated in a group project where everyone at the museum made a face out of clay that was mounted on a wall structure. The sculpture was started at our Fall gathering on September 23, 2012. It's outside the East entrance of the Art Studio. We are continuing to make this community art piece in the K- 8th classes this week. (10/1/12)

Thanks to Jeanine for bringing the project to us.

photos by Jean Marsters (9/23/12 "Fall Festival" Pie & Chili bake off)

Circus Drawings 2/3

In 2/3 we are starting a series of classes focusing on the theme of Circus. Alexander Calder created a mini Circus out of wire, metal, cloth, clay, yarn, and wood. Here a student sketches her ideas of the circus. In coming weeks students will work with sculptural material building their own circus acts.

Paint Papers

In the ECC Magnolia Classroom students made papers that will be used for collage. BLICK Tempra paint mixes very well. Colors stay true and the clean up is easy. Artists experimented with the process of mixing colors on their pages. All work will be shared with one another to create collages in the style of author and artist Eric Carle.

"Here I am in OCTOBER..."

A Laurel Creek Kindergartener is making his "Here I am in OCTOBER..." portrait. The second in our Self portrait series is a portrait drawn with glue. When the glue dries students will use chalk pastel to add color. The areas of dried glue will resist the chalk pastel and allow the black paper to show through. As always check the K/1 page on the blog to see more images of students at work.

4/5 Art Drawing Faces

Cerrito Creek & Strawberry Creek 4/5 classes worked on practicing drawing people from  pictures. Students selected from dozens of xerox copies of portrait paintings which they were asked to render as accurately as possible. Copying the images in black and white sometimes helps students to see the different values in an image.