2nd Grade Cardinal Beginnings

3rd Grade Barns

1st Grade Kandinsky

1st Grade Free Form Shapes

4th Grade Pottery

Work on the wheels has begun! YES! The kids are excited, loving it, and turning out great pieces. This is by far the best unit to do with 4th graders :)

3rd Grade Kimonos

Don't these Kimonos look great? Nice job 3rd graders!

1st Grade Chinese Lanterns

The first graders have just completed their first project of the year: Chinese lanterns. In China, lanterns are usually lit at the New Years celebration to symbolize hope for a bright future. We made lanters to celebrate our new school year and our very bright futures :) The artists also incorporated line into their lanterns. We learned all about horizontal, vertical, and diagonal lines. Exciting!

Sneak Peek...

4th Grade Chinese Scrolls

3rd Grade Chinese Kimonos

2nd Grade Chinese Dragon Fish

And we're off!! This year in the art studio is beginning better than ever! All of the Big Woods artists are impressing me more each day with their good behavior and incredible artistic talent! Above you'll find a sneak peek of what we are working on... final project pictures to come!

Welcome Back!!

Hello Artists and Art Lovers!

Welcome back to a brand new school year. I hope you had a lovely summer and survived this crazy heat we've been having. I had a great summer helping my mom and dad-in-law build their dream cabin. It is a truly beautiful place on a gorgeous lake. I learned how to put up walls, put in windows, install trusses, and so much more. I loved every minute of it! We also got to spend a lot of time swimming and relaxing by the lake. In between weekends working at the cabin I took a trip down to Texas to photograph a wedding AND see my precious baby niece AnnaBelle. Summer was wonderful, but I excited for school and lots of great art!

This year we have a Chinese teacher at our school. How awesome is that? So a lot of our art is going to be focused on China and the beautiful art that has been created there over the centuries. Make sure you check back here to see lots of great pictures!

I hope are as excited as I am to get creating!

Love,

Mrs. Dahl

This is a picture of me putting in windows at the cabin!

End of the school year

Thank you so much to all the students at Big Woods for another WONDERFUL school year! I'm going to miss all you 4th graders headed to the middle schools next year, but excited that I still get to see my 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders for another great year in the art room.

Have a safe and happy summer!

Love,
Mrs. Dahl

3rd Grade Bugs!

Loving the way these bugs are turning out... so bright and colorful!

4th Grade Masks

The 4th graders are making excellent progress on their paper mache masks! I love the designs that the students have chosen. Soon we will be adding feathers, beads, and other fun accessories. Nice job!

1st Grade Wayne Thiebaud Treats!

Yummy! Don't these look good enough to eat? First graders have spent the past 2 weeks studying Wayne Thiebaud, an American artist who loved to paint sweet treats! The first graders chose their own favorite sweet treats and made some delicious artwork :)

2nd Grade Monet Gardens

These gardens turned out so lovely! I can't stop looking at them! The second graders learned all about Claude Monet and his impressionist style of painting. They loved the fact that he painted outdoors a lot and were begging me to take them outside... the weather is warm enough so we'll be going out soon! We talked about how Monet used a variety of colors to create different types of light and we used many colors to creat our artwork. Awesome job 2nd graders!!

3rd Grade Bugs!

I had to give you a sneek peek of this 3rd grade project! They are doing such a great job making detailed a realistic bugs. Can't wait to show off the finished product!

More Flowers

I'm just loving these flowers... hope they brighten your day!

3rd Grade Pop-Art Prints

The third grader's began their Pop Art adventure by learning about Andy Warhol, one of the most famous artists to ever live. They learned all about his life as an artist and the type of art that he made. Andy Warhol made a type of art called "pop-art". This means that he took things from our everyday lives (POPular items) and incorporated them into his art. He did a lot of artwork about movie stars (Marilyn Monroe, Elvis), Campbell's soup cans and self portraits. Warhol often used a method called printmaking to creat his art. The third graders followed in his footsteps and made some prints of their own!

