Happy New Year!

As I look back to November and December I must admit it was a busy time for me! But we had lots of fun and creative lessons for art classes for those months. Thanks for keeping your kids in art during a time that I am sure was busy for your families as well! Here is a little bit of information about what we did in art classes for November and December:

November
November has been all about color theory and the color wheel. After we studied the basics we broke the color wheel into warm and cool colors. With Thanksgiving and Fall leaves I decided to do large paintings of warm colored landscapes with tempera paint. The students were able to try out the new floor easels and paint with easel brushes. We all did the same paintings per class so that I could teach them some techniques on how to paint this way. They all did such an amazing job! Some of the classes were able to paint Cool Colored scenes of fish in the ocean. The older classes did some landscapes and the older boys have yet to finish their cool colored winter scenes. Now I am sure they are all feeling like master painters!

November's Cultural art lesson was about Native American Rock Art. We studied the art of pictographs and petroglyphs and tried it out on our "buffalo hides." The older classes studied Native American Totem poles. They have done a wonderful job designing their own large totem poles using Native American Indian animals and colors. This has turned into a month long project for them because they have all put in a lot of effort in their drawing and painting.

December
December has brought about some fun Christmas art lessons for the preschool kids like Santa faces and Christmas trees. Our Art History lesson was about M.C. Escher. Escher was known for his optical illusion drawings and prints and also his amazing "tessellation" art work. You'll have to google him so you can see his amazing work. The kids learned about Tessellations and I themed it around Holiday elves and that was really fun. Their "puzzle like" projects turned out looking really neat. (Some of the other classes have yet to do this lesson.)

Last but not least we were able to have our traditional Christmas ornament and craft lesson. We made "Silly Legs Santa" ornaments and painted with enamels on our very own hot cocoa mugs! The kids had fun and I hope the parents were able to get their mugs cured in the oven so that the paint will last forever! Let me know if you didn't get that note. It's been a great year for art lessons with some amazing little artists. I really love teaching your children art!

Teen happenings: the girls are still painting away on their oil still lifes. They are turning out to be beautiful.

Preteen class: These girls have been working on sketching in their fairies and learning some watercolor techniques. Our next step will be to paint! This has been a great project for them learning about how to draw body proportions, and face proportions. I can't wait to see their finished masterpieces!

What's coming up for 2011? I will be having an art show again in May so don't lose those wonderful art projects! I don't want to post any photos of artwork so that everything will be a surprise for our show. Upcoming lessons are Chinese New Year, Encaustic painting (painting with wax), watercolor crayons, Renoir and more! I hope your kids can join me for winter and spring classes!

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