Watercolor Paintings of Flowers by Ms. Finberg's class

Children in 4th grade are exploring working in watercolors. Painting in watercolor has its own techniques. Read the captions below to learn a little about what we are doing.

This artist first painted the yellow shape and the background. During a class a week later, the child used a much smaller brush to add the details.

Children also used their "detail" brushes to further define their petals.

Here, the artist used the detail brushes to add the fine detailing on the petals.....

This artist used wet-on-wet technique to make the background seem further back. Wet-on-wet technique is when one color is added to another color that has not yet dried on the paper.

Children also learned that when working in watercolors when you paint the same color over another color that has already dried, it intensifies that color...Above, see areas where the black color was used more than once....can you see a difference?

Children learned to make some aspects of the background come "forward" by making some of the background foliage more detailed than others.

These 2 flowers are brought forward and in focus by the fact that the front subjects are detailed and the background objects are blurry.

Thank You!!!

I LOVE my parents at Murch.

I come back from vacation....and in my art studio I find not one, not two, but various boxes and bags of recycled gifts such as containers, cardboard, art books...etc. Thank you for making my Monday a very special welcome back.....

2009 Calendars wanted!!!!

For years I've been collecting visual resources to use in class...these visual resources come into handy when examples of a certain artist or period is needed. Calendars often have amazing images which I use for this purpose....if you have any calendars with large images of people, animals, plants, still life or landscapes.....or anything else (that's appropriate) please drop it by my art room. Thanks!

3rd Graders Create simple 4-legged animals- These are waiting to be painted

Children in 3rd grade have been exploring sculpting simple 4-legged animals with self-drying clay and working within it's properties and limitations. Clay is very brittle and delicate when dry so children had to create creatures that were fairly thick and without creases. Next week these animals will be painted one color and detailed the next week.

Children used carving tools to create details such as fur or stripes on the surface of their animals.

Sketches Created By 2nd Grade Classes for upcoming Human Sculpting Unit

Children in 2nd grade will be creating human sculptures in movement and began this unit by drawing 2-minute quick sketches of bodies in motion. We began by discussing where our bodies bend and what that looks like on paper. Children had to practice drawing only what they saw. It was a bumpy road at first, but quickly the children understood that they would have better success if they actually followed the rule......"only draw what you see....."

Cloth Collages Created by Ms. Fitzpatrick's Kindergarten class

Children in kindergarten used cloth, ribbons, yarn and lace to create a cloth collage. These are all such different compositions and each is very interesting. Some used many pieces, some overlapped, some used pieces that never touched one another. They all look fantastic!