They first drew their self portaits into a piece of styrofoam with a pencil, making sure to press hard enough to make a dent in the foam. They then put in on the styrofoam and transferred the image to a sheet of paper by rubbing the inked side of the foam onto a piece of paper. I love the bright colors in this project! Way to go guys!

1st Grade Still Life

This is hands down one of my favorite projects that first graders do. Every student's work turns out wonderful, beautiful and unique! I wish I could hang each one in my house, they are so bright and cheery!

The first graders began by learning about the art element of space. They learned that space is the empitness around and between objects. We then spent a day drawing flowers in vases on our tables. We talked about how important it is to actually look at the flowers and draw what you see in front of you, not what you think the flowers look like.

After drawing and outlining our flowers we used water colors to paint them. Incredible!

2nd Grade Pattern Animals

The second graders have been learning about patterns and motifs in art. They learned that a motif is the actual design that is repeated and a pattern is when a motif is repeated over and over again. We looked at many patterns and brainstormed different patterns together as a class. We then used that knowledge to fill in our animals. Don't they look nice? YES!!!

4th Grade Picasso Portraits

The fourth graders have been learning all about the life and times of Pablo Picasso. Picasso is considered an artistic genius for many reasons, one of them being his help in the development of the Cubist style of art. We drew our self-portraits in a cubist style and then looked a period in Picassos painting life called the Blue Period. During this time Picasso was so sad and depressed that he painted mostly with different values of blue. Each student then chose a color to use in their portrait, plus black and white, to get values of that color. This color was based on their mood at the time. We learned that a Tint is a color plus white and a Shade is a color plus black. Using our colors, tints, and shades we created unique cubist portraits. I love them!

2nd Grade "Value"-able" Jewels

Second graders have been hard at work learning all about the element of Value. Value refers to the lightness or darkness of a color. We can get value by mixing white and black with a color. The students began this project by making a symmetrical jewel. Symmetrical means that if you fold it in half, it would be the same on each side. After making their jewels, the second graders picked a color of tempera paint, plus white and black, to paint their project. I'm impressed with these very "value"-able jewels!

Fourth Grade Color Wheel

This is by far one of my favorite projects to do with my fourth grade students. We start by learning all about the color wheel: primary colors, secondary colors, intermediate colors and how to mix them all. Then, we make our own color wheel with... FROSTING! The students love it! I give the students some yellow, blue and red frosting and they mix the other colors of the color wheel. They spread each color on a vanilla wafer and make a color wheel. The kids have fun and learn a lot, and I get to eat the extra cookies :)

First Grade Texture Collage

First graders have been learning all about texture. Texture is the way something feels. It may be smooth or rough, bumpy or flat, scratchy or soft. We used our knowledge of texture to create sheets of paper that had textures on them. From those sheets we created beautiful ocean collages. I love the way these turned out. Way to go first graders!

1st Grade Hearts

Aren't these fun? The first graders learned about cutting hearts out of paper and then used chalk to make these great projects. We're all ready for Valentine's Day!

4th Grade Rhythm and Movement Projects

These are some of my favorite projects the 4th graders make. They are so bright and beautiful! We used our knowledge of Rhythm and movement to create the back ground and our knowlegde of proportion to make the figures. Way to go 4th grade!

2nd Grade Jim Dine Hearts

The artist Jim Dine LOVED hearts. He did many paintings using hearts as this theme. We drew inspiration from Jim Dine and the color wheel as we made these hearts. The students had to incorporate all the primary and secondary colors in their artwork. Can you name all six colors?

4th Grade Proportion Studies

The 4th graders are starting a unit studying proportions of the human body. We learned that proportion can be broken down into two words: pro and portion. Pro in this case means "really good" like a professional athlete. Portion means "amount". So proportion means "really good amounts." When we draw proportionately the head is not too big for the body and the arms are not too long, the feet aren't too tiny, etc. When we draw proportionately everything should look realistic because the every part is the right size when compared to another part.

Here are some pictures of us practicing drawing with wooden drawing dudes. We are trying our best to make them in the correct proportions. Nice work 4th graders!