Murals and shacks

Can you tell I'm trying to catch up on my sadly neglected blog? Doubling up on the content for each post :).

Fourth graders learned about community murals and their purposes - beautification, advertising, sharing a message. We drew plans on printed images and  used a planning sheet for working out/explaining what the intention of our mural was.

First graders looked at the art of Beverly Buchanan and created 3-D shacks from recycled materials we saved in the art room. Folk artists often use what they have or find rather than buying specific art materials.

Folk art in Georgia

Each year, my first graders learn a little about folk artists from our state such as Howard Finster and Nellie Mae Rowe. We learned that they came from very large families, lived and worked on farms, had little or no schooling, and taught themselves to make art. They often made pictures of farm life, because it was familiar to them, and they used materials they had on hand rather than buying art supplies at a craft store. Quilting and sewing are also important in folk art - and old clothing and fabrics become repurposed for these. Here are some of our folk art paper quilts and our stitchery. We were proud to learn to thread needles and create stitches!

Georgia Folk Art

First graders looked at the works of some of Georgia's most well-known folk artists, including Howard Finster, Mattie Lou O'Kelley and Nellie Mae Rowe. Some of the things these artists had in common were: growing up on a farm with a large family, and little or no schooling. They were self-taught artists who painted scenes familiar to them and used materials they had available - notice the sheet of notebook paper as the background in the drawing below by Nellie Mae Rowe - so we used pages from old books that were damaged and in the recycling bin.

Howard Finster

Mattie Lou O'Kelley

We also looked at examples of folk art quilts - another example of reusing materials on hand for art-making - and made a "frame" from patterned paper squares.

Face jugs 2013

Face jugs, a tradition in my 5th grade class every year.  See this post from last year with more info and a link to a great History Detectives clip about the origins of face jugs. Students could build a traditional "ugly" jug, an animal face, or a stylized human face (not so ugly). Both additive and subtractive sculpting methods were used on our clay bodies, made from joined pinch pots. We used Dick Blick glazes - a very affordable option with great results!

ready for first firing - can you see my "Finn" example on top?

new this year, pressing alphabet noodles in to spell names or phrases! love it : )

Kente Weaving and Anansi the Spider: 1st grade



The mischievous and wise Anansi

 First graders have begun their unit on African art


Royal kente, pic from Smithsonian

 with an African folklore tale of Anansi the Spider, a spider who seems to know everything and loves to play the trickster.  The book in the picture has great illustrations, but it does not tell the kente story - that is a different Anansi book that I don't own... yet! The story can be found online here.  An old Ashanti story tells the origins of weaving - two brothers set out on a hunting trip and are amazed at a beautiful spider web in the wilderness, of course woven by Anansi, who teaches the brothers how to weave and they in turn teach their community. Kente cloths were first woven only for royalty, but are now available for everyone to wear. They are often woven with the colors of their flag.                                                       
When beginning this unit, I asked students what they already knew about Africa, and most shared answers about the beautiful wild animals who live there.  To celebrate this, we included some animal print paper strips - thanks to Artolazzi  for the idea, it really added a nice layer of interest and texture.  After weaving, we illustrated our paper kente with an illustration of Anansi, happily dangling from our woven cloths.

5th grade Face Jugs, Part 2

Our glaze firings are almost complete and we have some incredible face jugs to show off.  I tried a new brand of glaze this year - Blick brand - and I would like to recommend it highly - a great value!  To see the post of the earlier stages of this lesson, along with some face jug history and inspiration, click here.