Leaf Season

At the beginning of the school year, I usually read the book  I am an Artist, by Pat Lowery Collins, to our youngest students.  The author explains that we are ALL artists when we stop to really look at the world around us.  Who has not been awed by the unexpected red eft on the woodpile, or the dragonfly that suddenly perches on dad's baseball cap while we're out fishing?  Thus begins our art exploration.

We have been observing nature in almost all art classes.  (The exception is 6th grade; in that class, we are exploring color and identity through our own sneakers!)

Here are some examples, along with photos of some finished projects:

Kindergarten:  Ceramic leaf dishes
Art Concepts:  texture, contour line, exploring clay
       
  

First & Second Grade:  Leaf drawing/painting
Art concepts:  contour line, drawing from observation, overlapping, movement, "art magic" of oil pastel resisting watercolor paint

Third & Fourth Grade:  Watercolor Leaf Prints & Incredible Insect drawing
Art concepts:  "art magic" of watercolor leaf printing, insect morphology, line patterns, drawing from imagination to create unique "incredible" yet realistic insects

Fifth Grade: Leaf Monoprints
Art Concepts:  printmaking exploration, contrast, balance

Seventh Grade:  Digital Photography
Students are exploring with digital cameras.  They have been learning to look creatively at the world around them through finding textures and unique perspectives during photo scavenger hunts around the school.  They've been exploring photo editing using alteration and cropping tools.  Each student is zeroing in on one item, shape, texture or theme to create a photomontage.

Look for examples of student art at the HES gallery on Artsonia.

Hartland Art at the Tunbridge World's Fair

3rd Grade Group Project

Congratulations to Hartland 3rd graders for winning first prize on their towering 10 foot high group project showing massive sunflowers.  Student artists learned about blending colors with oil pastels on the flower petals, and created real texture in the sunflower centers using coffee grounds, wheat berries, cornmeal, and red lentils.

I also saved some other farm-related artwork done by HES students completed last year to enter in the fair.  See those examples above.

Art is.....by HES 7th grade students

Welcome Back!

 

 

 

The Artsonia website www.artsonia.com, where you may view Hartland Elementary School student artwork,  is up and running again this year. If parents want to start a Fan Club for their children on Artsonia, or have their children receive comments about their artwork on the website, you'll need your child's Screen Name and password.  I do have all those screen names and passwords in a file.  Just email me if you need them:  Jcathey@wsesu.net

Sustainable Art

Sustainable Art

5^th Grade Students layered white wool fleece, sprinkled with wildflower seeds, and needle-felted designs on top using colored wool. The results are erosion control "healing blankets". They will be placed on some of the unstable silty banks of the White River that were dramatically altered by the flooding during Hurricane Irene last fall.  The blankets will help stabilize the riverbank.  After the seeds inside the blankets germinate, the roots of the growing wildflowers will help reduce erosion as well.

Basket Ball

4th Grade Students show their random woven "Basket Balls".

Jr Iron Chef Competition

Three HES middle School students participated yesterday in the Jr Iron Chef VT Competition.  It was the 5th annual competition, but the first time the Hartland Hash Slingers  joined in.  I had fun, and it looked as if they did too!  There were about 72 other teams there at the Essex Fairgrounds from all over VT!!!  Our challenge was to make the most tasty, nutritious, locally grown, creative, attractive, simple vegetarian dish we could.  How do you do that all at once?  There were only 3 prizes given out, and we did not "win", but we gained lots of experience and enjoyed the day, and I hope these chefs want to come back to try again next year.  Thank you so much to the parents who helped with travel, supplies, and support, to Jaden's cousin Buddy, who imparted lots of chef knowledge to our fledgling chef's, and to our sponsors HES Farm to School Program and the Windsor County Farm Bureau for funding and support.

 Do you want our recipe for Wheatberry Apple Pilaf with Kale Chips?  Click on its name.

At Work

Waving the Finished Flag

Serving the judges' portions

Solidarity

The final presentations were impressive

End of the First Semester

The first semester is coming to a close, and so is 7th Grade Art.  I will be seeing our HES 8th Graders again once each week for the rest of the school year.

Our last project in 7th Grade Art integrated Science and Art.  Seventh grade students studied one-celled organisms this year.  I have always been amazed at the beauty of one-celled organisms, such as diatoms.  I showed students photos of these microscopic creatures, painstakingly arranged on slides by scientists.  Students chose one organism to draw.  They painted ceramic tiles with three layers of glaze.  They scratched  a repeated design of their chosen diatom or other single-celled organism into the glaze.  The tiles were then fired.

See more student examples at www.Artsonia.com