5th GRADE: "The Great Wave" 

To start our study of the ocean, we looked at artists throughout history who have been inspired by the sea.  One of these was the Japanese artist Hokusai whose painting "The Great Wave" we recreated in watercolor.  We even learned how to write our names in Japanese katakana and signed our paintings like Hokusai!

6th GRADE: Salty Seascapes

For this project, we were inspired by contemporary artist Robin Mead, who paint seascapes in bright colors and bold outlines-- almost like stained glass. All that gorgeous texture you see in our waves comes from sprinkling salt into wet watercolor paint!

5th & 6th GRADE: Wintery Trees

There's quite a nip in the air so we used winter trees as the subject for our practice paintings as we learned watercolor techniques. 5th grade looked at folk art and drew whimsical trees, while 6th grade took a more impressionistic approach.  They're all beautiful, aren't they?  

5th GRADE: Gratitude Rocks

This was another watercolor technique practice activity that was just too beautiful NOT to share!  We practiced combining different colors in organic shapes, then when the paint dried, we outlined the rocks and added words for things we are grateful for!

It's fall, so we gotta do fall stuff like pumpkins and leaves!  These are my favorite projects yet, so I had to take lots and lots of pictures!  Enjoy!

6th GRADE: Starry Night Pumpkins

After sketching pumpkins from life, we drew different types of pumpkins and shaded them using oil pastel. We used a VanGogh-like technique in the sky to recreate his "Starry Night" painting.

5th GRADE Batik Pumpkins

We studied pumpkins and drew them from observation, then gave them color and form by shading with oil pastel.  We made them look like batik by doing a black ink wash over the whole artwork, then wiping it off.

6th GRADE PATTERNED LEAVES

Students drew leaves from observation then filled them with patterns and contour lines in oil pastel.

5th GRADE MUSHROOMS

We looked at many types of mushrooms and drew these forest floors in oil pastel and painted them in beautiful bright colors with watercolor.

 In September, we studied the layers of the rainforest and drew a variety of plants and animals found in both temperate rainforests (6th grade) and tropical rainforests (5th grade). Both grades did artworks that have a three-dimensional component. The pictures don't do these works justice!

5th GRADE: LAYERED TROPICAL RAINFORESTS

These amazing rainforests are full of details and surprises!  We learned about the layers of the rainforest and drew them all in our artworks: the canopy flips up and the forest floor flips down to reveal more beautiful plants and animals!

We kicked off our semester study by learning about urban environments--including how to draw buildings in one point perspective and what we might find underground our roads and sidewalks. 

5TH GRADE: Under our Feet

We learned a little about what kinds of stuff is under the ground we walk on everyday and did these awesomely detailed drawings in colored pencil.

5TH GRADE: City Blocks

We learned about one-point perspective and colored pencil shading techniques to make these awesome circular city drawings.

6TH GRADE: Layered Urban Houses

We practiced a variety of skills for graphite shading including hatching, cross-hatching and scumbling.

6TH GRADE: Underground Pipes 

Our first few days of school, we drew these self portraits full of patterns and designs that show our interests.  Each table was assigned a color and we combined all our self-portraits into these two murals that are hanging in the front lobby and entrance to the cafeteria!