Lines in Motion

Line is one of the seven elements of art. Students in fourth and fifth grade brainstormed a list of lines including spiral, straight, dotted, zig-zag, curved, wavy and dashed. We also discussed silhouettes and symmetry. Students were asked to cut a symmetrical shape of a flying creature or object from black paper and then imagine if they could see the wind behind the flying creature or object, what would it look like? Student used pencil, sharpie and craypas to create the wind behind their silhouettes. One bird (above) apparently hit his head, resulting in a looping, crazy line design!
This lesson was inspired by an image on the art education site Artsonia.

Beach Treasure Relief Sculptures

In October the entire school and staff went on a field trip to Totman Cove. Students spent the day doing yoga, having writing workshops and exploring the beach. During their explorations students gathered materials to use in an art project. Students were offered a variety of materials, including oil pastels and tempera paint, to create relief sculptures. Students could use any subject matter, make an actual scene or create an abstract design. Some objects were adhered with glue, while others required the use of a glue gun. Glue guns are adult only and I managed to only burn myself once! The results had a lot variety and imagination!

 

Line Prints

 

In this Line Prints lesson, second graders used two forms of media, styrofoam printmaking and craypas, to create a beautiful multi-media piece. We are using learning targets in art his year. A learning target is a statement is a "I can" statement telling students what they will be learning during their art lesson. The learning target for this lesson was "I can use a variety of media to create lines." Line is one of the seven elements of art. A wonderful artist, Walter Anderson, had a philosophy that if a person knew how to draw seven basic lines (straight, curved, zig-zag, wavy, spiral, dotted and dash) they could draw anything. To practice creating lines, students were asked to draw the seven lines on a piece of styrofoam. They were encouraged to experiment with repetition a varying the lines. 

After they had incised the styrofoam plates, we printed! Students enjoyed using the brayers and ink to ink to prepare the plates and printing them. Once they were dry, the lines of the print were extended to the edge of the page and filled in with craypas. The results were gorgeous!

This lesson was inspired by an image seen on the art educational site Artsonia.

Welcome Back!

Welcome back to the Phippsburg Elementary art room! We have had a great start here in the art room. Students have been drawing, painting, and creating collages already.
First, I'd like to introduce myself to our new families. My name is Romy Polizotto and I have been teaching art at Phippsburg Elementary School for 18 years. In my art classes, students experience a variety of media and subject matter. We do creative (and fun) projects that teach students the skills they need to produce art, introduce them to art history and gets the creative juices flowing! Projects do get messy, but we have art shirts available in the art room. Students are also welcome to bring their own. Third and fourth grade has art on Mondays and grades K, 1, 2, 3, and 5 have art on Fridays. I will be posting projects we do during the year at all grade levels. I hope you come back often to see what is happening in the Phippsburg art room.

Fabulous Facades

In March members of the Sagadahoc Preservation Society visited the art room to teach fourth graders about local architecture. Students learned the architectural details and styles of Italianate, Colonial, Federal, Greek Revival, and Queen Anne homes found in Sagadahoc county. Part of the presentation was viewing beautiful models of homes created by SPI member Judy Mansfield.  After the presentation, students used their new knowledge to create a clay relief of a house facade.  Rather than choosing a particular style, students were asked to become the architect and design an original facade using at least two architectural features they learned.  The sculptures had fanlights, shiplap, gabled and hip roofs...the combination of elements made for some fantastic facades!

Fishy Watercolors

Students are helping raise money to fund RSU #1's swim program. Each fall third and fourth graders are brought to the Bath YMCA to take swim lessons. This program is supported through private donations and local fundraising. Since the swim lessons are intended to teach students to swim like fish, we created 5X7 images using oil pastels and watercolors of fish. We were inspired by a Maine artist, Karla Gerard. Our goal was to create simple, colorful images. The images above were created by second graders, who will benefit from the program next year and the ones below by fifth graders. These one of a kind watercolors will be on sale at a fundraiser this summer!

Portraits of Zorba

For two weeks, our school is participating in the event, "One Book, One School." During this event the whole school gathers in the gym each morning and is read one or two chapters of the book, The Story of a Seagull and the Cat Who Taught Her to Fly by Luis Sepulveda. In the story the main character is a big, fat, black cat named Zorba. Zorba has a difficult job in the story. She has to raise an orphaned seagull chick and teach it to fly! Not an easy task for a cat. 

Third graders created clay portraits of Zorba. The body of Zorba is an upside down pinch pot. Legs and tails were attached by scoring the two pieces of clay. Students used clay tools to add faces, claws and other details to their cat portrait. The cats are drying and will be fired in the kiln next week. The third graders look forward to glazing them.

 Learning Targets for week one of this project are:

1) I can use pinching and pulling techniques to create a cat from clay.

2) I can attach two pieces of clay together using scoring techniques.

Wocket in My Pocket

There's a Wocket in My Pocket! What??? Anyone who has every read Dr. Suess knows he had an incredible imagination! His book, There's a Wocket in My Pocket illustrates that imagination perfectly. In the book, a young boy lives in a house with all kinds of characters-big, small, friendly and scary. While first graders read the story we noticed that Dr. Suess' characters did share some characteristics. They were furry, had crazy hair, and long necks. Their bodies came in all shapes and sizes. After reading the story students drew their own crazy character. They painted them with tempera paint and then outlined them with black so we could see all the awesome details. The backgrounds were made using crayons and textured rubbing plates. The final touch was to give a name to their character.

The inspiration for this project was found at TeachKidsArt.

One Fish, Two Fish

March 2 is Theodore Geisel Suess, aka Dr. Suess', birthday! To celebrate second grade listened to the story One Fish, Two Fish. While looking at the illustrations students noticed that he used black outlines in his illustrations and some of his fish swam like regular fish, while some were standing. His fish were also a variety of colors. They began their project by drawing the fish as big as possible on their paper with black crayon, including details. Bright tempera paint colors were used to paint the fish. When it dried, they outlined their crayon lines with black craypas and cut out their fish. Their backgrounds were made my cutting a variety of lines from red construction paper. The red and white pattern is a reflection of Dr. Suess' most famous book, The Cat in the Hat. The results were a beautiful and a great tribute to Dr. Suess.

The idea for the this project was found at Deep Space Sparkle.