Grade 1: Monet Bridge

Monet's Japanese Bridge  and Water Lilies one of my favorite Monet paintings and my first graders put an awesome spin on the famous painting picking a bridge color of their own and swirling their paint colors to make mesmerizing backgrounds.

Grade 3: Toucans

Way to Go!!! Each of my third graders created one of their most amazing art pieces of the year in this project. We learned SO much about toucans, their habitat and what they eat. They also did an incredible job of using oil pastels and paint. The angles on some of these pictures are a bit off because I photographed them while hanging in the display case. Each toucan has so much personality. I love how creative the third graders got in designing the beaks and backgrounds. I can't wait for you to see the rest of the toucans when they are sent home!

Grade 1: Finished Cats

Back in early March I blogged about the start of a cat portrait project that I started with 1st graders. They have been hanging in the hallway for quite some time...here are the finished portraits.
We talked about Paul Klee's "Cat and Bird" painting and had a few giggles discussing the cat sitting there with a bird on top of it's head. My first graders are quite silly so we are matched well.

"Cat and Bird" by Paul Klee

From the original 3/11/2013 post

Grade 2: Pastel Castles

If only they were life sized.... I would love to travel and visit some of these castles that my second graders in Mrs. Lopez's class created. They combined simple shapes after examining pictures of castles. 

They became expect pastel blenders to create these beautiful compositions. 

Making Mosaic Murals with Isaiah Zagar

Zagar using up leftover grout

This past weekend I spent two full days in Philadelphia creating a mosaic mural on Montrose St. with mosaic master Isaiah Zagar and roughly a dozen others. The experience was incredible. We started a mural from scratch in a parking lot that needed beautification. By 4pm on Sunday afternoon, we had completed our mural and were back at his warehouse saying goodbyes. Zagar is such a kind and inspiring artist. His two studios are incredible and he is one of the most prolific artists I've met. I will post again about my experience once I've had more time to reflect. Here are some pictures:

Such a great team

grouting the lower portion...my back hurts

my shoes and grout bucket :-)

Arbor Day Mosaic

Here is a picture of a mosaic that was made by a group of students who wanted to stay in at recess. We submitted it for the Township Arbor Day contest and received special recognition and a PIZZA PARTY! 

We are very excited because when we completed this mosaic, we knew that we created something beautiful for our school...so a pizza party is icing on the cake!

A Bear Tavern 5th grader named Shea won 1st Place in the Arbor Day art contest. What awesome kids I teach.

I am looking forward to getting this mosaic back to Bear Tavern. (It is at the municipal building right now). It is definitely one of my very favorite pieces that we created.

Bear Tavern Earth Day 2013

What a chilly, windy Earth Day! We stayed mostly inside to create art for Earth Day with the exception of some classes drawing on the pavement with sidewalk chalk.

I am a huge fan of green art and using everyday materials to create installations. Our bottlecap mural a few years ago was our first "green" installation at Bear Tavern. We collected caps for 8 months before creating our bottlecap mural.

This year, we created mandalas heavily inspired by artist Virginia Fleck. We aimed to reduce the amount of plastic bags going into the ground by reusing them to create several wonderful mandalas. Our school community brought in an extraordinary amount of beautifully colored plastic bags that were cut up for the kids to use today.

Virginia Fleck is so inspiring. She's such a nice woman and I am looking forward to sending her some pictures of our finished designs.

We also snuck in some large leaf paintings towards the end of the day.
I really love all of the art created today and am glad that I can restore the art room to "normalcy". For the past week I've had plastic bags all over getting them prepped for the kids today.

I felt pretty happy to hear students say things like "I want to be an art teacher when I grow up!" and "This was so much fun!"
Some people wonder why I do so many projects each year and the answer is "because it's my job...and I love art".
 Thank you to the parents who volunteered their time today and to the staff who assisted in prepping for the event... I couldn't have managed with out you...thanks for making today a fun one for our kids!

Leaf painting....I'm in love

I love this leaf painting

3rd grade boys laying out strips

Students working on a mandala with help from Mrs. Majkowski

Students brainstorming ideas

Virginia Fleck "Dot Mandala"