MC Escher, Jasper Johns and figure drawing

This week in art Student's learned about our Artist of the month: MC Escher.

Escher's work is very interesting to look at and encourages the viewer to view the whole work rather than focus on one portion of the image.  Two of his more famous works we looked at were "Relativity" and "Drawing Hands."  We also looked at how Escher has influenced our daily lives through popular culture.

The Simpsons

Students continued to work on their number project based on the work of Jasper Johns adding thick and thin lines and using pattern and repetition in their work.

1st Grade reviewed drawing and cutting the shapes they learned in Kindergarten and used those shapes to create underwater Fish Portholes.

They traced large circles for the glass window to the sea, they then added blue watercolor paint for the water, created seaweed using thick squiggly lines, and cut out squares and triangles to make fish.  

They glued the fish, seaweed, and added a few hole punches for the bubbles of air...

 cut out a larger circle to make the connection between the submarine and the boat and drew on their own rivets

Fourth Grade created realistic humans using the drawing figures and completed the scene by adding details in the background and a painterly style of coloring with crayon or colored pencils.

Here are two examples of the correct proportions, the average human body is 6 to 7 1/2 head lengths tall, the average fourth grader is about 5 1/2 head lengths tall (1 head length is top of the head to the bottom of the chin)

Drawing, glue, and lots of shapes

Third Graders looked at the works of Wassily Kandinsky, and created their own circle shape works while listening to opera, much like Kandinsky was known to be inspired by.

 


Fourth Graders looked at the proportions of both, 4th graders, and full grown adults and learned the average 4th grader is 5 1/2 head lengths tall.  They practiced drawing accurate people using the drawing figures.

 

Week two nearly in the books...

Second grade kicked off the year with watercolor.  Students looked at the work of Jasper Johns and are emulating his number paintings.  (Left)

Fifth grade took a look at the self portraits of many artists including Chuck Close , Pablo Picasso , Vincent Van Gogh, and Frida Kahlo.  Students then learned the basic structure of a face and practiced drawing their own.