Fall Leaves : Warm and Cool

It's fall! (almost!)

We had a ton of fun this class working on a fall leaf project that incorporated the idea of warm and cool colors in art. We began by brainstorming what colors felt warm and cool to us. The kids were quite adept at this and even managed to articulate that there were some clear "middle" colors (green and purple) that could be seen as either warm or cool. Pretty neat!

Then we did a quick exercise to help the kids conceptualize an easy way to draw leaves and began our project. The kids each drew 5 (or more) fall leaves on watercolor paper. Then we painted. The kids were encouraged to use warm colors for the leaves (reds, oranges, yellows, pinks, browns, warm greens) and cool colors for the fall sky (blues, purples, grays).

As you can see from the final pieces, some children really resonated with that plan and kept with it through out the class. Others began with the warms and cools and then follow their own inspiration to finalize their pieces. Both approaches are completely valid and supported. I do encourage the kids to follow instructions initially so that they can benefit from the intended lesson, but once they have accomplished that, I want them feel free to follow their intuition where it goes! It was an energetic and lovely class!

Owls: From Drawing to Painting

What a wonderful day in Kindergarten Art! 

We began our morning with a warm-up worksheet. Although it is not the most enjoyable part of the project, it was important as it featured many of the shapes we would be utilizing to draw the owl. After the kids had practiced their shapes, we moved on to drawing the owls. Step by step the kids followed along with my demonstration. They were incredibly focused and persistent. I was also very pleased to see that many of them felt comfortable and confident adding their own creative details.

After our initial drawing (done in pencil) the kids traced their owl in permanent marker. This not only gave them a chance to continue improving drawing skills and artistic confidence, it also allowed them to alter and perfect anything they weren't quite happy with the first time. We then added some blue, purple and white oil pastels to our skies and moons.

Then (finally! What we had all been waiting for!) we got out watercolors and began to paint. The kids were encouraged to use the watercolors to fill their whole page with color. They were allowed to mix their own colors and did wonderfully when it came to sharing our beautiful art class materials! These owls are amazing! It is always incredible for me to watch as the children receive identical instructions and then produce such remarkably varied and beautiful work!

Welcome to MMS Kindergarten Art (2019-2020)!

Welcome to Kindergarten Art!

We had a great first day in art class.
We began with introductions and a casual discussion of "what is art?"

The kids have had many (and various) experiences of making art.
It was exciting to talk about and even more exciting to get started!

We began our class, as we often will, with a warm up exercise. The theme of today's project was line. Our worksheet covered vertical, horizontal and diagonal lines. Although the words were new to many of the kids, the concepts were not!

After that we got out construction paper and glue. Their task was to choose strips of construction paper in the colors they liked and glue them onto their paper vertically. We followed by gluing strips on horizontally - and then (optional!) they could glue diagonally. With papers full of magical color, the kids were presented with the option of adding their own unique designs to their work with markers. Beautiful!

Kids who finished a little early were able to enjoy a little coloring as well!