Toy Design

With the onset of the winter holidays children are truly interested in one thing and one thing only: toys. I thought this would be a perfect time/ season to introduce a new career in the arts- Toy Design. After talking about where toys come from, and pushing my students beyond the concept that all toys are made in the North Pole by elves and delivered by Santa, we were able to have some real fun. I explained that Toy Designers start their careers the way any artist does. They practice drawing, then they create their designs/ blueprints, and then they build their toys. We then practiced all those different elements ourselves. Students drew toys from observation- paying special attention to how the toy works, details, and any gears the toys may have. Here are some images of our observational drawings.

Snowy Day Art

After reading "The Snowy Day" by Ezra Keats, I talked with the class about cool colors. We talked about our favorite things to do on snowy days and then created drawings based on those memories. We outlined our drawings in oil pastel and did a resist with watercolors. At the end of class the students used glitter to show how the snow sometimes sparkles.

Sea Creatures: Second Grade

Second graders created sea creatures through collage. First we studied the images of the sea creatures and then we drew our sea creatures on a regular piece of paper. After our creatures were drawn I showed the class how to "draw with scissors." We worked on cutting out the main shape of the fish and then adding little details and patterns with other pieces of paper.

Sea Creatures: Fist and Kindergarten

We studied many different types of sea creatures for this project, including the Hairy Angler fish who has a light on her head. Students then took their favorite aspects from the sea creatures and created their own.

NYC Bridges

The Second Graders learned about warm and cool colors this month. We studied images of the NYC's Bridges, and created our own art based on those images. We drew the bridges with pencil, outlined them with warm colored oil pastels, cut them out, and then painted our backgrounds using cool colors. Once the backgrounds were complete, the second grade artists added details to their backgrounds with cool and warm colored oil pastels. Take a look at the final results...

Water Lilies

The Kindergarten classes collaborated on creating two giant (70" X 40") murals based on Claude Monet's Water Lily series. After looking at images of Monet's water lily painting in the MoMA, the Kindergarten class decided they would like to try and create a mural of their own. We are planning on using our mural for a backdrop at our school's Winter Wonderland show. It's dramatic, peaceful, and delicate. Here are some images of how we got to the final product.

Plein Air Fun

Thanks to the donors at Donors Choose, our art studio is now equipped with Plein Air Sketch Boards! We got to take those boards for a spin this month, and it was really fun getting out of the art studio to make observations...just like Claude Monet.