Creating a Culture of Sketchbook-ing!!

If you are in grades K-5th, I'm sure by now you have gotten the notice that your child needs to bring in a sketchbook for art.


My goal at Murch is to create a culture of "sketchbook-ing". The sketchbooks will be used for anything from journal writing, scrapbooking to sketching.

I teach the children that artists are not the only people who carry around sketchbooks. Thinkers, architects, designers, writers, and just about anyone who values their own thought process carries a form of one of these.

Sketchbook-ing or journal writing, teaches that all great ideas start inside one of these raggedy notebooks and grow, grow, grow to become complex set of ideas.

I teach the children in class that in our sketchbooks we do not erase. We allow ourselves to make mistakes and learn from them. That way months from now we can look back and assess our own growth.

One-point-perspective with 5th graders

We have some awesome future architects in the 5th grade class. We started our watercolor/drawing unit learning about proportion and one-point perspective.

Parents, click here for a great tutorial on one-point perspective. http://www.olejarz.com/arted/perspective/

You will love doing this with your child. Such fun!

Work by Anna Joos (5th grade)

Work by Henry Lent (5th grade)

For parents who want to continue this lesson at home here's a great live tutorial. enjoy!!

4th Graders Learn about human facial proportions

4th graders are working on a drawing unit where the culmination will be drawing a proportionate self portrait.

Standard Facial Proportions:Here are a list of standard facial proportions. Try them at home!

• The eyes are halfway between the top of the head and the chin.
• The bottom of the nose is halfway between the eyes and the chin.
• The mouth is halfway between the nose and the chin.
• The corners of the mouth line up with the centers of the eyes.
• The top of the ears line up above the eyes, on the eyebrows.
• The bottom of the ears line up with the bottom of the nose.

We used magazine images to sketch a proportionate human face.

If you want to do this at home with your child, here is a great video to show you how. Enjoy!! bring the result to class to show me!!

3rd Graders Create Building Collages

Children in the 3rd grade classes at Murch have been practicing creating collages based on photos of building. We learned that to create a collage we start with big shapes and then add the DETAILS with smaller shapes. We learned that DETAILS in this case were the windows, doors, and chimneys. We later cut out our buildings and added them into a community.

Kids used photographs of buildings to create their houses.

2nd Graders create color wheels

2nd graders create color wheels using the 3 primary colors.

Welcome to the art room...

Welcome to the art room....here are some images of the room....

We have a vocab wall.....one per grade....
Here are some artwork created by the pre-K.
Everything has its place!
The sculpture center is where sculptures are stored and are set out to dry.
More art on the walls.
Your art responsibilities.....
Some painting explorations created by 2nd graders.
Storage of work to be completed...and the top is another sculpture area.