Art class with Mrs. Comrie

 Week 14: We studied the artist; Parmgianini and looked at his artwork. Then we painted a lovely birch tree scene using masking tape for the white space and credit cards to apply the black part of the bark.

Week 15: We looked at paintings by Bruegell and painted a snow scene using watercolor resist and sand for texture.

Feb. 14:We watched videos on glass blowing and read about Murano glass.  We made some paintings that were intended to help us with color mixing. The glass bottles were meant to be overlapped to show how the colors blended.

Feb. 21: We watched the short video again on Medieval art and took notes. This was to try to recall what the main art forms were. The children made lists of these. We did a painting that showed warm and cool colors.

March 7: We read about Gutenburg and reviewed the importance of the printing press for literature as well as Artwork! We used the art of printing to print with real fish on t-shirts! So fun!

March 21: We used the art of printing to carve our own design into styrofoam and make a nice design using our own prints.

Art : Trailblazers and Explorers:

Week 9, Nov. 8: We studied Leonardo DaVinci. We looked at a video of the Sistine Chapel on "Garden of Praise" which is a nice website to look at artwork. I read a story to the kids of Leonardo as a boy. We created a sea creature drawing an insect or sea creature and looking and drawing very carefully, like Leonardo. The kids were amazing! Their artwork was so well done! The following week, some brought them home, some let me keep them for the end of the year art show. We outlined the very outer edges with black pastel to make a clear boundary for painting the background. 

Week 10, Nov. 15: We studied Michelangelo. Again, we looked at the website " Garden of Praise", to see some of his work. Some of the kids have seen these works. We finished our creature pictures from last week. We did a wash with watercolor for the background and then dripped alcohol into it to create bubbles in the water. Some worked better than others. I think it cam out better when the paint was watery. But, not all the children seemed to keep it watery. That is always a challenge. Some like to lay it on thick; no pun intended!

Week 11, Nov. 29: As it was our last week before Christmas, we made candles to give as gifts or keep to light for Christmas! The kids did very well following directions as this is all good for them. They prepared their molds, chose their style of candle and chose the colors. It was a big hit with all!

Art class: Trailblazers and Explorers

We looked at artwork by Jan Van Eyck and talked about his work being important because he was really one of the first to use oil paints and he loved to tell stories with his pictures. The kids have a coloring page of one of his works, that I asked them to finish at home. We also looked at stained glass from the Middle Ages and then the each designed a stained glass drawing on translucent paper and colored it in with markers. When finished, they should look fine hanging in a window.

Explorers and Trailblazers:
This week we looked at more paintings by the Limbourg brothers and reviewed that they were hired by the Duke of Berry to create paintings for his Books and a type of calender called The Book of Hours that depicted the castle and acivities of the seasons. We noticed many details including the colors they used. For an activity I showed them how to shade a cylinder shape and make it "pop" off the page. We also made a cone shape and shaded it. From there we made a new castle drawing including shading on the towers and rooves. The children did very well. They have the responsibility of bringing their notebooks with them each week. I have incorporated this because sometimes I need them to finish things at home and I want them to keep their artwork together as much as possible. Moms, if you could help them out, only by giving them a notebook and checking it occasionally to see if they need help keeping it neat! Thanks!

Explorers and Trailblazers Art class:

Tuesday we actually did three fairly quick projects. First we looked at pictures by The Limbourg Brothers. They were artist brothers that worked for the Dukes during the 1400's, doing paintings in the castles and creating a popular thing called a Book of Hours. This was a hand written book, usually including inspiring word for each hour of the day. First, we put gold trim o a photo copy of a painting from these men, since they embelished their paintings with real gold! Then, we worked on a color wheel, learning how to mix colors. Finally, we began a page from a cal lender, somewhat like what the Limbourg Brothers would have painted. For Homework: They are to finish these callender pages. They should draw, then paint a picture of their home in the fall, using their color-mixing skills as best they can remember. They can write in what month it is and add any special dates. Also, they should bring their notebooks!

Art for Explorers and Trailblazers:

This lesson I introduced the artist Giotto. He was important during the late Middle Ages/early Renaissance, because he made people look realistic. He is interesting because it is thought that he began drawing well as a child and was discovered and became an apprentice to the artist we learned about last week, Cimabue. As a child, Giotto was a shepherd boy, who drew pictures of sheep on rocks with sticks. So, we tried our hand at scratching a picture in pastels. The children should bring their notebook every week for art, and have their pictures neatly organized and colored. rewards are for bringing notebooks and sitting quietly and working diligently on the projects.

Explorers and Trailblazers Art

We reviewed who Cimabue was and what was special about him. We  colored in the" gold plated" area around Jesus head on a copy of his famous painting. We, then painted our castle drawings with watercolor. I reviewd or introduced them to the proper way to set up supplies and prepare your watercolor. We put our Cimabue picture into the notebooks. 
 Homework! finish coloring the Cimabue picture of Jesus and make sure you have a notebook for art history.

