Henri Rousseau Jungles!

My second grade art students had a great time learning about Henri Rousseau. We learned about his life and asked the question - "How do artists surroundigs effect their art work?"  What they thought at the beginning of the lesson was very different than the ideas we ended up with!  Rousseau never saw a jungle in real life. He lived as a customs inspector in France and didn't even start painting until he was 40 years old!  Rousseau used pictures and plants that he could find to help him get inspiration for his art.

How do we find our inspiration today? Well....I would say Pinterest right now since that is where the idea for this lesson came from. Technology can take us right to the jungle even without leaving our classroom. We used Google earth to travel from Atlanta, Georgia to Africa where we could explore more in depth what a jungle might look like.  We used photographs of animals and their habitats on our interactive white board and spent some time discovering what basic shapes we could use to draw our own animals.

When the initial drawings were finished students painted their animals using realistic colors. We went back in with crayon and tissue paper to create our animal habitats. Just like Rousseau we tried to have our art filled with jungle!

I was thrilled that the students had such great success drawing the different kinds of animals. There was no limitation to what they could choose and the variety was excellent. Using the basic shapes to begin our drawings helped my students feel confident that they could draw the animal realistically without every student having to make the same animal.  I love seeing them so proud of their work!

Want to add a little more technology fun to this lesson? Check out the National Gallery of Art and create your own exotic jungle online!

Wolf Kahn

Wolf Kahn

View more presentations from thecrayonlab.

My second graders studied spacial concepts in the art room this week. Learning how to create depth is often a big leap for them. We used methods that included overlapping, size, placement, foreground, middle ground, background, and horizon line. I chose Wolf Kahn for this art lesson because I love his work so much and felt like his vibrant use of colors and repetition would really excite my students as well. We had fun! Here are some of our BEAUTIFUL landscapes!

Elizabeth Murray Lesson

Elizabeth Murray, was a New York painter who reshaped Modernist abstraction into a high-spirited, cartoon-based, language of form. Her subjects often included domestic life, relationships and the nature of painting itself. My 2nd graders were very inspired by this lesson and my student teacher did an excellent job of teaching it! Here are some of our comic inspired animals.

If you would like to learn more about artist Elizabeth Murray check our some of these great resources at PBS.

Color Schemes

Choosing color schemes are lots of fun! Second graders have been studying warm, cool, and neutral color schemes along with geometric and organic shapes. They really know their stuff!














You can see their fabulous geometric/organic shaped leaves in progress  - can you guess the color scheme these students are using?  Go here for a fun online color scheme generator and make your own!

Vincent van Gogh

The second and third graders are studying the artist Vincent van Gogh in the art room right now. They love hearing the life story of this very interesting and world famous artist. Did you know that van Gogh never sold a single painting while he was alive? Now his paitnings sell for hundreds of millions of dollars! He painted many self-portraits and not until recently did we know what he really looked like. Go here to see a recently found photograph that they believe is Vincent van Gogh! The Metropolitan Museum of Art also has a fun interactive website about him - check it out here.

How Do I Get Graded?

Hello Parents:
I am Jennifer Heyser, your child's art teacher at Woodland. I would like to explain to you how your child is graded in art. Children will receive a subject grade and a conduct grade in art four times a year.

Art Education in Fulton County is based on an approach known as Discipline-Based Art Education (DBAE). It is important to understand we do not grade children's artwork, rather, we grade art learning. Discipline-based art education draws its contents from four areas of instruction:
1) Art Production (making art)
2) Art History (exploring artistic heritage of many cultures)
3) Art Criticism (analyzing the qualities and features of art)
4) Aesthetics (thinking about art and making well-reasoned judgements about art)

Evaluating progress in art education is complex. Evaluating artistic growth in artistic expression, art knowledge, skills mastered, and attitudes enriched, as well as conduct and social behavior in the art class, can provide a profile of your child's total progress in art and help me guide him/her to further growth. A variety of ways are used to assess progress at the elementary level, such as quizzes, demonstration, discussion, sketchbooks, and my own observations.

It is important to keep in mind that it is not your child's artwork that is being graded, but your child's progress in art learning. If you have any questions about our art education program, please do not hesitate to contact me at school. Thank you! We are going to have an excellent school year!

Welcome Back!

Welcome back to the art room for another exciting year!