Creative Arts Chronicles

Creative Arts Fridays continue to be very popular in Room 23!  Poetry Workshop and Tech Block are rolling right along and everyone is making great progress.  Mrs. MacMurray is working her magic with the chorus and the recorders sound fantastic!  

Mrs. Hess is the guest author this month for the blog.  She has written a great post about all of the art work and art history that has taken place in 4th grade this month!  Also, the concept of "zooming in," is used in writer's workshop as well as Art!  We love when all of our teaching strategies and concepts cross curriculum areas.  It makes the learning more meaningful and authentic for students. Thanks Mrs. Hess!

"Abstraction of a Leaf" 

Students used a view finder to 'Zoom in' and look closely at the veins of a leaf and draw a close up view.

They used  unrealistic colors to turn the drawing into an abstract design.

We looked at paintings by Georgia O'Keeffe since she painted with a close up focus on nature.

We also looked at portraits by Pablo Picasso as an example of abstract artwork.

Students learned that abstract art does not look realistic but can be based on real life things.

"Autumn Still-Life Drawing"

Students looked closely at an arrangement of pumpkins leaves and sunflowers and created a still-life drawing based on what they saw. They looked closely and tried to create a realistic image of the autumn still-life. Students learned that it is easier to create a realistic drawing when you have real objects to look at and draw from, rather then drawing from memory.