Owls

All of my K-6 students worked on owls this week using different mediums and focusing on different media and/or concepts.  Take a look at what my kiddos have been learning.....

GRADE 6:  We focused on REALISM.  I gave my students photographs of owls and they chose one to draw in pencil.  We talked about how to create the feathers using hatching and cross hatching with a black sharpie.  We used vine charcoal to create the gray values.  Drawing is just "seeing" and I encouraged them to really look at the lines and shapes in the photographs.  They were amazed at what they actually could see and record!

GRADE 5:  Here we talked about the concept of STYLIZING.  An image that is stylized looks like the object (an owl), but is designed using interesting ideas with shapes and lines.  We drew the contour of the owl and designed the interior of the owl.  Watercolor pencils were used over the black sharpie work, and a little water gave these that "painterly" look!

GRADE 4:  These owls were done on black paper with oil pastels.  Our focus with this lesson was layering the colors and VISUAL TEXTURE.  I challenged them to use lines to create the "feathery" look on the owl.  The layering off the oil pastels produces such a rich, yummy color!

GRADE 3:  We drew simple owls and used a texture plate in the background to create the cool patterns.  We used the educational watercolors which has 18 beautiful colors to choose from.  The colors in these were student's choice.

GRADE 2:  We used some of the painted papers we did on the first day of school for these backgrounds and students drew and cut out there owls, branches and leaves.  This mixed media project ended with a paint treatment using the end of a brush to create the white dots.

GRADE 1:  Letter Owls!  Again, we used some of the fun painted papers we made and used the letter U to make the owls body.  The letter B was for the eyes, the letter D for the wings, and the letter O for the whites of the eyes.  We used black marker to outline and construction paper crayons for the color on our dark backgrounds.  Cutting and gluing was a skill we practiced on these collages.  Collage is a french word which means to "paste".  Cute, cute, cute!!

GRADE K:  These owls were done as a directed drawing.  I asked my kindies to look and "see" all the shapes and lines that were used to build this drawing.  They did an amazing job of "seeing"!  We also worked on filling the entire page with color and I showed them how to do a little blending with colors.  They loved using the texture plates in the background!

Lines Everywhere!

Students in grades 3-4-5 created these beginning of the year line projects.  Grade 3:  We personalized the work by using our own hands as inspiration.

The 4th graders chose a letter and they created beautiful line designs in the background.

And my 5th graders stacked words that described them, hobbies or their name and created gorgeous backgrounds with black sharpie.

New Adventures

Last spring I picked up a little bench for $5 at one of our local thrift stores.  I spent some time painting this cute thing for my new art loft.  It was very relaxing for me!

Here are a couple of pictures of the 100 year old historic building we bought in the urban core, approximately 8 blocks from downtown Kansas City.  My husband and I plan to make this our live/work forever space!  It is four stories high with over 1000 sq. ft. per floor.  My art loft will be on the top floor with a gorgeous view of downtown KC!  I am calling my studio  "Studio 67" because there are 67 steps to the top floor.  Boy will I stay in shape!!  It is my hope to create and offer classes in this amazing space.  Our hope is to be in by this Thanksgiving!

We are trying to keep the interior and as much brick as possible to keep the integrity of this 100 year old beauty!  We poured concrete floors on the main level and will stain those soon!