mARTch Madness landscape/seascape/cityscape

 After voting between portraits for 2 days we moved on to landscapes, seascapes and cityscapes.  Stella's Brooklyn Bridge won against The Great Wave and The Starry Night really swept it against Boston Common at Twilight.

Next up will be still life!

mARTch Madness is here!!!

 What is mARTch Madness you ask?  Each day this month students and staff will be voting for their favorite artworks.  There will be 4 categories: Portraits, Landscapes/Seascapes/Cityscapes, Still Life, and Sculpture.  The winners in round one will then compete in round 2 until we have one artwork that will be named the champion! (our favorite piece of art at the Garfield School).  I thought this would be a fun way to expose our students to some famous works of art!

 Our first 2 artworks to go up against each other were Norman Rockwell's Triple Self-Portrait and the Portrait of Paul Revere by John Singleton Copley.  I thought Revere was a good first choice considering our city is named after him but sadly, Revere lost to Rockwell's painting.  (Although it was very close!)

 I'm happy to see how excited everyone is to vote each day!!

Our next 2 artworks were Four Seasons in One Head by Arcimboldo and American Gothic by Grant Wood.  Apparently, our school is intrigued by the unusual, because Arcimboldo took this one!

Be sure to check out the display each day to see if your artwork made it to the next round!!

Line Mittens

After creating line sculptures, kindergarten students explored lines in a different medium by drawing a variety of them on mitten shapes using oil crayons.  A watercolor resist was applied to add more color and the mittens were collaged together with other shapes to make the finished piece.  I only got the chance to do this project with two classes until the weather got too warm and it felt silly to be making snowy mittens!  I've got some other line ideas ready for my other classes:)

Line Sculptures

After discussing lines by reading Lines That Wiggle Kindergarten students made their own line sculptures.

Victorian Homes

Third grade students discussed what the word home means to them...a place to feel safe, to rest, where you feel comfortable.  In the Victorian Era (the time during the reign of Queen Victoria 1837-1901)homes became a reflection of your status and wealth.  American Victorians thought of their homes as a way to show off what they have accomplished (their wealth) and the stability of their family.  The American dream became an individually owned home on a nice piece of land.  Many people in this era thought of their home as a status symbol.  Building a large, impressive house was a measure of success and your social status.
After studying the details on these impressive houses students set out to design their own.  Each student created a pop up and drew the details of their home.

A Fish Out of Water

A Fish Out of Water is about a goldfish that is overfed and grows to unusual sizes.  At one point in the book the fish grows so large that he will only fit in the bathtub!   After reading this tale, first grade students drew their own bathtubs.  Once the tubs were drawn students explored sculpture and model magic and sculpted their own fish.  Students mixed up their own orange color with tempera cakes, decorated their fish with textures, and applied gloss to their sculptures.  The tub drawings were then transformed into 3d forms and the fish were placed inside!

Sylvie

Sylvie is a story about a little flamingo who learns that she is pink because of the pink shrimp she eats.  She then decides to explore what would happen if she tried some other things...grapes turn her purple, chocolate turns her brown, and striped towels give her stripes!  Second graders were challenged to draw their own Sylvies.  Students also included something unusual Sylvie could be eating and decorated her body to reflect her diet.