Hello!

I am an art teacher with the Fairfield Community Schools teaching grades K through 5. I enjoy working with the children and helping them learn to use the creative side of their brain. I hope you enjoy my blog and seeing a bit of what we work on in the art classes.

Friday, September 23, 2011

Second Graders' Line Drawings

One of the elements of art is, of course, line. The second graders have been working on line drawings with "cut away" views of all various things, homes or cliff dwellings, or under the ground scenes of a mole's hidden home. This picture of a house is in progress by Erin, age 7. Check out all the things that are happening in her fun drawing so far! Great job, Erin! The cut away view allows us to see so many different things!

Thursday, September 15, 2011

One of the reasons...

One of the reasons I am passionate about art is that I have relatives on both sides of my family who studied art.  I cherish the few pictures I have that they did. Although they have been gone for many years, their art is a visible reminder of their lives and their contributions to the planet. The sketch that accompanies this blog was completed in 1918 by my maternal grandfather, Roy Jensen.  He died in 1935 when his car was stuck by a train. He was a United Methodist pastor and the father of three children, including my mom who was two years old when he died. Although my mother and the rest of us did not get to know this wonderful man, the drawings he did and the things he wrote are treasures that let us in on a little of who he was. 


Likewise, one can look back at the artwork of a child as the record of who they were when young, and the thinking and ideas expressed therein. Each of the students I work with changes and develops each day. The work they do today is different than that they will do next year, the next, and later in life. Their work is a creative effort, an example of who they are now, a footprint of sort of their time here today.  Each one is in the process of making sketchbooks for this school year, labeled with their name as they write it now, their preliminary sketches for their projects, their idea book and a reflection of their changing lives. I hope to have them write in their books about what they are thinking about their artwork.  I hope that at the school year's end these little books will become keepsakes for their families, a look back at who they are now.

Friday, September 9, 2011

Third graders view closely

Third graders have been observing still life objects and trying to really observe shape and form. They have been working on monochromatic (one color) watercolor paintings of their observed object. It takes a lot of concentration to think about the edge of something piece by piece. For example, one might look carefully at the curve of one part of one pedal of a flower, and then after getting that on paper, go on to the next pedal beside that. I have been pleased with the results so far as the students try to draw what shapes they see, and drawing with a paintbrush! The use of a monochromatic color scheme helps to give these paintings unity, one of our principles of design.  

Friday, September 2, 2011

End of the First Week

This week I will focus on what the fourth graders are learning in art class right now. The fourth graders learned what "surreal" means (not real) and have started creating surrealistic works of art. We saw several examples of artwork by Salvador Dali and others. The students looked for pictures in magazines to start in a collage approach with things put together in a new and surprising way.  It seemed to me that they were having a great time finding images that really did not go together in a traditional way of thinking, but could make our viewers surprised. So far it has been a good experience as they have been "thinking outside the box."