Hi everyone! Last week, our first grade scholars began working with the concept of a gradient, which I explained as a series of successive changes from one color or value to another, often moving from warm colors to cool colors or vice versa. They spent time trying to create both a black to white gradient and a color spectrum gradient.
This week, first grade will use those skills that we cultivated in the previous week by re-creating a famous painting by a late 19th/early 20th century American artist, Edward Hopper, called Railroad Sunset. In this painting, a vertical color gradient is used to create a beautiful sunset over the mountains in the background as the fading light reveals a partial glimpse of the colors of the railroad and the control tower next to it. In kindergarten, we have been working since last week on a work of art by Claude Monet named The Cliff at Fécamp. This work is significant for its use of perspective and texture, and we have been imitating the texture of the cliff and the sea by having the scholars color their papers on top of a bumpy surface. We will be continuing on this work of art during the upcoming week as we work towards applying oil pastels with better detail. Welcome back for our second quarter of art! At the end of the first quarter we finished Henri Matisse's painting, The Swan, in first grade art. In kindergarten we finished Claude Monet's Nympheas, a water lily painting with varied color contrast.
During this shorter week we will begin with reviewing in both grades the concepts that we have learned over the course of the first quarter. We will go over the concepts of line, shape and color, the differences among different kinds of lines, what lines are used in making basic shapes, the distinction between primary and secondary colors, and the distinction between warm and cool colors. Remembering each of these things will be important for moving forward next week when we begin a new project in kindergarten and a new concept in first grade. I hope all of you have a wonderful week, and I look forward to beginning our second quarter together! |
Mr. T. DePauwK-1 Art Teacher, Archives
February 2019
Categories |