Aloha Family and Friends of MPI!
After a long July Fourth weekend, the students went right back to work as they dedicated this week to making glove puppets, sock puppets, and masks to share with the students at assembly on Friday.
On Tuesday, the kindergartners created a rough sketch of what they wanted to put onto their glove puppets. I encouraged the students to use each finger to represent their favorite characters. Some of the students chose Hello Kitty, Pokemon, while others created their own characters such as animals.
The first graders created a sketch of their sock puppets, creating characters to represent themselves. Many of the students wanted to put costumes onto their sock, while others wanted to create a pattern on the body.
The second through fifth graders created a sketch of their masks. I encouraged the students to make the masks represent something about themselves, whether it be their culture or something they like to do. The students got creative as they drew their favorite foods, hobbies, and animals.
On Wednesday, the students began to decorate their items. The students used pompom balls, feathers, googly eyes, sequins, pipe cleaners, felt, foam sheets, and other materials to embellish their gloves and socks. The second through fifth graders used this time to cast their masks by placing sheets of plaster gauze over a pre-made plastic mask to create a mold.
On Thursday, the students continued to decorate and finish their gloves, socks, and masks. The students were patient as they carefully planned what they wanted to decorate their items with, and waited patiently for an adult to assist them with the hot glue gun. The older students painted their masks usying acrylic paint, and I noticed many who got creative as they adorned their masks with some of their favorite things.
On Friday, the kindergartners worked on creating self-portraits using the screen printing technique, before heading down to the assembly in the dining room. The kindergartners shared their gloves with the class, while the first graders shared what their socks represented. Finally, the second through fifth graders shared their masks, showing their peers what types of pictures they placed onto their masks and how to wear a mask. After the students were treated to popsicles by Mrs. Hussey, the second through fifth graders returned to the Art Cottage to work on their self-portraits using charcoal. Many of the students were not familiar with using charcoal, so it became a fun and memorable experience for them.
In closing, I want to reach out to all the students, families, and staff for making this summer a memorable experience for me. Thank you for providing me with the chance to trust your children in my hands and for giving me the opportunity to share my knowledge with the students. Although I was not able to meet and thank each of you for your support, I am truly grateful for being granted the opportunity to work at Mid-Pacific. It was a pleasure working with all of you, and I wish all of you a safe and happy rest of the summer. Mahalo nui loa.
Happy Independence Day to the family and friends of MPI!
This week was truly eventful for the students as they learned the different styles and techniques of various artists.
On Monday, the kindergartners practiced George Seurat's technique of pointillism by using Q-tips dipped in watercolor to create their pointillism image. The students were patient as they carefully created images of their favorite outdoor place. The students also learned to blend various colors to make their picture stand out. Some of the pictures they created included the ocean, the pool, and the park.
The first graders participated in a similar activity, creating their favorite outdoor place using Van Gough's technique of stroking and blending with watercolors. The students showed their creative flair by painting images of the beach, the pool, by the lake, and their yard.
The second through fifth graders studied the art of landscapes by taking a nature walk outside, finding aspects of a landscape, and sketching their own image of a landscape. The students sketched many environmental features including trees, flowers, plants, and mountains. The students then colored their picture using various colors of oil pastels.
On Tuesday, the kindergartners studied about cityscapes and used various colors of construction paper to create their own city. The students used different shapes to create their structure, using circles for the moon, and squares, rectangles, and triangles for the buildings. Some of the students also included their own detail by adding cars, traffic lights, houses, and stars to their city.
The first graders also created their own cityscape image by using crayons to sketch their city, overlapping the image with watercolor to create a crayon resist image. Some of the students created cities they had previously visited such as New York and Washington.
The second through fifth graders created their cityscape images using colored pastels. The students added detail by looking at various images of cities. I encouraged the students to blend the colors using their fingers to rub in different colors. One of the students even added a humorous little detail of a red truck labeled, "Free Hot Dogs!" to his city.
