art ed digested » students

Talking about Children’s Artwork

evalenza — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 15:07:38 +0000

Personality shines through

evalenza — Mon, 19 May 2008 15:04:35 +0000

As the self-portraiture unit draws to a close, I can’t stop looking at these amazing in-process paintings. I am in awe, yet not surprised, at the creativity, skills and energy that our third graders have poured into their work.

In reference to a previous post, in which I sung the praises of risk-taking, this was a major risk. I had never done self-portraiture on this level with students so young before, and they had never attempted an acrylic painting this structured. Despite my fears, my students happily rallied to attack this challenge! (Note to self: don’t fear challenges with this group any longer!)

I’m tempted to put them on display, just as they are now:

Many more in the gallery!

Finished Community Tapestries!

evalenza — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 02:15:17 +0000

Here are some thumbnails of the finished tapestries on the loom, with and without embellishments. The images on the left are from the elementary students, the ones on the right are from preschool.

Our One-Drawing-A-Day exhibition was even more successful than I could have hoped. Jazz music filled the air, students and their parents mingled with teachers and sipped sparkling grape juice. Each participant had a comment sheet next to their work, and our guests were specific and generous with their compliments and comments. I am so proud of everyone who took the challenge!

Weaving with a community

evalenza — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 03:09:22 +0000

Sarah Haskell has just arrived at Kingsley to begin her Artist-In-Residence weaving for the month of February. The students at the preschool building went wild for the new loom and the colorful materials we’ll be using. It’s always exciting to see very young students dive into an array of bright, textured mixed media materials… despite the minor chaos that ensues. I enjoyed making little clothespin people with the elementary students and watching the details they chose to add. One student gave her clothespin person a mohawk made of felt, another made a shirtless boy with a fishing pole, and one even made a scooter out of pipe cleaners and shirt buttons for her clothespin person to ride.

I started a time-lapse video of the whole process, and will be slowly compiling two movies, one for the preschool building and one for the elementary building. We’ll see if I’ve got enough gigs on my laptop to continue this for the next two and a half weeks! If I can pull it off, it should be a lot of fun to watch, although I won’t be able to share it on the web, for the privacy of my lovely students.

Gargoyles, or alter-egos?

evalenza — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 15:57:37 +0000

This is a group of finished gargoyles made by the second grade, and I still cannot get over how amusing they are! I’ve taken them out over and over the past few days and just giggled.

More remarkable, is that some of the most grotesque of the gargoyles were made by the students who are very soft-spoken and sweet tempered. This makes me wonder what’s going on under that serene demeanor! Kids are complicated creatures.

An argument for color

evalenza — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 14:14:49 +0000

We have just completed our Hundertwasser Illuminated Landscape project, in which students abstracted the forms of a landscape drawing to warp and twist it into something dream-like and surreal. They then applied their knowledge of color theory to working the drawing in oil pastels, finally using gold paint to add small areas of emphasis.

I love introducing Hundertwasser to students who have never seen his work before. Without fail there are awed “ooohs” and “ahhhhs” throughout the room. These oil pastels, however, give me the same emotion.

I love looking at these, the combination of saturated color, black background and gold highlights is so rich!

For full sized images, check out the flickr gallery.

A sneak-peak of new work!

evalenza — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 15:55:59 +0000

Check the flickr link to the right for more work!

A Finished Product!

evalenza — Wed, 09 May 2007 03:56:57 +0000

Download:

First Grade Kandinsky Watercolors

evalenza — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 13:52:34 +0000

And now, as promised, some wonderful paintings by my first graders:

Stop-motion demo

evalenza — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 21:01:58 +0000

Our third graders started their stop-motion preparations today, making backdrops, creating storyboards and dance moves for their puppets. Here’s a very quick example that using one of the student puppets and my demo puppet:

View Google Full Screen

(includes what not to do- my hands make too many cameos! must practice more!)