Accidental Art

One of my favorite things in the art room is all the evidence of making; tid bits left behind, mess, that hint at all of the wonderful work the kids have been doing! Whenever we are painting, printing, working with paper-mâché or doing anything thats messy we use these big blue pieces of paper for place mats. As time has passed and a lot of art making has happened many many marks have been made, bits of other paper has been glued down and the blue papers are becoming really, really beautiful. I thought it be lovely to share these constant works in progress with you.

Chihuly Sea forms

The first and second graders learned about the life and work of glass artist, Chihuly. Their discussion focused on his sea forms and use of  organic shapes.

Students watched this video promoting the exhibition Through The Looking Glass.  

After practicing drawing organic shapes the students worked collaboratively to make sea forms for our own art room instillation. 

Using special defusing paper students drew organic shapes and then colored them in with water based markers. 

Then they cut out their shapes...

coated them in a paper mache paste...

and then shaped them in a styrofoam bowl.

Once the forms were all dry they were installed in one of the art room's large windows.

First Grade Matisse

The first grade students have been learning about the artist Henri Matisse. He was born on December 31, 1869 and lived to be 85 years old. He grew up in northern France and as an adult he lived in Paris and was a lawyer. Until one day he became very ill with appendicitis and had to have surgery. When he was recovering in the hospital his mother bought him a paint set and he fell in love with making art! He is most famous for working with very very bright colors and was often referred to as a "Wild Beast". As he became older he started to "draw with scissors" making colorful collages using lots of organic shapes inspired by jazz music.

This video of Matisse was found here. 

After viewing this video and discussing the process Matisse was using to make his collages the students worked independently to cut out many organic shapes. They then worked together to make a large mural for the hallway with all three first grade classes and then they worked on their own individual ones.