On Wednesday, the kindergartners participated in a discussion on action words, or verbs. The students came up with words such as running, jumping, dancing, and swimming. The students then worked with model magic clay to create an animal depicting an action of their choice. The students created mice carrying blocks of cheese, dogs crawling, people swimming, and cats skipping.
The first graders also created sculptures of themselves performing an action using air dry clay.
The second through fifth graders used pipe cleaners, aluminum foil, and plaster gauze to create their sculptures. Many of the students enjoyed this activity and were excited to use plaster gauze for the first time. The students were patient as they dipped each strip of plaster gauze into water to mold into a sculpture. Some of the students created sculptures of themselves swimming, dancing, singing, and bending.
On Thursday, the kindergartners created drawings of their sculpture using crayons, colored pencils, and markers. They carefully observed their clay creations as they created a still image of their sculptures.
The first through fifth graders continued to finish their sculptures by using acrylic paint to coat their creations.
On Friday, the students participated in activities celebrating the upcoming Fourth of July weekend. The kindergartners created a straw-blown image of red, white, and blue fireworks using tempera paint. The students also decorated their pictures with dabs of glitter to resemble the fireworks "sparkle."
The first through fifth graders made patriotic tissue paper flowers. The students practiced folding, cutting, and gently spread the tissue paper to create their beautiful flowers.
I hope the students will celebrate by sharing their wonderfully-made creations with you this fourth of July weekend. Have a safe and enjoyable one!
Aloha family and friends of MPI!
On Monday, the kindergartners continued to finish their shape leis as they sketched out patterns, used construction paper to cut out various shapes, and strung beads to make their leis.
The first graders participated in making their plantable cards. The students helped their classmates by tearing up recycled paper and were enthusiastic as they chose vegetable seeds to place into their plantable paper.
The second through fifth graders participated in creating marbled art. We discussed the different form it takes by using water and colors to create a different shape. The students worked cooperatively as they filled up the trays with water, took turns selecting the colors they wanted to marbleize, and made sure each other got a chance to create their marbled paper. The students got creative and not only made marbled paper but also cards, postcards, bookmarks, and origami cranes. One of the second graders decided it would be a nice gift to give our principal, Mrs. Hussey an appreciation card out of the marbleized paper.
On Tuesday, the kindergartners worked on creating abstract art by blowing watercolor paint on paper using straws. The students were excited to see the effect of straw blowing and were amazed to see their multicolored firework-like creations.
The first graders took part in making the marbleized paper as they worked in groups to make their creations.
The second through fifth graders took a brief nature walk to the garden outside and gathered various leaves and flowers to press and make prints. The students chose their favorite plants, lay it accordingly on watercolor paper, covered it with paper towel, and used a hammer to create a print of their plant. The result was a light, delicate print on watercolor paper. The students enjoyed making prints using this well-known Japanese technique.
On Wednesday, the kindergartners further investigated their study about shapes by creating their own family by drawing shapes using markers and colored pencils.
The first graders studied about form as we discussed the difference between a triangle and a pyramid. One student exclaimed that a triangle was more "flat and 2D" while the pyramid was more "pointy and 3D." The students then made their own pyramid by cutting, gluing, and decorating their paper. The students were excited to share the unique designs of their pyramids with their peers. One student exclaimed that this was his favorite activity so far.
The second through fifth graders participated in a discussion about warm and cool colors. Through previous knowledge, many of the students already knew about the warm colors (red, orange, yellow) and the cool colors (green, blue, purple). The students then took a paper divided into quarters and labeled each box all warm, mostly warm, all cool, mostly cool. The students then looked through magazines to cut out images of warm or cool colors to create a color collage.
On Thursday, the kindergartners worked in various centers by completing activities such as their shape leis, straw blowing watercolor art, and their family picture using shapes.
The first graders participated in a small pair activity by using modeling clay to study about various forms and 3D shapes. The students used the clay to make models of animals using 3D shapes such as spheres, pyramids, cones, cylinders, and cubes. Many of the students used their imagination and cognitive skills by creating animals such as whales, sharks, elephants, owls, and snakes.
