Out of Grapevines, Acorns, Willow, and Pinecones!

Natural wonders! National monuments! See both in one place at the National Botanical Gardens until January 5th!!! 

These amazing structures are crafted out of more than
70 different plant materials!

Thank you to Ms. Perll who discovered this gem of an exhibit
and shared these photos with me!

Third graders take note as we get ready to explore the wonderful architecture of Washington D.C.!!!

How Long Have Artists Been Making Art?

Lafayette first graders explore the human creative spirit through a story of the discovery of the 17,800 year old Lascaux caves in France. We examined how the Lascaux artists made their paint and what they chose to immortalize and then created our own running animals in a darkened cave like art room.

From the Hopi to the Tlingit... It Must Be November

Spirit masks hanging from clotheslines and spilling out of tubs? Bins and boxes of pottery and weaving looms filling every nook and cranny of the Lafayette art room? The noon hour open art full of craft making? It must be November and Native American Heritage Month!

Iroquois Bead and Quillwork

Capturing our Animal Spirit with Paper Sculpture

Inspiration from the Hopi

... and Tlingit Ceremonial Button Blankets

Fourth Graders Make Spooky Skeletons Dance!!!

Fourth graders explored the fascinating human body! When would our 206 bones dance even if our tendons, ligaments , and cartilage weren't part of the equation???... On HALLOWEEN!

Second Graders Love Making Faces:)

Observing faces, making faces, exploring how artists paint and sculpt faces that all show emotions... from silly to angry, to determined (yes, a second grade word!) to relaxed... and then DRAWING expressive FACES ourselves. 

Next, after exploring Picasso's blue period, Dr. Seuss's "My Many Colored Days" and Warhol's Marilyn Monroe faces, we will add color to show emotion and create mood in our portraits.

Playing Pass the Painting: What is the emotion? How do we know?

Making Faces... what do our eyes do? our mouths? eyebrows? foreheads?

Drawing our own expressive faces... next week, color!

Open ART 2013-14 is Open For Business

One of my favorite times of the day is a relaxed noon hour where the art studio is full of 4th and 5th graders exploring a variety of mediums from wood sculpture to the pottery wheel. Open Art, which happens during the student's recess times, is also a time for all Lafayette 1st-5th graders to complete classwork. 

 The delightful woman in the center is our new student teacher, Ayesha Johnson, with us Tuesdays and Wednesdays throughout the 2013-14 school year!

5th graders are exploring the pottery wheel with individual coaching sessions and chances to practice on their own with friends!

New Year, New First Graders, SO EXCITING!

First graders LOVE to talk about art! Today we discussed the circus series collages of Henri Matisse, explored abstract art, organic and geometric shapes, sang a song about shapes, and created our own layered collage. 

It's a trapeze! These are the people that swing on the trapeze! 
But the hot topic was, what are the squares?

...When a Child Loves ART!

Their birthday cake looks like an artist's palette! Lafayette 1st grader Sam Jaffe and his mother created these masterpieces... Don't you LOVE the COLORS???

Inspiration in Paris

I experienced a real treat last week at the Musee D'Orsay... Van Gogh's other "Starry Night" and some late life Van Gogh faves of mine in person... there's nothing like the REAL DEAL!!! Hoping all my Lafayette students are able to get to at least one museum this summer to have that up close and personal interaction!

Creativity Summer Style

Exploring Seattle this summer with my sister I came across this fabulous sign and art making moment at a booth run by her friend. Love the sentiment!

Clean It Up... Wrap It Up... Make It Fun!

Ms. Baldwin's class have a blast finger painting with shaving cream and the art room tables get ready for summer to boot!

May is a Month for Celebrations

Lafayette students were honored with numerous awards at the D.C. Jr. Duck Stamp Contest Last Saturday and honored again this evening at the Citywide Student art show at the D.C. Department of Arts and Humanities. Congratulations to all!!! Last week ARTS NIGHT part 1 and next week ARTS NIGHT part 2... the celebrations continue!

At the National Wildlife Visitors Center with some of our Lafayette winners

A Lafayette 4th grader proudly shows us his work at the Citywide

Teacher's Treat a Treat for the Teacher Too!

How great to have time to fully explore a medium, guided by the student artists! My job is to listen, coax, facilitate, and inspire. Then it's in their hands and I am along for the ride. Today my teacher's treat students decided to go back and take a technique learned when they were young to the next level. 

Negative Space/ Positive Experience

One of the wonderful contributions our student teacher in art, Jennifer George, has brought to Lafayette, is a unit on Negative Space with our second graders. From sculptures to recycled collage trees, negative space has never been so beautifully rendered artistically!

Fourth Graders Experience a Traditional Printmaking Process From Earlier Centuries

Fourth Graders drew, carved, rolled, and printed images using a similar process used in ancient Japan and China. Our drawings were inspired by the 19th century American ornithologist, naturalist and artist... John James Audubon. Our  observations from nature became something beautifully unique when transferred to a printing plate.

5th Grade Informance to Explore the Great Migration, Great Depression and Harlem Renaissance

Fifth graders have been hard at work creating drawings inspired by US historical events that occurred during the early 20th cenury. We have also learned songs, written poems and mini monologues, rehearsed dances, and created historical maps. We will be sharing them all on Thursday, April 25th with our 4th graders at an afternoon dress rehearsal and with our families at an evening performance at 6:30 PM.

Students who are unsure of what to wear for their performance might find these photos from several years ago helpful. Think dresses, skirts, jeans, button down shirts, khakis or other dress pants, dark shoes. 

Optional but really adds to the flavor: hats, suspenders, jacket and/or narrow ties.

Post Peeps Contest Enriched by Lafayette's Creative Students

Lafayette students Maddie and Tess Breeden took over their kitchen a few weeks ago to create "The Million Peepet March" for the Washington Post Peeps diorama contest. Their delightful entry was just another example of the imagination and resourceful creativity existing in our Lafayette community! I am one proud art teacher:)

RadicART's Marc Ginsburg Inspires 4th Grade

Jeffrey Prost-Greene, Lafayette alum with a creative entrepreneurial flair, brought artist Marc Ginsburg to Lafayette to share his landscape paintings with Ms. Culver and Ms. Hallstrom's 4th graders. Students were able to interact with the artist and his work, explore landscape concepts and try their hand at drawing and painting landscapes in a variety of styles. Students went home with a gift of handmade sketchbooks provided by RadicART cofounders Jeffrey Prost-Greene and Julia Young.

Marc Ginsburg shares his abstract landscape with Lafayette 4th graders

Former "Lafayetter" Jeffrey talks art with Lafayette 4th grader

Got Architecture?

Third graders in Ms. Yedwab's class enjoy a visit from Mr. Radifera, one of our talented Lafayette parents. We explored what an architect does and tried our hands at drawing plans for our very own houses!

An Exciting New Addition to the Art Program

Your students may have come home with the news about Ms. George, our new student teacher in art! Jennifer George comes to us from George Washington University and is doing her student teaching in the Lafayette art room. 

Ms. George's expertise in the drawing arena will benefit all our students, but especially 5th grade who are learning about the value scale, shading, and will soon learn about using the vanishing point to create perspective:) We are thrilled to have a second teacher in our Lafayette art room!!!

Tactile Habitats for Textured Creatures

Before moving into our current unit on form with its magic wands and charming puppets, first graders explored texture through rubbings to make a visual texture sea creature collage a la Eric Carle. The following week, they created a delightful mixed media tactile texture habitat for those creatures.