Happy New Year From the ARTISTS WORKSHOP

There are varied projects in progress, and starting in Art Classes as we kick off the year. Fifth graders are completing  woven pouches. These are part of their Social Studies “Trade Fair”. It is a challenging project, but end of the year conversations with prior classes reliably contain comments about it being their favorite( or one of), and yes, I should do it again.  The students of 4T have done circular weavings. They are hanging on the wall as you go up the ramp near the Art/Music Room. The 3/4 class have done rectangular weavings, which go home/have gone home after a sketch is done in their sketchbooks.  Basic, guided collage landscapes have been created by Kindies that are also on the wall  near the Art/Music room.  Using staplers and paper punches are part of this project, and prove to be effective tools. Also, 1O, and 1/2 Y created  winter landscapes of their own design. Some made reindeer by tracing their hands, and cut triangle trees, but many just had their own plans. The students of 2S did paper snowflakes last week and will be looking at some winter landscapes to enhance with more snowflakes. I take photos as much as possible, and post some to www.artistworkshop.blogspot.com

Survey Information

Thank you for the great response to the survey that went home with the report cards in December. I made several interesting discoveries, and plan on addressing some in upcoming Wednesday letters, as well as this one.

First, AWTGH stands for Art Work To Go Home. And yes all of their art work does go home, most of it is in portfolios that go home in June. The AWTGH pieces are small, specifically created pieces that fit in sleeves for their protection and go home at the time of  report cards for Trimesters 1 & 2. Since they are small,  the momentum allows trying, and comparing a variety of media. One  class session is devoted to planning, by talking about and doing thumbnail sketches of their ideas. These AWTGH  planning papers will be included in their final folders in June.

ART WORDS

After I saw that few students were using art language in sharing, I have renewed an emphasis on presenting/reviewing vocabulary as part of each class. They see it in writing, read it, and write it in their sketchbooks. Recent words include weaving, tapestry, loom, warp, weft, ( 3/4 W, 4T &5th),  3S also discussed weaving, pattern and 3- dimensional in relation to the baskets they took home in December. Watercolor, and still-life are the next words related to this project.  K-2 saw, read, and many wrote landscape, collage. Background, and foreground were part of the lesson for 1/2Y and 2S. Introductory work with sculpture and 3-dimensional were connected to work with blocks for KD, KG and 1O. As with any vocabulary work, they need to see, write and use them several times as well as having personal experience with the meanings before they “own” the words.