Raku Inoue is a Japanese artist and designer who is living and working in Canada. She has created a beautiful series of floral compositions titled Natura Insects. Third grade artists viewed images of her work published online and were inspired to create their own insects made of leaves, flower petals and seed pods. Students folded their paper to create a line of symmetry before they began creating. Raku Inoue signs her floral creations with a seal, as do many Asian artists and crafts-folk. Steele Creek artists signed using red pencil and drew a rectangle around their names in honor of that practice. A selection of their finished pieces is on display in the Student Gallery section of this website. Click on the three bars to find it.
You can see some of our artists hard at work below.
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Congratulations to Astrid and Ricky, whose art was selected to represent Steele Creek at this weekend's annual art festival!
Note: These pieces were created last year. Festival in the Park is scheduled so early in an art teacher's school year we keep a few pieces over the summer from last year - with the artist's permission, of course - for the current year's show. With our six day rotation, students have only had art class three time so far this school year! And it's an exciting time! Kindergarten artists are learning how to sit criss-cross on the carpet and raise their hands when they have something to share. On their first day, they were read Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson. The main character, Harold, is just a little guy, but he has a huge imagination and a giant purple crayon. Kindergartners used their huge imaginations and big purple crayons to invent and draw their own picture stories. Here's is a sampling from one of our art bulletin boards. Parents: after reading to your child, encourage him or her to draw a picture about the story. Making drawings encourages your child's imagination and helps them process information.
How does an artist add interest and detail to his or her work? Texture! Texture in art describes how something feels or how it looks like it would feel if touched. First grade artists are collecting texture rubbings outside the art classroom in the photo below. Collecting textures is easy. All you need a thin piece of paper - recycled notebook paper works great - and a crayon without its paper jacket. Find an interesting surface, put the paper on top and lay the crayon on its side on top of the paper. Rub the crayon across the paper. Bamb! You've captured a texture!
All classes are busy with first projects. Fifth graders are practicing their colored pencil strokes and learning how to create value and blend their colors. Fourth grade artists are reviewing the art elements LINE and SHAPE, and creating sketches for an amazing Optical Line piece which will be completed using Crayola markers. Did you know that if you leave the lid off a Crayola marker and it appears to be dry, simply dip it in water. The folks at Crayola include an additive that causes a seal to form so your marker won't dry out. When you dip it in water it breaks the seal and the marker will work again. It works as long is there is still watercolor in the marker. Pretty cool, don't your think? Fourth grade artists are proud of their sketches! Second graders are preparing to create reflection painting where they will be using a monoprinting process to make reflections of trees in a body of water. In preparation, students discussed the use of line in a reflection painting by French artist Claude Monet. We are fortunate at Steele Creek to have a projector in our classroom which we use to view important works of art. Our art text book is also on DVD,
It has been a long, hot summer and the opening of school is only a few days away. Here are some things you need to know about how we manage here in the art room. Rules and requirements are pretty simple, as you can see: If you would like to help us out and donate to our creative cause, here's a list of items we always need:
WET-WIPES for clean-up, TISSUES for noses, YARN for weaving and stitchery, and STYROFOAM EGG CARTONS for paint. Also, please don't forget to join our wonderful PTO. Your dues go a long way to help us maintain a first class cultural arts department! |