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!
