The Art Spot: October 2012

October 13, 2012

Art at the Mall

Hi all you Art Spotters out there! This weekend is a very special weekend for spotting art. That's because elementary students from Grandville Public Schools had the opportunity to display their artwork at the Rivertown Crossings Mall! I hand-picked some very special artwork from Grand View, East, and West Elementary Schools to display in the upstairs food court. Mr. Leonard, the other Grandville Elementary Art teacher, brought artwork from Central Elementary to display.

Check out our student's fantastic work!

Full View of Student Art at the Mall

Right half of Student Art at the Mall

3rd Grade Cityscapes at the Mall

3rd Grade Cityscapes and 5th Grade Pop Art Animals

5th Grade Pop Art Animals and 4th Grade Abstract Paintings


4th Grade Abstract Paintings and 2nd Grade Kandinsky Circles

Here's Mr. Leonard's student artwork from Central Elementary.

The artwork looked fantastic hung up against the black fabric backdrops! I already got to see a bunch of students and their families as they stopped by to check out their art. I hope that everyone has a chance to see their work this weekend! The show will stay up Saturday until 9pm through Sunday until 6pm.

Thanks for visiting The Art Spot!

-Miss O'Donnell

October 9, 2012

Absolutely Abstract

Hi there, thanks for joining me here at The Art Spot!

4th graders at Grand View, East, and West Elementary Schools have been busy learning about Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky. They learned that Kandinsky loved to paint Abstractly. An Abstract painting is one that is NOT representational. For their project, 4th grade students learned to 'retrain' their brains, and paint Abstractly. This was tricky for some students who were used to painting and drawing recognizable objects! Once students learned that Abstract paintings are just made up of color, line, and shape they really started to get the hang of it. It's just like doodling, only with paint!

Students also learned that Kandinsky loved listening to music while he painted. So on our final days of painting students rocked out to The Beatles while they painted!

First we began our paintings using just the primary colors: Red, Blue, and Yellow. We painted 'blobs' and lines, and tried not to make shapes that were recognizable. As students soon found out however, many times we can see things in abstract paintings that remind us of other objects!

Kandinsky Abstract with Primary Colors

Next we added Secondary colors: Green, Orange, and Purple. But students weren't just given these colors....they had to mix them!! They used the primary colors to mix all of the secondary colors.

Once they learned how to mix these new colors, they filled all of the white space of their papers with 'blobs' and lines. They could use detailed brushes to make patterns and thinner lines on top of other shapes.

Finally as a finishing touch, students could choose to add black or white details. The results are stunning!

Check out some of the completed Abstract paintings.

Kandinsky Abstract painting

Great job 4th graders! These Kandinsky Abstract paintings are truly beautiful!

See you back here at The Art Spot next time!

-Miss O'Donnell

Wowing Me With Warhol, Part 2

Hi Art Spotters!

It was an exciting day in my 5th grade classes at Grand View Elementary. Today some students finished their Andy Warhol Pop Art Animal paintings!

In my Part 1 post, I showed you a few of the outstanding animal drawings that students had completed. Once each student was done with one drawing, we made 3 other copies to end up with a total of 4 identical animal drawings. (Depending on when students completed this step I either copied them on the school copier, or they traced them by hand.)

Once students had all 4 completed drawings....it was time to start painting! We used 4 color schemes for our paintings: Primary, Secondary, and 2 different Analogous Color Schemes.

The amazing thing is that students made all of their colors by mixing different combinations of the Primary Colors! They only had Red, Blue, and Yellow paints. All other colors were hand-mixed by students! Talk about impressive!

Primary colors: Red, Blue, and Yellow

Primary color Scheme

Secondary colors: Orange, Purple, and Green

Secondary Color Scheme

The last two drawings were painted using Analogous color schemes. Analogous colors are those that are NEXT to each other on the color wheel. Here's a color wheel so you can see the options that students had to paint their Analogous color schemes with. They had to pick 3 colors that were next to each other.

Color Wheel

Students had many choices for their Analogous color schemes. Here are the two that I chose for my examples:

Analogous color scheme #1: Blue, Blue-Green, and Green

Analogous Color Scheme

Analogous color scheme #2: Red, Red-Violet, and Violet

Analogous Color Scheme

Once students finished all 4 of their paintings, the final step was to go back over their line with Sharpie Marker (making sure to wait until their paint was COMPLETELY DRY before doing this!)

Then students mounted their paintings onto 12" x 12" black paper in the arrangement of their choice. Here are some of the amazing results!

Warhol Pop Art Animals

I am so impressed with all of my 5th grader's Pop Art Animals!! The rest of my classes will be finishing up this project next week.

Thanks for checking in at The Art Spot. See you soon!

-Miss O'Donnell

Cool Cities

Hi everyone out there, thanks for joining me back here at The Art Spot! My students have been hard at work creating some amazing masterpieces!

3rd graders at Grand View, East, and West have been working on their Warm/Cool Cityscapes this week. (Thanks Mr. Leonard for this great project idea!) This project combines watercolor painting with printmaking to create amazing silhouettes of cities.

Here is an example of a finished piece.

Warm/Cool Cityscape, Miss O'Donnell's example

The students first folded their papers in half to create an area for the sky and the water. They then learned how to blend Warm colors together to create a beautiful sunset sky. The Warm colors that they used were Red, Orange, and Yellow.

Here's what they looked like after the first day.

Sunsets painted with Warm colors

The next day of class students painted the water using Cool colors. The Cool colors they used were Blue, Purple, and just a hint of Green. They used a different painting technique for the water. Instead of using long brush strokes from left to right, they tried using small shaky brushstrokes to create 'ripples' in the water.

Here's what they looked like after the second day.

Water painted with Cool colors

The next step was for students to create their cities. Students first sketched their cities on paper and then transferred the cities onto Scratch-Foam. Scratch-Foam is a thin piece of foam that you can press a drawing into and then roll ink onto and stamp. They made sure to press hard so that their drawing would transfer nicely. Once their city was drawn and their 'stamp' was cut out they were ready to print!

One by one, students could go to the printing station with their foam stamps and painted backgrounds. We rolled black printing ink onto their city stamps and then pressed them firmly onto the sunset sky. When we removed the foam, the city was revealed! Then while the ink was still wet, we folded the paper in half and pressed firmly. When we opened up the papers the city was then reflected in the water!

Here are some student's prints. They came out so great!!!

Warm/Cool Cityscape

These came out great, I am so proud of my 3rd graders! We'll take next week to finish these up, but so far about 1/3 of my 3rd graders are finished. Keep up the good work guys!

Thanks for taking time to check on The Art Spot today!

-Miss O'Donnell