Great Beginnings

The school year is starting nicely and we are all in the swing of things.  Each class has made its sketchbook cover.  The sketchbook is a great way that every grade can plan, assess, and reflect on art they are learning about or making.  Each grade has its own format and we work in it all year long, adding new things and using it as a learning tool.

3rd Graders Working on Warm & Cool Grids

Kindergarten painted horizontal, vertical, and diagonal lines, then painted in action lines like zigzag and wavy in a new color the next week.  We got to really experience the tempera paint and the procedures for good painting.

First grade painted directional lines and then made A-B patterns with geometric shapes.  We reviewed primary colors the next week and also the procedures for good painting.

Second grade focused on geometric shapes and textures, as well as tints and shades.  We added in active lines with a hatching technique.

Third learned about making grids and turned their sketchbook cover into a huge grid, then put in geometric and organic shapes.  They then began adding in warm colors for the positive space and cool colors for the negative space.

Fourth grade made a contour line drawing in a Bug's Eye point of view, then painted the negative space with a tint of their team's choosing.

Fifth grade learned about still life, set up still life items for their individual tables, drew them, and then worked in complementary colors.  They looked for the light source and then chose whether or not to use their color scheme or their watercolor paints to make value changes.  There was a lot of planning for color, so as to maximize their positive and negative space, and have good contrast.

All in all, a terrific start for the school year.  Every grade has learned something new and reviewed something from the past.  On to the big stuff--but now we have our sketchbooks, to chronicle our work!