January Happenings....

Hello Families! 
We have been keeping busy in the cold month of January in art class.

Kindergarten: Finished up their Ancient Egyptian Amulets with beaded patterns then started a fun Warm and Fuzzy Hat project for a winter friend.  For this project they designed hats and painted a penguin or a polar bear to wear their new hat. 

First Grade: The students learned about the science of how snow forms and drew their own designer snowflakes.  They added the "cool" colors to their designs with both oil pastel and spray water color paints!  To finish off the whole scene, they added a collaged snowman peeking in to the page. 

Second Grade: The students learned about various cultures who make mandalas.  They also learned about the different materials used for making mandalas.  Next, they designed their own mandalas on cardboard pizza rounds and added bright colorful designs in marker. 
We are currently working on learning about portraiture and are using the iPads to help in making a self portrait. 

Third Grade: The students are just finishing up their unit on kindness with clay animation. In small groups, the classes worked with the app Clapmotion on their ipads to animate a short 10 second moment of kindness complete with paper cut out scenery, clay characters and their very own story.  During this unit students learned about storyboarding, set design, animation, and editing.  Be sure to ask your students to share their projects with you on their Chromebooks!

Fourth Grade:  The students have been learning about the living artist Jen Stark and have been working with layering cut paper to create a 3-D wall sculpture. 

Fifth Grade:  The students have been researching about different art careers, then switching roles and taking on the role of business owner and graphic designer.  They are creating a 3-D design for a company keychain and a company logo using Tinkercad and Sumopaint on their chromebooks.  We will be working with the 3-d printer to have their final designs printed.

Hour of Code! 2017

Wayne Thomas is participating in Hour of Code once again in Art class!

Younger students will be using ipads to practice block coding on a variety apps.  They will also be able to bring a drawing to life using augmented reality and the app Quiver!
The older students will be using Makey Makey units to connect circuits and make a game board, using Ozobots to create code pathways, and Snap circuits to make electrical connections.
We will also be using the website Code.org to access more individualized coding opportunities.

Here is a link list for the various resources we are using this week!  I hope everyone finds time to code outside of class!

Code.org

Makey Makey 

Simon Says on Scratch

 Quiver

Fall Projects

It has been a colorful fall in the art room at Wayne Thomas. The students have been hard at work exploring and creating. 
Kindergarten: Learned about the modern Japanese Artist Yayoi Kusama and studied her use of line in her pumpkin artwork.  Students learned 14 famous lines and used their favorites to make a neon pumpkin painting.  

First Grade Learned about Vincent Van Gogh and his painting Starry Night while working with the warm and cool colors to make a pumpkin patch at night.

Second Grade Learned about tree silhouettes and made a wonderful night sky showing monochromatic color mixing and painted nocturnal animals in silhouette.  

Third Grade Learned about Medieval castles and the art of heraldry while designing their own castle luminaries from clay.  Students also designed their own family crest to hang in the halls of Castle Wayne Thomas.

Fourth Grade Finished up the 3-D drawing unit and celebrated their hard work with a fun filled clay cupcake celebration, all the fun without the added calories!

Fifth Grade has been working on a mythical creature macrophotography drawing project using pattern and texture to create one of a kind eyes.  They truly are amazing!

I look forward to seeing you over conferences.  If I miss you when you are at Wayne Thomas please leave word with the office and I will set up a conference as soon as I return from my other building.  Have a wonderful holiday!  

Artsonia Update!

Welcome Back! from Mrs. Kurzawski

First Projects!

September Update

Hello Families!
We are in full swing in the art room!  All of the classes are fully involved in their first projects.

Kindergarten is working on learning the Primary Colors.  The students have read the books Mouse Paint,  and Monsters Love Colors, as well as watching the OK Go Primary Colors video.  For the project the students used the 3 primary color markers to color on diffusing paper then we added water to watch the secondary colors mix and appear!  It was amazing!  We are currently working on our cutting and gluing skills to turn the tiedyed paper into color monsters.

