Caves and (Emily) Carr

We're finally to the point of the school year where upper grades are getting some projects completed.  Their projects are always parts of big units of study, and I have students take notes to better understand what we're learning about, so it takes us a while to fill the hallways with artwork from upper grades.
As I said in an earlier post, third grade is working on "cave" art using brown kraft paper, chalk and [lastly] oil pastel.  Each student made an 18" x 18" piece that I then taped together to make one large cave "wall":

Here are a few individual works before I taped them:

 

I post objectives/explanations by each display:

I did choose to put the "cave wall" down by the third grade rooms, instead of the main hall, as students can't resist touching/smearing and I always feel bad for my artists when their work gets messed up.  With their work closer to their own rooms, it's less likely that their work will be messed up, as they like to keep an eagle eye on it. Next time we'll start talking about Sumeria and Catal Huyuk in third grade.

Fourth grade is all about Art in the Americas, and this year I decided to start with women artists: Emily Carr from Canada, Georgia O'Keeffe from the U.S. and Frida Kahlo from Mexico.  We just finished our Emily Carr inspired paintings.  In case you're not familiar with Carr (I wasn't until a trip to Canada) she was a late 19th/early 20th century Canadian woman painter known primarily for her landscapes.  Students could make up any sort of landscape, but had to sketch it all out in paint. They used tempera block on 12" x 18" white paper:

  

Ughhh, I apologize for the photos!!! Why won't it let me turn them???? Can you tell I'm new to this whole blogging thing? ARG!!!

Anyway, the fourth graders have started their Geogia O'Keeffe drawings. Then we'll move onto Kahlo-inspired projects.

The school year is busy busy busy--always fun and exciting!