The second through fifth graders continued to work on their warm color/cool color collage. The students also started to create their own warm color/cool color contrasting image. The students outlined an original image and colored in 1-inch diagonal squares using either the warm color or cool color for the image and background. They made various shapes such as hearts, letters, stingrays, and moons.
Here's to another fun week at summer art camp!
Aloha Friends and Family of MPI! This week has proven to be another successful week for the students as they began to familiarize themselves in their environment.
On Monday, the kindergartners continued to learn about shapes by going on a shape search in the classroom. The students found and identified various shapes such as circles, triangles, squares, and rectangles to draw. After the activity, the students shared what they found around the classroom with the class.
The first graders also participated in the shape-search
activity, following with another activity where they created images out of circles,
triangles, and squares. The students showed their creative flair by using the
shapes as parts of their image. Some of the students used circles as wheels,
triangles as stop signs, and squares for the bases of houses. The students then
shared their work with the class.
The second graders worked on creating screen prints of their favorite animal by using tempera paint. One of the students created a family of birds as her screen print image.
The third through fifth graders took a brief nature walk to the mini garden next to the Art Room. The students picked their favorite plant to develop their sketching skills. This activity also provided students with the opportunity to practice drawing still-life images.
On Tuesday, the kindergartners created images using shapes out of construction paper and shared their examples with the class.
The first graders worked on texture painting with tempera paint by using different media to create various textures. The students used plastic forks, knives, brushes, and sponges to create their paintings. I encouraged students to create different styles of their painting by incorporating assorted colors and media.
The second graders worked on creating seascape art by brainstorming about the different types of sea creatures that live in the ocean. We also brainstormed what kinds of things would be in the outside environment of the ocean. The students then drew an outline of a sea creature, placing images of the outside environment on the inside, while they placed images of the inside environment around the outline.
The third through fifth graders used the sketches they made on Monday to create watercolor images. The students practiced using the watercolor palettes and defined their brush strokes skills. They also practiced using watercolor colored pencils by outlining the images with the medium and using a brush to fill in the area with color.
On Wednesday, the students engaged in a discussion on Van Gough and studied his still life paintings of sunflowers. The students were able to use real sunflowers as inspiration for their artwork for Father's Day. As we discussed the work of Van Gough's still-life paintings, I asked the students how they felt when they observed his painting of sunflowers. Some of the students expressed feelings of happiness from the bright and vivid colors of the sunflowers. One of the students was curious to know why Van Gough was an unhappy individual, and we engaged in a deep discussion of why he might have felt that way. Some of the students theorized that it was because he was not as famous as he is today since he had only sold one painting during his life.
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The kindergartners used torn construction paper to outline a sunflower template to create torn paper art. The students worked patiently as they carefully tore small pieces of construction paper to create a textured image.
The first graders participated in a similar activity as the kindergartners torn-paper art. The first graders used tissue paper to create a soft textured image of their sunflower. They also worked diligently as they carefully placed glue onto the paper as they waited for the tissue paper to dry. The students developed their fine-motor skills by engaging in this hands-on activity.
The second graders drew sketches of the sunflowers and used watercolor colored pencils to create a watercolor postcard for their father for Father's Day.
The third through fifth graders participated in creating still life paintings of the sunflowers by using oil paint on canvases. The students practiced their sketching skills as well as their painting skills with this activity.
On Thursday, the students continued to finish their sunflower projects in time for Father's Day. The second graders as well as the third through fifth graders participated in creating plantable paper by using recycled construction paper and newspaper in the classroom, blending it with water and planting seeds into the paper. The students were excited to make their plantable paper as they used vegetable seeds such as carrots, lettuce, and basil to place into their paper.
On Friday, the students will finish their sunflower projects to present to their fathers. We will also continue to make our plantable paper to make into plantable greeting cards. The students are truly progressing as they develop their skills in becoming a true artist.
Happy Father's Day to all the wonderful fathers!
Appi Yashiro
Summer School - Art Camp
Email: ayashiro@midpac.edu
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Questions? Call Kaili OConnell 973-5051
or email kailioconnell@midpac.edu
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