Twas the Night Before Christmas Break and All Through the Art Room......

 The kiln is fixed!  The kiln is fixed!  And finally the rest of the 6th grade ceramic leaves have emerged.  They look so beautiful laid out next to each other.

7th Grade Ceramic and Glass Angels are loaded in the kiln and will be ready to add glass as soon as we return from break!

8th Grade Torn Paper Portraits are now on display in the Art Room.  I will be moving these to the main hallway when we return from break.  They take my breathe away they are so amazing!  So much time and attention to detail went into these.  It blows my mind that these were done by 8th graders.

6th Graders are continuing to work on their "House in the Night" scratch art project.  Their focus is on attention to contrasts, textures, and the use of accent color to add emphasis.  I have contacted the illustrator of the book "The House in the Night" in hopes of sharing our projects with her and getting feedback about her process and the students work in an open dialogue (either via Skype or email interactions).  Hopefully I will hear from her over the break and we can explore this project a bit deeper this year.

Projects in-progress:

4th Grade Christmas Mission-style Southwestern Churches are almost done.  The majority of students completed their projects today (pics to follow after break).  Students colored in oil pastel and then used baby oil and q-tips to blend the oil pastels together.  I am sad this project is over as the art room has been smelling amazing the last few weeks while the students were working on this project.  Here are some of the projects in-progress:

Sgraffito: Like Cutting Butter

Time lapse video of Sarah K. (8R)

Sneak Peeks in the Art Room: Glimpses of What's Ahead

Tuesday Clay Day

8th Graders are making their clay plates in preparation for the sgraffito work they will start next week. 

6th Graders are glazing their ceramic leaves.  These will be fired this week. 

Fresh Out of the Kiln

Glazed and fired ceramic fall leaves from the 6th Grade Thursday's art classes were just pulled from the kiln today!  They look spectacular!!!!   

The Tuesday 6th Grade art classes will glaze their leaves next week.  

These little plates are great as a candle holder, soap dish, jewelry holder, candy dish, or spoon holder in the kitchen.  A treasure for years to come!

8th Grade: Sgraffito Project Planning

8th Graders are beginning their sketches for their ceramic sgraffito plates.  An initial drawing was done on construction paper and then traced onto tracing paper.  The tracing paper will then be placed on the top of their ceramic plates and traced into black glazed leather-hard clay.  From that point, the students will use a variety of sgraffito carving tools to carve the designs out of the clay exposing the white clay underneath.  

What's Going on In the Art Room: Week of November 7th

4th Grade:

4th graders just completed their Owl in Moonlight project.  Next week, we will begin work on our first Christmas project.

5th Grade:

5th graders just completed their Glue Line Pumpkin projects.  We studied how light direction affects shadows and highlights and shading on objects.

6th Grade:

We just completed the beginning stages of our ceramic leaf plates.  These will be fired in the kiln this week and ready for glaze work soon!

7th Grade:

Today students finished the clay work on their ceramic angels.  Once these are fired, we will be fusing  glass to the body and wings of the angels and glazing them.  Excited to see these completed!

8th Grade:

8th graders are finishing up torn paper portraits and beginning to sketch their designs for their sgraffito ceramic plates.  Pics to follow in the next few weeks!

Upcoming Projects...

4th Grade:

Students will be creating Mission-style Christmas churches using chalk pastels and focusing on creating depth by using shading, dimension, and paying attention to creating distinct foregrounds/middle grounds/ and backgrounds.


5th Grade:

Students in 5th grade are continuing to work on a Pumpkin Glue-Line Pastel Shading Project.  Students learned about light direction and how this affects shading and shadows.  Students explored using colors other than black to create shadows in their pictures.



6th Grade:

We are currently juggling a few sculptural projects.  This week, students begin making their ceramic leaf plates.  In between the drying, firing, and glazing of this project, students will continue to work on their paintbrush people.


7th Grade:

Our next project involves the fusing of ceramics and glass in a ceramic Angel project.  The students angels will be carved out and frit added to the carved out areas of the angels and re-fired, melting the frit into glass and fusing the clay and glass together.


8th Grade:

Students are finishing up their torn paper portrait projects.

Students who have completed the project are beginning the planning stages of their ceramic sgraffito plates.  8th graders will be making ceramic slump plates and using a sgraffito technique to glaze and design their plates.

Doodle -4- Google

Just a reminder that the due date for turning Doodle -4- Google entries into me is Thursday, November 17th.  This contest is optional.

Students in grades 6th-8th who participate (with effort) will receive 3 sketchbook credits for the 2nd trimester.

Please make sure that you have filled out all of the information on the bottom of the form and that it is signed by a parent before turning it into me.

More information about the Doodle -4- Google contest can be found at www.doodles.google.com

Sketchbooks Due Next Week

Sketchbooks for 6th-8th grade are due next week in Art class.  Please bring them to class on the day that you have art.  Sketchbook requirements can be found on the right hand side of the blog under the newsletter/syllabus section.