Fourth grade students looked at art from Brigit Riley and other famous Op Artists.  They looked at how shadows and highlights created the illusion of form.  Students then worked hard to create their own op art drawings.  The straight lines imply depth and space.  The curved lines imply rounded forms.  They then practiced creating value gradations (shading and blending from a very dark value into a very light value and vice versa).  Finally, they made their drawings look 3 dimensional by shading light-value gradients (highlights) and dark-value gradients (shadows).  It was wonderful to see how impressed students were with their new drawing skills!

Please remind your fourth grader that submissions for the STR Holiday Card contest are due on October 12th.  All students submitting will receive extra credit for art class.

Families look different from home to home. And “family” can mean many different things to different people.  Fourth grade talked about this before they took on the great task of drawing their own families.  They then practiced arranging visually pleasing compositions.  Finally, they drew their final picture and added details to each family member.  These will be hanging in the hall during conferences so make sure to look for your child's family portrait!

We began this ceramic project by sketching different forms for bells.  We hypothesized what the sound would make due to different factors:  size of bell, thickness of clay walls, height of bell, type of handle, etc.  In the end, we realized that the resonance chamber and the size of the bell's opening were the most important in determining how loud the sound was.  The thickness of the walls determined the pitch.  After students constructed their bells, they used glaze to add a bright and shiny finish.

Students looked at images of different plants, and then created their own composition of a plant that filled their paper.  They were allowed to choose their own media to add color.  The only directive was to make sure their was high contrast between the plant and the background.  

This project is almost completely wrapped up.  Students worked for 6 weeks to create a paper mache sculpture of a bird.  They used newspaper and tape for two classes to create the armature of their sculpture.  They used paper mache paste for the next two weeks to give their sculpture a hard and smooth surface.  The final two weeks are being used to paint and decorate.  These are turning out amazing!

Fourth grade will wrap up the school year having fun with the retro craft, Shrinky Dinks!