New Art Stuff

Well, I have a week & a half of the '11-'12 school year under my belt! The first classes included the usual 'Art Room Expectations' which included the necessary fire & lockdown drill procedures followed by the start-of-the-year drawing assessments. By the second week of classes, we were on to permanent seating assignments based on the assessments and behavior observations of that first day. In addition, the kids were able to explore 'Art Activities'.

This year, money from the District purchased some new 3D manipulatives: Constructibles.

These are building sets of consisting of 25 interlocking slotted cardboard pieces in 5 basic shapes. We received 4 sets, two of 'Bold Patterns" and two of the 'Painter's Palette'.

The kids really enjoyed the building and you could see their little brain cells trying to figure out how to stabilize their structures by balancing larger pieces with smaller pieces...

The only drawback - and it's a big one - is the durability of the pieces. After only 3 days of use, several of the arch pieces had to be glued/taped because the tabs had torn off or were bent. Others were in great shape so maybe it was the user rather than the materials. We'll see...

Students also enjoyed using their old favorites:

Legos

Tanagrams

Drawing books
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Plasticine clay

and of course, free-hand drawing!

Next week, projects will begin featuring line, line, line!

My Favorite Art Museum

I saved the best for last - the http://www.slam.org/. My favorite because...I had the good fortune to see my first Monet exhibit there in the 80's in which THREE of his waterlily paintings covered the 3 walls in the same room! Marvelous! Not to mention a roomful of nothing but haystack paintings in another.

You'll notice in the pix the large crane visible on the left - they're in the midst of a major expansion. In front of the museum, is a gorgeous view of a reflecting pool in Forest Park. The long sloping hill is used for sledding in the winter...

Best of all, this museum is free, just like those mentioned in my last two blog posts. Here's a sampling of what you would see from their permanent collections...

Keith, by Chuck Close, 1970

The Mother, Pablo Picasso, 1901

Winter Landscape, Wassily Kandinsky, 1911

The Dreamer, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1879

The Promenade with the Railroad Bridge, Argenteuil, Claude Monet, 1874

Stairway at Auvers, Vincent Van Gogh, July 1890

This sculpture by Edgar Degas was stunning.

Little Dancer of Fourteen Years (c. 1880, cast c. 1920)

The description accompanying the work stated: "The model for this sculpture was Marie Van Goethen, a young ballet student at the Paris Opera. When the original wax version (now at the National Gallery in Washington D.C.) was displayed at the 1881 Impressionist exhibition, it was criticized for its unorthodox realism and use of real clothing. It was even considered ugly. The wax Little Dancer was the only sculpture exhibited by Degas in his lifetime. This bronze is one of twenty-four cast after his death."

Just beautiful...