Vincent van Gogh

Maybe some of you saw the amazing report on Vincent van Gogh on Sixty Minutes last Sunday night. If not, you can go on line to see it. Use the link below, or google Sixty Minutes report on van Gogh. The program showed many of Vincent's works and revealed many things that were not as originally thought. Some of it will change what has been taught in art history for many years. As you can see by the accompanying art work by a young child in my class, Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night is one of the master works of about about which we learn. He was an amazingly talented painter, and I think you will enjoy seeing this report.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7384904n&tag=fdEmbedTooEarly

Looking at manikins

Over the years I have learned that even first graders are able to look at a manikin and think about how to observe people, their proportions, and the way people move. They are also able to work through emotions and feelings and events through their art. As children create, they often have a story to tell, something that happened in their life that they are drawing and/or painting about. The picture that accompanies this post is a great example from last year. First grader Carter said this was his father waving goodbye as the bus leaves for school. I love how in this picture Carter was able to capture the feeling of that moment, the point of view of his dad as the bus leaves,

and even the perspective of the bus getting smaller as it gets further away. Art class enables students to create and learn, and also to think deeply and to communicate important ideas.

Radial Symmetry from Nature

Radial Symmetry From Nature on PhotoPeach

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!

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.

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.  

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."