Youth Art Month!!

Youth Art Month is in full swing here in the Sauk Prairie School District!

In honor of YAM and the opening of the district wide student art show on Thursday, it is ART SPIRIT WEEK!!  Wear a different color scheme everyday:

Monday: Primary Colors (red, yellow, blue)

Tuesday: Secondary Colors (green, purple, orange)

Wednesday: Monochromatic (wear one color. pick your favorite!)

Thursday: Warm, Cool or Neutral (red, orange, yellow or blue, green, purple or black, white, brown)

Friday: Complimentary Colors(blue and orange, yellow and purple, or red and green)

And remember...

Youth Art Month

"In The Garden"

Join Us In Celebrating...

March 8–April 3

Reception: March 14, 3:30–7 pm

River Arts Center

Prairie du Sac, Wisconsin

Gallery is open on school days 8:00 am–8:00 pm.

Hope to see you there!



Grand Ave. 3rd and 4th Grade Disability Unit

The third and fourth grade students at Grand Ave. have participated in activities in various classes to increase their understanding of what it is like to have a disability. In art, students watched several short films about a blind painter, a painter that uses her feet to paint and an artist that is autistic. Students then drew a picture and colored it using their feet or non-dominate hand. After working without their dominate hand we discussed the challenge of having a disability.

Grand Ave. 3rd Grade Snowmen Portraits

In the spirit of the season the 3rd grade students created snowmen portrait collages. Students started by reading Snowmen at Night by, Caralyn Buehner and then painted a snowman portrait. Then they added accessories and facial features using paper, felt, buttons and paint. We had a lot of creative snowmen!

Watercolor Landscpapes, 5th grade, Grand Avenue

We took advantage of the beautiful fall landscapes in the area and used it as an opportunity to create a regional landscape, in the style of Grant Wood and Vincent van Gogh. The artists carefully looked at the photograph to determine the horizon line, the line between the ground and the sky, and started drawing that line.  They worked their way through the picture, carefully noting lines that show change in vegetation, colors or textures. 

Once the picture was laid out, they thought about patterns in nature.  By adding patterns in a few different areas, they help to draw the viewer’s attention as well as add details and interest to the drawings.  The important things to remember when adding patterns in nature, is that they do not create perfect patterns. To help show space, things that are closer to you are larger with more detail, things that are further away are smaller with less detail. 

Once these pen and ink drawings were complete, color was added using watercolors.  They incorporated both wash and dry brush techniques into their paintings.

Students working on adding watercolor washed to their landscapes.  Color was added in layers using mostly washes, with drybrush in some areas.

                                  

The completed watercolors are hanging in the 5th grade halls at Grand Avenue.  Please check them out next time you are visiting school! 

13 Moon Calendar Necklace

Fourth grade students learn about how the Native Americans use the lunar cycle as a calendar.  There are 13 moons in a calendar year, hence the name of the necklace.  Each necklace represents one year.  There are 13 moon beads with 28 seed beads in between each moon, representing the 28 days in each lunar cycle.  The children created patterns between each moon.  Some even used ideas from what is happening in nature at the time of the moon to decide on their pattern.  This shows a great connection to the Native Americans.  They named their moons based on what was happening in nature.  For example, there is the Strawberry Moon and the Maple Sugar Moon.  Can you figure out what time of year those moons happen?

Completed necklaces.

 

Working on a necklace.





Rock Art - Grand Ave. 4th Grade

Mrs. Markley's Class

Mrs. Markley's Class




Rock Art by Cassie Ziegler

 


Rock Art by Elizabeth Lenerz




Class Rock



The fourth grade students at Grand Avenue created Rock Art based on the pictographs and petroglyphs made by the Paleo Indians that  lived in Wisconsin over a 1000 years ago. The large class rock was created in a cave like setting, students had to paint an image with very little light and on a vertical rough surface rather than a flat table.