Architecture by Children's House

Children's House students learned about a variety of homes in America before constructing their own from wooden shapes and popsicle sticks.  We practiced building homes from images of real houses and creating houses from our imaginations.  Once the students constructed their favorite home they made them permanent by gluing the shapes to heavy paper.  Using primary colors, black, white, and a few neon paints, students were free to mix a variety of colors and design their gorgeous houses!

Illustrative Design by EII

For this project, EII students learned about typography and letterform, and studied a variety of word art.  I asked each student to brainstorm some words that represent what art means to them.  Once they were ready, their job was to create an illustration that would visually describe their interpretation of the word and it's relationship to art.  Check out a variety of the designs!

EI Landscapes, inspired by Grant Wood!

Here are the results of EI student's first big art project of the new school year!  We learned about Grant Wood, an artist who grew up in Iowa.  Grant painted landscapes that reflected the mid-west region that he lived in.  Since Wisconsin is part of the same region, students could relate the paintings to what we see when we leave Eau Claire and travel throughout the farmland that surrounds our community.  Students focused on creating a sense of deep space in their landscapes and considered a color scheme based on the time of day and season they wanted to depict.  Enjoy!

Piet Mondrian Inspired Collage

Children's House students, my newest little artists, had a great time creating their collages inspired by Piet Mondrian.  Piet was a Dutch painter who eventually came to America, settling in New York City.  Piet created simple compositions, utilizing lines to create a grid-like system, inspired by the city he had moved to.  Students also noticed that Piet used a lot of red, yellow, and blue in his work, which lead us to a discussion about primary colors.  We loved listening to some smooth jazz music, just like Piet would have listened to, while creating our colorful artwork. 

Introduction to the Elements of Art!

We have had a busy and fun start to the school year!  This year all EI and EII students began by exploring the seven Elements of Art.  The elements of art are considered to be the building blocks of all art and will be used referenced by students throughout the year.  Students learned about each element: line, shape, form, space, texture, color, and value.  After each element was discussed the students were free to create a small design depicting each one.  EI students created a 2d composition on paper, while EII students created an elements cube.  The actual cube represents one of the elements; can you figure out which one?