K/1s Make Collage Fall Trees

After going to Dyken Pond to look at fall foliage and animal habitats, the K/1s came back to art class to make pictures of the trees they had seen. Without using scissors, they tore paper to resemble the rough edges of tree bark, making a tapering trunk and attaching tree branches. They added color using tempera paint and stippling brushes.

Tearing the trunk

A little collaboration

Gluing it together

Stippling on leaves

Cutting out a critter to complete the picture

Middle School Students Grid and Enlarge

    

The middle school students were given a small segment of a well-known painting. They  drew a 1" grid on their segment, and enlarged it onto white paper 2 ½ times using another grid. They  colored  the gridded squares as accurately as possible using oil pastels. When done, the 36 different segments will be  assembled in the front hall to reveal the famous painting.

Drawing the 1" grid

Beginning to add color

Checking for accuracy

Working the second square 

Matching colors requires blending

Beginning to look like the original fragment

Getting to the end of this segment

The whole coming together

It's finished!

K/1s Paint Birds

Continuing the theme of making a shape into something specific, the K/1s listened to the book, Mouse Shapes, by Ellen Stoll Walsh and then looked at the shapes you would need to draw a bird. Starting with half circles and triangles they each drew a large bird, went over the lines with black crayon and added watercolor for a crayon resist. The results are completely engaging.

Painting stripes

Adding the ground

A blue bird!

K/1s Paint Large Circles

What could you imagine a green circle glued to a large white paper might become? The K/1s were given just such papers and asked to brainstorm what they might turn them into. An island, a flower, a spaceship, a planet, an animal......those were a few of the ideas that they turned into imaginative paintings.

The circle as a tree

The circle becomes a snail

Hudson River Snapshot Day

For the fifth consecutive year Parker 2/3s and 6/7s went to the Hudson River to gather data on the health of the river. Sketching at the river has become an important part of our data collection and this year the 2/3s were the art experts, informing the 6/7s on how the Hudson River School painters depicted this landscape more than 150 years ago.

A perfect perch

The wide view of artists at work

2/3s Paint Pictures Inspired by The Hudson River School

As the 2/3s learn about the Hudson River in class they are learning about the Hudson River School painters in art class. Working with the idea of an ideal landscape, the students each developed their own idea of what would be ideal for them and painted their vision on a long horizontal format, keeping in mind the Hudson River School artists' attention to detail and a sense of space. A trip to the Albany Institute of History and Art will add depth to this study.

Drawing after an initial sketch

Details, details!

Painting the Hudson

Details in the landscape

Looking closely at a Hudson River School painting at AIHA

Noticing details at AIHA

4-8th Graders Create Works After Giuseppe Arcimboldo

 The 4th - 8th grade students learned about the unusual Renaissance painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo, who turned natural objects into fantastical portraits, such as faces composed entirely of fruit or vegetables.  In this fun assignment the students used their imaginations and powers of observation to come up with a picture constructed of something unrelated to the initial image.

A flower made of butterflies

A unicorn made of flowers taking shape