Next destination is France! Today the Battleships learned about Alexander Calder, an artist who worked in both France and New York. Calder is known for his sculptures and mobiles, but today we discussed his line drawings and wire sculptures. Together we looked at images of line drawings from Calder's sketchbook. We traced the lines of his drawings in the air with our fingers, and noticed that lines can be bumpy, zig zaggy, wiggly, straight, curved, thick, thin, fast, slow, jagged and smooth. Our lines can change when we use a lot of ink or a little ink. We also learned that lines look different depending on how we move our arms, wrists and bodies. Each student got two large sheets of newsprint, an ebony pencil, two brushes and a dish of India ink, which they used to explore how many different types of lines they could create. They tried all different techniques and came up with some really nice ink drawings!For the past few weeks the Astronauts and the Legos have been creating self-portraits. First, we looked at portraits that other artists have made, like Frida Kahlo, Kerry James Marshall, Dana Schutz, Vincent Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol. We talked about how artists paint portraits in all different styles, and interpret facial features in many ways. Together we read The Colors of Us, which illustrated the story of an artist and her daughter discovering the many different shades of brown and peach by looking at the skin tones of friends and family. Students practiced mixing their own skin tones from the primary colors, black and white. We also discussed a very special kind of surface that artists paint on, called a canvas. Then students got their very own canvas to paint on! Over the course of a few classes students used mirrors to look at the shapes of their heads, eyes, nose, mouths, ears and hair. They mixed unique colors to represent themselves. They even used their imaginations to create a background that illustrated the scenery in which they wanted to be portrayed in! Artist Portraits Above: |
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May 2018
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