Object Study, Leonardo daVinci Style.

After learning about the very famous Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, EII students took an in depth look at da Vinci's many drawings.  Da Vinci recognized the connection between mathematics, science, art, and invention.  He studied objects, animals, and people, drawing them over and over until it seemed he knew them inside and out.  We were able to see how this practice would have aided da Vinci in creating his paintings and planning his imaginative inventions.
We used this opportunity to learn and practice many different drawing techniques.  Students chose one object to study and draw using various techniques while showing different viewpoints.  We tried out contour and blind contour drawings with pencil, ink drawing techniques (hatching, cross hatching, stippling), charcoal drawing, and finally choosing a media to create a color drawing.  Students then selected their favorite drawing from each category and carefully arranged them together to create one display of their work.

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.