First grade  is living the Cubist life!  They learned about the artist Pablo Picasso and his cubist style portraits.  They then played a dice game to make wacky mixed up portraits.  For the final project they are working XL to create a huge cubist style head and coloring in with chalk pastels in the Tertiary colors.  

Second grade has been tinkering and problem solving with our Robots!  We are lucky to have 8 new Ozobots in the art room, thanks to our Artsonia fundraising and the WT PTA!  The 2nd graders used them to kick off our robot unit.  They then worked on a writing component where they designed a robot that can adapt or change to do something helpful for us.  Each artist is designing their own special robot plans and illustrating what they would want in their own personal robot.  

Third grade has been working with the Japanese style of printmaking called Gyotaku.  They have used rubber fish to make fish prints and even gathered leaves from around WT to make nature prints.  Soon they will be cutting apart their prints and combining the two into one final nature print display. 

Fourth grade is working on drawing math forms from careful observation.  They learned about the artist Wayne Thiebaud and will be using their new observational drawing skills to draw a realistic cupcake!  

Fifth grade has been working on realistic bone sketches in the style of Leonardo DaVinci and living artist Nick Veasey.  Students are guided to research and learn about what is interesting to them.  They can then decide on composition and areas of focus in the true renaissance style of learning.  For the drawings students are using photocopies of the skeleton, drawing mannequin skeletons, and even real x rays for their observations.  

Artsonia Update!

We will again be using Artsonia as a digital online gallery at Wayne Thomas.  Please be on the lookout for a flyer coming home shortly explaining the process. If you have not given permissions for your student to participate in this wonderful private online resource, please consider it.  The students love being able to share their artwork with you! 

Welcome Back!

I am so very excited to start the new school year.  I am looking forward to seeing all of our wonderful WT artists and hearing about their summer art adventures.  This year will be a little different for me, I will be teaching at Oak Terrace as well as Wayne Thomas each week.  On Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday afternoons I will travel to Oak Terrace school to teach at the end of each day.  On Tuesdays I will be at Wayne Thomas all day.  If you need to get in contact with me it is best to email me this year, as I will not be at Wayne Thomas to return phone calls at the end of the school day.  I will be happy to return calls as soon as possible.  I look forward to collaborating with all of you.  Keep Creating!  ~ Mrs. Kurzawski

April in the Art Room!

During the month of April many fun and exciting things are happening.  Please be on the look out for the Kids Kreations items to be coming home this week.  All items were placed in the children's lockers Wednesday evening.

Kindergarten- Noodle Pots! We made pinch pots out of clay and added "noodle" decorations by pressing in real dried noodles!  Fish Weaving: Students are working on learning the art of paper weaving.  We are talking about patterns during this project focusing on Over- Under- Over - Under!

First Grade- Insect drawings: The students used the artist Levon Biss' website Microsculpture  to create detailed drawings of insects.  Next, they added bright colors using oil pastel.  The students are quite the little entomologists!  Eiffel Tower: To begin our journey into studying the art of artist Henri Rousseau we took a quick trip to Paris!  Students drew their own Eiffel Towers and illustrated what their family would do if they got to take a trip to Paris and see the tower.

Second Grade- Self Portraits:  Students completed the self portraits to start out the month.
Clay Coil Vessels:  We are currently learning how to build a pot using coils.

Third Grade- Georgia O'Keeffe Abstract Flower Painting: We finished up our water color paintings of flowers.  The walls are filled with our beautiful blooming gallery!
Mayan Weaving:  Students are just getting into weaving with yarn on a loom.  Each week we will learn 2 new weaving techniques to add to our looms.

Fourth Grade- Origami Math Mandalas: Students just completed an origami project where they worked on 4 different folds and created paper mandalas showing either radial symmetry or linear symmetry.  They even added clues using fractions to connect with the current math unit of fractions and decimals.

Fifth Grade- Clay Figurines:  We are studying the clay traditions behind garden gnomes and bobble heads this month.  Students have learned about the history of both and are making personal clay figurines.  Be on the look out for sneaky gnoming neighbors!