End of the Year Slideshow

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I Couldn't Resist...

The sunshine was too nice and the air to warm...I couldn't resist taking my third graders out to the front lawn of our school to draw. It's pretty intimidating to draw our school building because it is so spread out, but they tackled the task with enthusiasm and produced some great drawings! Plus we got some fresh air! One of my favorite things to do, too.

Winter Trees

Last week, Mrs. Wilson's students created these fun and colorful winter trees! Then I took a picture of it with my phone and created this awesome picture with the "Percolator" app I have. So COOL!

Georgia O'Keeffe flowers

created by our lovely third graders...

Wow...this marking period is flying by!

We have been very busy this month finishing up our fundraiser projects for Art to Remember. I always like to get them out of the way early in the year. This year they took a long time because of our shorter art classes...but they are fabulous. I'll post some of them below.


In the Memorial Art Studio, students have been learning about making choices. We also are working towards behaving like artists. We've talked about how artists like to experiment sometimes with new subject matter, new ideas, new techniques and new art materials. We have several different stations set up for drawing. Our stencil station is definitely the most popular...but there has been some amazingly creative ideas generated at this station, especially in the past week as we are working more towards completing works of art, rather than just experimenting.



Last week, many classes had an additional station added to their choice time. This is the still life station and students are learning to observe and draw what they see. They are also learning that as an artist, they can make decisions about what they include or leave out of their drawings, and many have added backgrounds and details that they came up with on their own.

This is a bulletin board where I have just a sample of our third graders' artwork inspired by the flower paintings of Georgia O'Keeffee. I think these are amazing...and all so different. They really enjoyed working with oil pastels on this project.

You can see more on Artsonia in our school gallery! (Artwork will not be published until Thursday, 11/4/10).

One of the highlights of last week...I had one of my third graders tell me: "Mrs. Durocher, you inspire us to create great artwork." Totally made my day!

Russian Towers finished

The fifth graders at Robinson are also cruising along on their Russian Towers. After outlining these with crayon in several colors, students painted their drawings with watercolors (liquid and regular). They had a lot of fun blending the blues, pinks and purples in the background. I showed them how to paint the paper with water first and then add the colors on top and swirl them around.

6th Grade Design Trees

This week, some of our 6th graders are moving towards finishing up their tree drawings. To begin this lesson, I provided my students with several visual examples of silhouettes of trees of various kinds. It would have been ideal to venture outside to actually study and sketch the trees, but we are always so short on time around here. They got the idea though...their tree drawings were simply amazing...every one! Above are just a few of the drawings where I think some creative ideas are happening. Below are a couple of drawings. I wanted you to be able to see the great designs these artists are coming up with. So fun!
This lesson provided a great opportunity for learning about positive and negative space. When they are finished those trees really stand out against all the colorful designs!