Kindergarten Butterflies inspired by Eric Carle's Collages

Kindergartners are quite familiar with Eric Carle's book "The Very Hungry Caterpillar."  It is a favorite moment in this story when the caterpillar turns into a beautiful butterfly.  Inspired by this transformation and the colorful collage art in Carle's books, Kindergarten artists used tissue paper collage to create their own beautiful butterflies.  These pieces will be used for our Original Works PTO fundraiser.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle (360p) from Nasim Bobat on Vimeo.

Critique and Revision

This video shows how a student uses critique and revision to create multiple drafts of a piece of work and ultimately shows great progress.  These processes are sometimes hard to include in our limited art time, but are possibly the most important for artistic growth.


Austin's Butterfly: Building Excellence in Student Work - Models, Critique, and Descriptive Feedback from Expeditionary Learning on Vimeo.

Mid-Autumn Moon Festival

Fayston School celebrates

The Mid-Autumn Moon Festival

Monday, October 6th, 2014

Join us to give thanks, honor the full moon and celebrate the harvest with a special picnic lunch shared with friends and family.

Adult lunch $3.75

R.S.V.P. to cjoslin@wwsu.org

11:30 grades K-3 / 12:00 grades 4-6

The Mid-Autumn Moon Festival is a Harvest and Thanksgiving Festival celebrated in China, Vietnam, Taiwan and other Asian countries.  It takes place during the full moon in September or October.

During this festival, people gather with their families and friends, offer thanks for the harvest or other good fortune and send their wishes and prayers to the moon.  Other traditions include an outdoor nighttime picnic, with special treats called Mooncakes, and other traditional foods.  At the gathering, people display colorful lanterns to light up the night.

At the Fayston School, we will celebrate the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival on Monday, October 6.  Students will read Thanking the Moon, by Maya Lin, to learn about the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival and prepare for this event.

MENU

Potstickers with Stir-Fried Vegetables

Mooncakes

Sesame Noodles

Fortune cookies

Pears and Grapefruit

Tea

Mandalas!

In celebration of International Dot Day, all classes will create different types of "Dot Art."  Fifth and sixth grade artists will create circular artwork called Mandalas.  

Mandalas are created in many cultures as a support for meditation.  They can be drawings or painted or made from sand.  

What is a Mandala?

The word "mandala" is from the classical Indian language of Sanskrit. Loosely translated to mean "circle," a mandala is far more than a simple shape. It represents wholeness, and can be seen as a model for the organizational structure of life itself--a cosmic diagram that reminds us of our relation to the infinite, the world that extends both beyond and within our bodies and minds.

Describing both material and non-material realities, the mandala appears in all aspects of life: the celestial circles we call earth, sun, and moon, as well as conceptual circles of friends, family, and community.

(from The Mandala Project)

Mandalas have Radial Symmetry:  the condition of having similar parts regularly arranged around a central axis 

Examples of Mandalas:

How to Grow a Mandala Video:

Video of the Dali Lama creating a Sand Mandala

Today is National Art Advocacy Day!

Please join me in being an advocate for the arts in education! 

 Ask your child why he or she thinks the arts are an important part of the school day.  Watch the video below for some insight on why we need art in school. 

Portrait drawing tutorials

Here are three online guides to portrait drawing.  These should help you learn about proper placement of all of the facial features and will give you some tips about how to make your self portrait more realistic.

The first link gives a basic overview of drawing a proportional face.  The second link is more detailed and focused on making your portrait as realistic as possible. The third link will help you break down the face into each individual feature.

Choose the one that is right for you, use what you can from the online lesson and proceed at your own pace!  

Click here to watch a "Show Me" tutorial about portrait drawing:

Portrait "Show Me" Tutorial

Check out this link for a more detailed tutorial about drawing realistic faces:

Drawing Detailed Realistic Faces


Click here to learn about drawing each of the face's features:
Artyfactory.com

ARTISTS:  Please Comment!  Were these online tutorials helpful to you?  What did you like about learning this way?  What was challenging?  Are you proud of your work?

Gustav Klimt's Tree of Life

Fifth and sixth graders looked at Gustav Klimt's painting "Tree of Life."
Click here to learn about the meaning of this piece of artwork.

Art with Numbers and Letters by Jasper Johns

Pre-K larger than life Ice Cream Cones

Just in time for summer... I scream, you scream, we all scream for ICE CREAM!  

Pre-schoolers were challenged to make ice cream cones as tall or taller than themselves.  

To get ourselves excited about this tasty treat, we listed to this funny song about ice cream, words by Jack Prelutsky, sung by Natalie Merchant.

Taller than Mrs. A-K!

Adding sprinkles made from colored rice

My Heart is Like a Zoo

Third and Fourth grade artists read "My Heart is Like a Zoo," by Michael Hall.  This is a book of animal similies where all of the animal illustrations are made with hearts.  What could be more fun as we get ready for Valentine's Day?  Students used colored paper to collage their own animals based on Michael Hall's creations.  

Want to see a beaver moonwalk and learn more about "My Heart is Like a Zoo?"  Click here!

Watch the trailer for this book to see how hall made some of his lovely heart animals.

Here are some student collages inspired by this book:

Meet Vermont Artists Woody Jackson, Sabra Field, Warren Kimble and Stephen Huneck

I am embarking on a school-wide Vermont Artist unit of study.  We are starting with several very well-known Vermont artists.

 Kindergarteners, First and Second graders are studying Woody Jackson, whose cows became the mascots of Ben and Jerrry's ice cream.

 This video about Woody Jackson features Fayston's own Doug and Kelly Lewis as interviewers.

First and Second graders are also studying Warren Kimble, a folk artist from Brandon, Vermont.  Warren Kimble is known for his "primitive style" animal paintings.  

Learn more about Warren Kimble on his website.  Click here.

Third and Fourth graders are studying Stephen Huneck.  They are all quite familiar with his series of children's books about Sally the Dog.  Huneck is well known for his dog prints and carvings, as well as his Dog Chapel in St. Johnsbury, Vermont.  Click here to see a list of Huneck's books. 

See an interview with Stephen Huneck and learn more about the Dog Chapel in this video.

Fifth and sixth graders are studying printmaker Sabra Field.  Sabra Field's iconic images of Vermont's landscape truly capture the natural beauty of our state.  We are specifically looking at how her works captures the different seasons.  

Click here to visit Sabra Field's website.