April!

Hello there Artists! Happy (Almost) April to you! Spring has sprung, and it is the busiest time of year in the Art room! All artists at Springbrook school will be creating and finishing up artworks for the S.T.E.A.M. show this month!   On April 11th, there will be a HUGE event called S.T.E.A.M. - and the "A" represents the Arts! EVERY artist in the whole school will have an artwork in this district-wide show! There will be art exhibits, technology experiments, food from the culinary students, theater performances, and so much more! It is a wonderful evening, and I hope to see you there to celebrate our students' hard work!    S.T.E.A.M. event - Where: WHS Ward Building                                     When: Tuesday April 11th from 2-8  *Artwork on display from 2-7*      **Also, April is Autism Awareness month, and there will be an art show on display in the Westerly Public Library's Hoxie Gallery - all of the works in that show are made by friends with different abilities  in our school community! If you're downtown, please stop by the library to see their beautiful artwork!    Hope to see you at the big art show! Keep on creating,  Mrs.…

S.T.E.A.M.

Our annual S.T.E.A.M. event is coming soon! Save the date! Tuesday April 11th, 2-8 pm Artwork is on display until 7pm Every artist at the elementary level will have one piece in the show - and artwork from K-12 will be on display! Thousands of artworks and a wonderful time! Please come participate in drum circles, hands-on technology demonstrations, walk thought our art gallery, have some award-winning chowder, and so much more! I hope to see you there!  Tuesday April 11th, WHS Ward building…

December in the Art room!

Hello there artists, and happy December! This is a very busy month for all of us, and the Art room will be buzzing with creativity!   Fourth grade artists will be finishing up their foreshortening lessons, and moving on to rotational symmetry! This lesson is tough, but we will learn to be patient with ourselves and trust the artistic process! Its a great project, mixing some Math and Art!   Third grade artists will be finishing up our Klimt-inspired sleeping self portraits, and moving on to Optical Illusion art, inspired by Bridget Riley and M.C. Escher! This lesson requires lot of shading, and we will become experts with colored pencils!   Second grade will be working with painters tape in December, creating Klimt-inspired birch trees! We will be using salt and saran wrap to achieve some interesting textures in our paint!   First grade will be moving on from our pumpkin perspective drawings, and begin Andy Warhol inspired work! We will become master cylinder-makers, creating 3-dimensional soup and soda cans, inspired by Mr. Warhol!   Kinder artists will be moving on from Mondrian-inspired artworks (with vertical and horizontal lines and primary colors!) and moving on to cylinder hats complete with crazy patterns! 3-D shapes are a big deal in the Art room!   We are rockin' and rollin' in the Art room this December! Keep on creating, Mrs.…

November!

Hello there Artists!   This month, we will be focusing on finishing up our lessons from October, and beginning new ones as the leaves fall! November is a very short month for us, but we will be working hard in the Art room!   Kinder friends will be finishing up their Jasper Johns-inspired primary color numbers, and moving on to our first true-color self portraits! We will be working on realistic eyes, noses and mouths!   First and second grade artists will be working on finishing up our self-portraits in November - making sure we are using true colors, and realistic features! First grade will then move on to create pumpkin perspective drawings- learning about fore, middle and backgrounds!   Second grade will be moving on from true self-portraits to drawing real leaves from observation - we will have beautiful fall leaves at each table, and will work on drawing them in great detail!     Third grade artists will be working on their Klimt-inspired sleeping self portraits a bit more, adding detail with sharpie, colored pencil, and paint! This is a very detailed lesson that needs lots of time and patience!   Fourth grade will be finishing up our foreshortening lesson, and moving on to drawing fall objects from observation, and using pointillism to add color! This is a fun lesson, because we use a very odd art supply, inspired by Seurat!   Can't wait to see you in the Art room! Keep on creating, Mrs.…

October

Hello there Artists~ The Art room is in full swing this month!  Kinder friends are finishing up their shape lessons, and beginning our Jasper Johns-inspired lesson! We will be working with primary colors this time around! Red, Yellow, Blue, eyes on you! First and Second grade will be creating beginning of the year, realistic self portraits! We will be looking at and talking about many different self portraits - from Andy Warhol, to Leonardo da Vinci! We will be learning about proportion, and how our eyes, nose, mouth, and ears fit onto our faces! We will also be using true colors. Second grade will be taking it a bit further, and we will be expressing an emotion with our self-portraits! Third grade will be beginning our sleeping self portraits, inspired by Gustav Klimt! One of my favorite artists, his textures and patterns will inspire us to create our own work! Fourth grade will be beginning a foreshortening lesson - learning what foreshortening is, how to describe it, and understanding how it is shown in Art! We will be using our own hands and feet to create our foreshortening artwork! For this lesson, we are inspired by comic books, and photography See you in the Art room! Keep on creating, Mrs.…

September

Hello there Artists!   In September, grades K-4 are getting used to the rules and routines of the Art room, and we all started off with a mini-square to get our creativity flowing. If you had the opportunity to come to open house, you saw those squares were being made into a large display!    After we finish up those mini-squares, we will be moving on to our first large Art lesson of the year.   Kinder will begin with Shape Space, a lesson where we color different shapes, learn to hold scissors and cut, assemble them into something new, and learn to glue too! This lesson covers many skills at once, and lets us practice those skills!   First grade will be introduced to Jasper Johns, and we will be creating alphabet artwork inspired by him! We will be using oil pastels and watercolors.   Second grade will be working on Wayne Thiebaud-inspired cakes! We will focus on drawing cylinders, and cutting a slice out of our cakes!   Third grade will be working on a stacked-cylinder challenge, creating larger cakes with three tiers, overlapping cylinders, and working on a theme for our artworks. Wayne Thiebaud is our inspiration for this lesson too!   Fourth grade will be creating overlapping initial artworks based on Jasper John's more complicated pieces. We will work with oil pastels, and will be blending our own secondary colors!    Thanks for reading, and keep on creating! - Mrs.…

Hello!

Hello there Artists! Welcome to the 2016-17 school year! It's going to be a great year this year, I know it! This year, I am teaching at Dunns Corners School, and Springbrook School! I have every artist in both schools, so we will be creating A LOT of artwork this year! Get your creativity flowing, and I'll see you in the Art room!  ~Mrs. Riley