Elementary Art with Miriam Cutelis

12/10/09

Watercolor Guest Artist Volunteer needed...

I am looking for a volunteer watercolor artist to come visit my 4th grade classes for 45 minutes total and show their work and talk about their technique. We are working on wet on dry and wet on wet techniques and would love to show them the thinking behind these 2 techniques. You do not need to have been in a gallery, or sell your work....but you need to have at least 4-5 watercolor samples to show. If you know someone who paints in watercolor please send them this post. You and your work and website will be featured in the Murch Art Blog!!

The times I have when you can visit the classes are:
Mondays: 1:45-2:30
Tuesdays or Fridays st: 1:45-2:30
or
Wednesdays at 1:00pm

please contact me at Miriam.Cutelis@yahoo.com if you can come for a visit.

Trash Call- Need calendars

Although I came with an arsenal of images to use with the kids. I am trying to further build an image library for you can never have enough examples of images from which to learn from. Calendars are a great source of large clear images. If you are throwing away your 2009 calendar and it's appropriate (just trying to be funny), consider dropping it off in the art room......thanks!!

Look for these this week K!!

kids in K are taking home their self-framed pop animal drawing/ Paintings rolled up with a ribbon in the form of GIFTS next week.....some kids are taking home their black and white trees or a large painting of one animal....enjoy!

Set almost done for 2nd grade play

I am creating the set for the 2nd grade play next week....here is the work in progress:

1st Graders continue construction unit making mice homes

Here are two sample shoebox homes being created by one first grade team. Due to the lack of storage space and shoe boxes young artists are collaborating in making their mice homes. Although this might mean that ultimately only one child gets to take it home, it can be recreated at home with some very simple recycled items and some grown-up only hot glue gun.

5th Graders Begin Filming their friendship movie for the prek/k classes next week

Children worked in groups and had to collaborate on making a movie about friendship to be viewed by the prek and K classes.

a sample script typed by a child for their group.

One student creating the credits list

These are initial sketches of their ideas.

a child writing his script for the group.

creating the scenery for the claymation group.

scenery from another group.

creating a list for credits

4th Grade begin their watercolor unit

These are the initial explorations we did in watercolor with the 4th graders. They used 2 types of brushes. One to lay on the general shape and another, a detail brush, to add on the smaller aspects of the painting. We will continue to create other paintings to become more familiar with this varied media.

12/8/09

Watercolor with the 4th Graders

With the 4th grade class I've begun working in watercolors. We began by putting in large shapes of color to represent the general shape of the animal we were painting and today we added details using a small brushe. When people begin painting they often paint like they would draw and they rush to add the details in at the same time as they do their shapes. This does not help create a very successful painting. I did not capture any of the paintings on camera, but will post some tomorrow. but I am warning you...the results are stunning.

this is a great video about details.....

this one shows how she puts down the large shapes down first.

this shows the exact technique I was teaching the kids in class.

12/7/09

call for shelves

Do you have an old shelf you no longer need? Don't put it out on the curb, donate it to the art room. For all who have been in the art room lately have you felt a bit claustrophobic? I am running out of shelf space and am in desperate need of shelves. I do not need a new one...for it will be stained with paint in less than a week. If you have a shelf you no longer need and can drop it off at school.....I'd really love to have it. I will remove this post once I have the amount I need

12/5/09

Art Show Pictures!

Dear Wonderful Families,

I had a great time at the art show. It was more fun than some adult art shows I've been to. If you want JPG files of any pictures of yourselves please e-mail me and I'd be glad to send you the file. Enjoy!