1st Grade - Heart Paintings

These paintings were inspired by the artist Jim Dine.  Jim Dine is closely associated with the development of Pop Art in the early 1960's.  The 1st graders focused on Jim Dine's series of heart paintings.  We observed numerous paintings and discussed how he used color, line, texture, and balance.  Those principles and elements were then applied to our paintings.  Great job first graders!

1st Grade - Pinch Pot Characters

We took our knowledge of how to create a pinch pot and expanded.  The students began their characters by forming their pinch pot.  With extra clay, the students created eyes, arms, hands, legs, feet, hair etc.  We learned that in order to properly attach clay, you must score and slip the pieces.  Scoring is when you scratch up both pieces where they will attach.  Slip is clay that has been watered down and become mushy.  After the pieces were bisque fired, the students used low fire gloss glazes to finish them.

1st Grade - Wild Turkeys Inspired by John James Audubon

John James Audubon (Jean-Jacques Audubon) (April 26, 1785 – January 27, 1851) was a French-American ornithologist, naturalist, and painter. He was notable for his expansive studies to document all types of American birds and for his detailed illustrations that depicted the birds in their natural habitats. His major work, a color-plate book entitled The Birds of America (1827–1839), is considered one of the finest ornithological works ever completed. Audubon identified 25 new species.

As a class, we observed the wild turkey created by John James Audubon.  We started our drawing by visualizing the turkey in shapes (ovals, circles, triangles, etc.)  Once the turkey was shaped out, the students then added more detail, such as the feather designs, facial features, and overall texture.  The students used color pencils to finish their turkeys.

Oliver Jeffers Inspired Artwork

Mr. Kaegi's class had been learning about the author and illustrator, Oliver Jeffers.  The kids were fascinated with the simplicity of his artwork.  In art class, we read one of his books entitled, "Up and Down."  From there we thought it would be fun to create our own story using the same two characters from his book.  So as a class we did some brainstorming to form a plot.  The students then illustrated the story, each choosing a section.  We used watercolor pencils to create a look similar to Oliver Jeffers. 

Space Invaders

The first grade students observed a current street artist with the alias "Invader".  We discussed how street art can have both positive and negative aspects to it.  "Invader" creates mosaic tiles and attaches them to buildings throughout the world.  He also creates mosaics from Rubik's cubes.   The students each chose an invader to create and then used 1" x 1" tiles to create an invader & background.  Great job!

Wavy Line Sculptures

The 1st graders created these mixed media works of art.  We started out discussing the primary and secondary colors.  We went into depth a little further and discussed how each of those colors have numerous values.

Hue = Color
Tint = Hue+ White
Tone = Hue + Gray
Shade = Hue + Black

The students chose one hue (blue for example) and took black and white to mix their different values.  They created abstract paintings with as much value as possible.  Once they were dry, the paintings were cut into 4 strips.  The students then glued their strips in wavy formations onto consturction paper.

Kandinsky Concentric Circles

1st graders learned about Wassily Kandinsky and the type of art he created throughout his life.  We observed a couple of his color studies.  We folded our 12 x 18 white drawing paper into eight equal sections.  From there we used oil pastels to create many circles.  Students used the oil pastels to blend and create new colors as well.