Monday Co-op K Art

Today, as most Mondays, was co-op. With Ruth and her class, I talked about Hans Holbein the younger and his portrait entitled "The French Ambassadors". We did a review (with a slide show I set up on my laptop) of the artists we'd previously studied (Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Raphael). Then, we moved on from the Renaissance artists to the Baroque artists and began with El Greco. He was more of a transition artist anyone, bridging the gap between both art forms. His paintings exhibit characteristics of both Renaissance and Baroque styles. We looked at "The Burial of Count Orgaz". The kids got a kick out of that one. All those people milling about in the painting. It is a sight to behold. We had just gotten started on Rubens when we ran out of time, so we'll have to finish him up next Monday.

For Grace's class, we read the book Owl Moon and then we talked about foreground, midground, and background as well at positive and negative space. Then, I had the kids do two projects that will hopefully cement the ideas a little more for them.

Here, I drew a very basic tree outline (positive space) and the kids filled in the negative space (around the tree) with chalk of their color choice. Grace tells me that the blue and orange at the base of the tree represent a waterfall and the frothing white at the bottom just helps to emphasize that.

Here, I had the kids first put in hills and ground, then, I gave them three trees of varying sizes to show the fore, mid and backgrounds. Then, I had the kids add some animals and people. Here Grace added a bunch of rabbits or something and people with dog sleds.