Creating Beauty Together in the Art Room - A recycled art project 4th Grade

     This fall our school theme is Life Together. With Dale Chihuly, a glass blower, as our inspiration we began 4th grade art with a group recycling project. I could hardly believe the enthusiasm! We discussed how big projects were possible if we worked together. Students quickly compared this to an assembly line (smart cookies that they are!) and everyone volunteered for a job so our work would be accomplished efficiently. Some students removed labels, others washed, and still others others dried. There was a sanding group to help our paint stick and others that were excited to paint.  I did not hear a single complaint about their job and they all were industrious as little bees. A few weeks later we divided up the work again. This time some cut the bottles into spirals and added a wire while the muscle crew bent wire and assembled the project. I hope you enjoy the two beautiful chandeliers that were the result of us doing life together in the art room at Rose Park. 

 

 

Some began by washing all the water bottles that we had collected. 

Others sanded the bottles to created a rough surface so our paint would adhere.

Two groups of students painted the bottles. One group used warm colors and another cool. 

Here we are cutting the sculpture and adding wire. 

 

 

Finally students added the spirals to the wire to assemble it.

Quite beautiful, don't you think?

4th Graders learn about Janet Fish and create a Still Life

4th Graders learn about Janet Fish and how she used common everyday objects in her still life paintings. We drew a still life that included milk cartons, tape, rocks, granola boxes, fruit, and flowers. Students used view finders to help enlarge the objects so they would go off the edge of our drawings (it draws the viewer in to the picture). We were a little intimidated at first but were shocked by our drawings when we were through. This week students began adding color. 

Today you can see we began to add color to our drawings.
We used special combinations of colors that we chose
from the color wheel called color schemes.

It was hard to create new colors using only our color scheme
plus black and white but the fourth graders were up for the challenge!