Here is Bella with her plaque from Artsonia.com! She won "Artist of the Week" (PK-3rd grade division) for her clay owl sculpture!
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Artsonia,
plaque,
winner
My sweet, smarties in first grade learned how to draw castles today. These are their practice sketches!
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1st grade,
Castle
Ah, the armadillo! Go-to insectivore of the Kindergarten Western Art World! How we love your hairy belly, your 9 bands, your cute little nose! ;)
Here are some of Kindergarten's practice armadillos!
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Armadillo,
kindergarten,
Western Art
3rd graders are drawing chickens in preparation for the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo's CISD Art Show held in January.
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3rd grade,
chickens,
Western Art
After a fun drawing project with Kindergarten, I decided to try a watercolor marker wax resist with 1st. I am so thrilled with the result! Gorgeous!!!
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1st grade,
October,
spider,
wax resist
Happy little scarecrows drawn by 2nd graders.
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2nd grade,
November,
Scarecrows
We made spiders and webs in kindergarten today. They turned out so cute-- we may have to draw some in 1st grade, just for fun!
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Halloween,
kindergarten,
October,
spiders,
webs
Some of the teachers decided to have a little painting-party after school last week. Of course, we painted owls!
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owls,
Painting,
teachers
Stop! Think! Act! Review!
"The greatest OAK was once a little
a litte NUT who held his ground!
In 4th grade we've been discussing Seurat and his pointillism artworks. All my fourth graders have come to one conclusion: pointillism takes alot of TIME! :) They really feel for old Georges when they find out that his artwork
Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte was waaaaay bigger than their 9x12 sheet of paper.
The kids have really enjoyed created tree art with paint a q-tips. Their ears have never been cleaner! Be sure to check out their tree artwork on our
Artsonia gallery site.
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Pointillism 4th grade trees
I just thought since it's been nearly a year, I'd update my blog! :) Oak Ridge Owls have been hard at work creating beautiful art around here. We spent the month of September creating different types of trees. If you'd like to see each grade level's art gallery, please visit our Electronic Gallery at
Artsonia.com!
Right now we are working on Pumpkins during our 3 month PUMPKINPALOOZA 2012! :) Stay tuned for classroom pictures. I've got to retrieve them off my camera!
Tomorrow is the first day of the new school year. I hope you are excited, because I am! The first day of a new year is exciting because its a new opportunity to start fresh and to learn new things. I can't wait to see what we make in the art room this year. We'll have western art, drawing, painting, sculpting, and of course, owl related projects and more! :)
Can't wait to see you tomorrow!
Mrs. Moran!
Sometimes I forget how fun just a simple drawing lesson can be. I started out teaching kindergarteners how to draw a dragon as part of their Alphabet Drawing journal. We go through the alphabet and learn how to draw things depending on what letter we are on, so we were on "D."
So late in the year and on "D," Mrs Moran!?
Well, I tend to get carried away with projects and we don't do much in the journal! But, I decided to re-visit them again this past week, and I'm glad I did! All the kindergartners really LOVED drawing and naming their dragons. Too bad I only had my camera on the last day!
It's really amazing how much these kids have grown in the past year! My friend Mrs. Lingerfelt, who is also an art teacher, always tells me how much she LOVES kindergartners. She says,
"They are FEARLESS and will try anything!"
And it's so true!
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dragons,
kindergarten
Today was the Annual Western Art Show that CISD hosts for the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. This years' show was amazing, as always! I am proud to say I work for an amazing district that really supports the fine arts. Here are some pictures of some of our students. My favorite is the picture of first grader, Desiree hugging her classroom teacher, Mrs. Moore, who was so nice to come and support Desiree in her very first art show!
I didn't catch EVERYBODY, but I did the best I can to give you a taste of what the show was like! Enjoy!
Posted in
Western Art Show
I've made a little video of this year's CISD WESTERN ART SHOW PICKS from Oak Ridge Elementary. The show is tomorrow at Conroe HS. I'm going to try to take pictures at the event and then I'll post them as soon as I can. It's always fun, and there's TONS of great artwork to see!
I'm very proud of the artwork we turned out this year. Enjoy!
Posted in
Western Art
I love the fall. REALLY love the fall. I love the weather, I love pumpkins, I love the changing of the leaves, but most of all, I really love FALL ARTWORK! We have been working really hard in the art room for the past couple of weeks. The projects have been taking longer than normal with lots of fun events like STORYBOOK DRESS-DAY and RED RIBBON WEEK sprinkled in there. But, we are getting it down, slowly but surely.
4th grade has been making Leaf Rubbings. We read "LEAF MAN" by Lois Ehlert. After reading the book, we went outside and collected some nice leaves of different shapes and sizes. ORE has an abundance of beautiful oak trees in the front of the school, go figure, so luckily we've had a lot to work with.
They create texture rubbings with the leaves using warm colored crayons and then watercolor over the top of the leaves with warm colors as well. After letting the leaves dry and cutting them out, they assembled them on a cool color background. The results are beautiful!
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4th grade,
fall,
texture rubbings,
watercolor
First grade is creating the most beautiful landscapes!
This project is one of my favorites because there is NEVER a lack of "Oohs and Aahs." Students blow air through straws onto India ink blobs to make trunks for trees. We learned about WARM colors and how the leaves change to red, orange and yellow in the fall. After our India ink dried, we started using warm colored watercolor to paint the leaves of the trees.
Sometimes the hardest part about water coloring is the waiting....to dry...especially for 6 and 7 year olds. But, patience paid off and the next day we added our COOL colored sky. There are lots of times when I think the pictures of the kids MAKING the artwork is just about as beautiful as the artwork itself. This was definitely one of those times!
Posted in
1st grade,
fall,
warm/cool colors
Most of my ORE students have begged for this recipe! I came across the PUMPKIN PIE PLAYDOUGH Recipe in a Family Fun magazine a couple of years back and made some for my kindergartner who was 3 at the time. She loved it! So, I decided to make it a school tradition too. The article says it lasts about a week, but if you keep it sealed in a container or baggie, I have found it lasts for at least a month. Your house will smell great, too! Enjoy!
Pumpkin Pie Playdough (Family Fun Magazine)
Materials
1 cup flour
1/2 cup salt
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 cup water
Food coloring (we used 6 drops of red and 15 drops of yellow)
Instructions
Combine the dry ingredients in a nonstick saucepan. Add the oil, water, and food coloring and whisk until smooth. Stirring constantly with a rubber spatula, cook the mixture over medium heat until it forms a ball, about 3 to 4 minutes.
Turn the dough onto a counter, let it cool slightly, then knead the dough until it has a smooth texture, about 1 minute. The dough will keep up to a week in a ziplock bag.
To make stems, place some pasta (I use rotini) in a ziplock bag. Add five drops of green food coloring and a teaspoon of water. Seal the bag, then let your tot squish the pasta around until it's tinted. Pour the pasta onto a piece of waxed paper and let it dry for about five minutes before pressing it into your pumpkins.
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fall,
pumpkin playdough
