2nd Grade: Sarcophagus Drawings

Second grade and I took a closer look at the King Tut Sarcophagus. We discussed what hieroglyphics are and why Egyptians believed in preserving the bodies for the "after life". Students created their own king tut sarcophagus', including patterns and secret messages.

5th Grade: Salvador Dali Melting Clocks

Have you ever seen the paining of "melting clocks" by Salvador Dali? This famous painting was created from a dream that Salvador Dali had. The students and I discussed the meaning of "surrealism" and looked at a few more of Dali's paintings. If you have not seen the painting "The Persistence of Memory", by Salvador Dali, here it is.

These "melting" clocks were made from clay. Since St. Elizabeth does not have a kiln, the students use air dry clay to build their clocks. As the clocks dried, we draped them of cups and baskets to allow them to dry in an interesting shape as if they were melting. Without a kiln, the students also can not use glaze, so they use acrylic paints to add color to their clocks.

1st Grade: Baby Jesus Nativity Drawing

The teachers and students here at St. Elizabeth are all excited for Christmas to arrive! We are all decorating our class rooms and hallways for the holiday season. After watching a video to remind ourselves that Christmas is about the birth of baby Jesus, my first graders made drawings of baby Jesus in the manger. These drawings are made using oil pastels on black paper, this allowed the kids to blend their north star to look like they are really shining bright.

3rd Grade: Laurel Burch Cats

The artist Laurel Burch is well known for her bright colors, interesting patterns, and whimsical animal paintings/sculptures. Third grade captured all these qualities in their three dimensional cats. These cats started as drawings but then the students transformed them into cats that sat up right on their own.

Here is one of Laurel Burch's famous cat paintings that we looked at for inspiration.

1st Grade: Abstract Juan Miro Drawings

First grade looked at and discussed the very abstract paintings by Juan Miro. We had fun finding all of the hidden "creatures" in his paintings.

The students then created their own Juan Miro inspired drawings. the first grades needed to have at least four "creatures" in their own drawings, hidden by other shapes. We also discussed using a limited color pallet, so they could only use four colored pencils to color the entire drawing. I love this project, especially for such a young group of students, because it allows so much creativity, imagination, and freedom.

4th Grade: Great Waves

Fourth grade reviewed their knowledge of warm and cool colors to create these water color paintings. I then introduced the students to the woodblock print, "The Great Wave Off Kanagawa" by Hokusai. We descussed what we saw in the painting and some of its interesting parts.

Students were required to use all three cool colors, blue, green, and purple, somewhere in the waves and mountain. They were then required to use all three warm colors, red, yellow, and orange, somewhere in the background. 

6th Grade: Literal Word Art

lit·er·al

ˈlidərəl,ˈlitrəl/

adjective

1. 1.

   taking words in their usual or most basic sense without metaphor or allegory.

   
   
2. 2.

   (of a translation) representing the exact words of the original text.
3. 
   
4. The students and I discussed the word "literal" and then looked at some ways of creating art out of a word. This project was extremely challenging at first, but after some thought, every student was on board. The results were quite fun to see. To add on another challenge to this project, the students were only able to use paper to create the entire final piece.