Explorers and Trailblazers Art class
I read a story about an artist from the Middle Ages, named Chimabue. He was the first to try making people look realistic by turning their heads sideways or tilting them. He also used gold to accentuate certain things, like halo's.We drew a castle and added gold enhancements to it.  Sometimes kids are intimidated about drawing buildings.So, we broke down the parts of a castle drawing with shapes, so they could experience success. I think they were mostly pleased with the results. This week we will paint these amazing drawings that the kids made!

March 29th, 2016
The younger Art Class
We have been working on our creation book. Each week, adding another watercolor. We have been mixing colors, learning watercolor techniques, and drawing.

March 1, Art-Younger group: The last two weeks of class we:
-Did some drawing exercises from "Drawing with Children"
-Talked about silence being helpful in the creative process
-Learned how to prepare a watercolor wet on wet paper
-began our books on the days of creation by creating the first four pages
     The watercolor techniques we used: preparing the paper by wetting it and "stretching" it, layering colors to create a desired look, using a clean, dry brush to separate two colors of paint, dry-brushing to make a desired effect.
-Did some more drawing exercises from "Drawing Textbook" McIntyre.

Art-Younger class
We looked at children's books that we love and read a story by Jan Brett. Then we talked about why we like these stories. We began to organize a story by creating a story board. We talked about their ideas for a story from what we have been studying for history.  The children did some drawings on it. Their was not a strong feeling from all of them that they grasped what we were going to attempt doing. A couple kids understood, but seemed overwhelmed. There was also expressed that they could not do more work on them at home each week. So, in the interest of not letting them get too discouraged, I have changed our plan; each week I will prepare a specific picture for them to do and give them a specific new skill that we will work on in class. For the rest of the class we did some blending with our Gouache paint.

Summaries for Explorers and Trailblazers: Last two weeks of first semester: Both classes worked on drawings the week before last. They were considering entering the HSLDA contest.
 This week, only the Trailblazers continued in this endeavor. We experimented in making beautiful skies with watercolor. They all did wonderfully!
The Pathfinders saw pictures of all types of Ancient Jewelry. Then they created their own bobbles to be strung into a piece of jewelry. If you are lucky and they follow through, you will receive a lovely piece of art for Valentines day!

Explorers and Trailblazers Art, week 11: We looked at pictures of Roman Architecture and I walked them through how to do a drawing of a  Roman Aqueduct. Then we colored it using pastels. We talked about blending and horizon lines and how to draw using reference lines to help you place things in the picture. The children did some fine work!

Explorers and Trailblazers Art Summary; week 10: Assyrian Art
We looked at some pictures of tiles that were found from Ancient Assyria. The pictures were very interesting with lots of patterns and stylized figures engaged in activities baked in tiles. We did a simpler version of these tiles by coloring in some symbols and figures using colored pencils and gluing them onto the tiles and decoupaging them.

Art Class: Explorers and Trailblazers: weeks 1-4

Week 1: Cave Paintings: We looked at cave paintings from the Lascoux caves in France and how they were found. We talked about how art can tell us stories.We talked about earth colors and types of line. We made "cave paintings" on brown paper with earth colors using our drawing skills(shapes and lines).

Week 2: Cartouche carving: We looked at pictures of Cartouches and talked about Egyptian Hyroglyphs. We began a three week project of making a Cartouche from sheetrock. This first week we prepped our "rock". We spent time removing the paper from the sheetrock. This was hard work and the kids did great!

Week 3: Cartouche sheetrock carving: This day we drew our names using Hyroglyphs. Then we carved them using carving tools. The kids did great work!

Week 4: We re-looked at the pictures of Cartouches to see how they would have been painted. Then we painted, using alot of gold.

Week 5: We are looking at Mosaics and what a Jewish Menorah is. We are making a Mosaic Menorah.

Explorers and Trailblazers!
 Please bring something to Batik this week! It can be a t-shirt, pillowcase or a piece of white fabric of some sort. Thanks!

Art class for Explorers and Trailblazers: Please have your child bring a white shirt to class for next weeks project. It should be cotton, but any style is fine.

Art Summary Trailblazers and Explorers, 1/13/2015

We continued our creation of a magazine cover for the Saturday Evening Post. Last week we began by making 3 rough drafts and then during the week, they were supposed to make some drawings from real life. We did the final drafts for The "Saturday Evening Post" magazine covers, using colored pencils and crayons. They also experimented with a drawing exercise that required them to draw a person from life using contour lines and not looking at their paper. This exercise helps us to study the subject and concentrate on telling our hand what to draw. It is great for training the brain and hand to work together to draw better.

Art Summary Trailblazers and Explorers, 1/6/2015

We studied Norman Rockwell(1894-1978)

Norman Rockwell has evolved into one of the most beloved artists in American history. His paintings seem capture the very heart of America, especially during and after WWII. Many of his paintings and illustrations depict a time and era where family,hard work, patriotism and goodness were the priorities of the land. 

We are drawing and coloring a cover of a magazine in Norman Rockwell style; that tells a story and might have some family or other familiar scene from the kids lives.

Art Summary Trailblazers and Explorers, 12/2/2014

We briefly discussed the history of Christmas cards and created our own, using paint fingerprints. The children created three different designs for their cards to give to others.