NGA Field Trip: 5th – 7th Graders

We had a great trip to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC on Friday, March 16, 2012. Students in 5th – 7th grade split up into 3 groups for this trip, each group with a different docent (tour guide) who explained the significance of each work of art and art movement. We decided to focus on French Art from Baroque to Neo-impressionism because students could very easily relate to those pieces and enjoyed the varied styles of French art from PA’s first field trip to the National Gallery of Art in December 2009.

Our docent, Nancy, was an excellent guide and really engaged the students in the artwork. She gave ample time for students to sketch and study the pieces… (in front of  “Soap Bubbles” by JEAN SIMÉON CHARDIN, 1733/1734, click and scroll down to watch the video about the painting)

Students also wrote an acrostic poem in front of Georges Seurat’s “The Lighthouse at Honfleur” (1886) which was one of the more inspiring pieces.

And enjoyed comparing and contrasting two paintings (placed side by side) of the Rouen Cathedral, created at different times of day, by the Impressionist painted Claude Monet.

Doesn’t this painting make you want to plan a vacation to the French countryside this summer? I sure think so!

Here is a snapshot of one of the other groups, in front of Mary Cassatt’s version of “The Boating Party”.

After our tour of the galleries, we had lunch (either pre-packed or purchased) at the NGA Cascade Cafeteria and also enjoyed gelato for dessert. Our favorite flavors were raspberry. mango and chocolate chip (stracciatella).

And, we decided to do an infamous *jump* in front of the cascading waterfalls in the walkway between the West and East Buildings.

“Now THIS is what I call art!” – Esref P. (pictured here, in response to his experience riding the moving walkway tunnel of light, which is always a nice photo-op and appropriate transition between the West (old) and East (new) buildings.

Sadly, our time at the museum was far too short and after lunch/free time and the gift shop, we had to head back to the bus. Before leaving, we stopped to take pictures in front of I.M. Pei’s “Glass Pyramids” en route to the front of the museum.

Goodbye, Washington DC! See you again soon…

Back in Northern VA, we are all smiles…

Thanks to Ms. Cohen, Ms. Baker and the other parent chaperons who made this trip a huge success!

We hope everyone enjoyed themselves and will continue to visit art museums in the future! My favorite overheard quote of the field trip:

“Whoa, everything is gia-normous in DC!”

Buon Carnevale!

(Decked out for Carnevale in Venice, Italy – site of the most famous Carnival parties)

Ciao a tutti! Today, also known as Fat Tuesday (or Mardi Gras), is the last day of Carnevale and the season of masks, parties and sweets before the season of Lent begins. Our 5th and 6th grade students (aka. our young mascherari – or mask makers) are currently working on Carnevale masks in Art Class, and will postpone the actual celebration to the beginning of March. Stay tuned to see the mask making progress and their final creations!

Painting Camps, Day 1

This week is our last week of camp at Flint Hill School and a doubleheader week for Ms. Laura. I will feature works from both camps that I teach, Painting for Beginners (morning session) and Painting (4th to 8th Grade – afternoon session) in the same entry every day in order to avoid confusion. Your child’s camp will be labeled accordingly.

Please remember to bring 2 canvases of any size to camp this week! We will be using them for 2 major projects! Also, as usual, our weekly ART SHOW will take place at 11:15AM (for the Painting for Beginners Camp) and 2:15PM (for the Painting Camp), respectively, on Friday, July 29, 2011. We would greatly appreciate your donations of refreshments, beverages and fruit for our campers and other guests.

Hope you are staying DRY and SAFE in this crazy thunderstorm-type of weather today. And now, here is pictorial account of our camps for today, Monday, July 25 , 2011!

{ PAINTING FOR BEGINNERS }

We started camp this morning by reviewing the qualities of what makes a good art citizen. Many of our campers raised their hands and said that a good art citizen is always kind to their classmates, says positive things about their classmates’ artwork, listens and follows directions the FIRST time they are given and cleans up not only their own mess, but also helps clean up their classmates’ mess when the need arises.

Our first project of the day was sea salt painting. Using watercolor paper, watercolors and sea salt, we created the background of our underwater themed painting. We used colors that can be found in oceans around the world, such as greens, blues and yellows. We left them to dry overnight and can’t wait to see what kind of texture we will find tomorrow morning. As one camper commented, the paper feels, well, “salty”.

Have you ever wondered what happens when you put watercolor paint over a crayon drawing, on watercolor paper? We experimented with this mixed media technique and this is what we got: wax resist magic! Notice the buildings our campers decided to draw? They are designing a city that is both real and imaginative. We can’t wait to do more fun paintings tomorrow and as the week goes on! PAINTING IS FUN, AND MESSY, TOO.

{ PAINTING }

We had a small group of Painting enthusiasts this afternoon… but the benefits of a smaller class is the possibility to do more, interact closely with the teachers and have a better access to the art materials. We started off the class by making a visual journal: a cool way to document the artistic (and everyday) process with a variety of media. Many famous artists throughout the centuries kept notebooks to record their daily activities, observations, ideas and inspirations. Think about Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks! Students were free to create and decorate the covers of their journals with their own unique artistic flair. Later on, students were also asked to look through some art history books and sketch works of art that inspire them as a way to brainstorm ideas for this painting camp. They learned that this is called creating a “Canon of Art” (a collection of works based on their high aesthetic quality that art historians throughout history decided) and will be working on this throughout the week, along with other visual journalling exercises.

Our second and final project of the day was value self portraits. This was a play on words because value refers to both the value strip (progression of lights to darks as an element of art) as well as adjectives that describe the things we value about ourselves in our lives as human beings. Using black, white and an assortment of grey paints (mixed, of course), students started painting their value self-portraits this afternoon. The room was completely silent as our students were engrossed in this tedious, thought-provoking process of self-emulation. Due to time, we weren’t able to finish these portraits today but they will be finished by tomorrow afternoon and I’m looking forward to seeing the end result. There is a lot of talent in this room…

...And it is definitely being put to good use!

 

 

5th & 6th Grade :: ARTIST BOXES

THE CHALLENGE:

– Go the library and pick a book about a world-famous artist – Check out the book and bring it back to school for research – Fill out a KWL worksheet to aid you in your study of the artist – Bring in a shoe box and decorate with a flag from the artist’s home country and/or other things they might like – Fill that shoe box with objects either from home or hand-made of things you think the artist might like based on his/her nationality, culture and types of artworks made – Write some basic facts about what you learned about your artist on a 3.5” x 5” note card.

THE RESULT:

Some really cool and decorated, fact-filled boxes about the great artists of the world… past AND present! Plus, our 5th and 6th graders have also gained loads of brain power and knowledge in the area of art history! From the European Impressionists to ancient Chinese vases, the projects were fantastic. Check them out here: