A Brand New Year for ART!!!

I am so excited to have my student artists back in the Art Room hard at work! To start the year off in a BIG way, every student at Nelson contributed a small piece of art to help create this HUGE collaborative mural. We studied a famous painting titled "Squares with Concentric Circles" made by the artist Wassily Kandinsky and used it as inspiration for our own works. This mural sure does brighten up our Nelson hallway!

2nd Grade Taco Fish

They're all glazed up and looking beautiful! Our second grade artists created these "Taco Fish" using terra cotta clay and a variety of texture tools. They are formed in the shape of a taco with fins, eyes, and a tongue added for detail. Great job, second graders!!!

5th Grade Handmade Artist Books

This sample collection of papers will be turned into pages of our handmade Artist Books. Fifth graders will be exploring a variety of media and techniques to create a very personal collection of mini-artwork contained within a book that they will be making by hand.

Kindergarten Hand Print Paintings

These cute little artworks were created by our kindergarten artists using their hands as a stencil. Then they had to use a variety of line types to create patterns within the handprints. By pushing hard with their crayons, they were able to watercolor right over their image and still have everything "pop" from the page.

First Grade Story Quilts

In our first grade art classes we read a book by Faith Ringgold titled "Tar Beach." In it, a little girl uses her imagination and pretends that she can fly over her favorite places in the city where she lives. Before the story was a book, it was actually a quilt! That's right. Faith Ringgold is not only an author, she is also a quilt maker. She created a quilt title "Tar Beach" with the story sewn right into the fabric. Our first grade artist were asked to create their own story quilts by drawing a picture of themselves flying over a favorite place. We then used patterns paper squares to create the effect of sewn cloth squares around the edges. They look fabulous!

Second Grade Mummies!

These golden mummies were created by Nelson's second grade artists who are studying ancient Egypt in their social studies classes. First we created the form of the mummies using newspaper and masking tape. Then we covered them in plaster strips...the same kind that are used to make casts for broken arms and legs! To finish them off we painted them gold and created an ANKH (symbol for life) necklace for them to wear to protect them in the afterlife.

5th Grade Huichol Nearikas

Fifth grade artists have been studying the art of the Huichol people of Mexico. They are well known for their "yarn paintings," also called Nearikas in the native language. Our drawn version of a yarn painting contains images similar to those favored by the Huichol: plants, animals, suns, and moons, for example.