Feburary Little Hands Art Group

This was our first meeting of 2010 and we had the new art program to use...
As I posted in an earlier post, I managed to find the Level 3 module of the Atelier Art program for $5... this was a real find for us...so today was our first time to use it...

I really like it... It is easy for us and for the kids... I just preview the video to see what items are needed for the class, gather them together, pop i n the DVD and the on TV instructor explains the lesson, teaches the method and it flows smoothly...

Today's class was on "SHAPE"... The kids were able to make pictures involving shape, by "tearing" paper with their fingers and gluing them into the "shape" of the scene they desired...The theme was "PENGUINS" (which was great since it went right along with our study of Antarctica)...
Here's some photos of their work...


                                                                        THE GIRL'S TABLE

                                                                               THE BOY'S TABLE


A LITTLE PENGUIN ON AN ICE SHELF



OUR GROUP WITH THEIR FINISHED MASTERPIECES
 For our music / composer study that we have been adding to Little Hands, we watched a video from the "How Things Work" series called "Musical Instruments" which went through a make-believe place called Mammoth Island and described how musical instruments work and how they are related to things in nature... (it's based on the book by David McCauley)...
It was a good video and a great addition to the class... 

Atelier Art Program

Our homeschool art group "Little Hands" has been looking at a art program called Atelier. It is a video based program that teaches to the right side of the brain (which is supposed to enourage creativity and increase learning skills).
All the materials are easy access, the instruction is clear, and the video instructor makes it a breeze to teach art even to a non-creative person like myself.
The one draw back that our group had was the cost. There are several different modules that teach varying levels. Each module had price tag of ~$55. This was really too expensive for our little group who basically had no extra means other than for supplies.
But as things are provided, I happened upon a module, BRAND NEW in the shrink wrap, at our co-op registration and used curriculum sale. I managed to snag the Level 3 Module (which is exactly where our kids need to be) for $5.
What a blessing this is going to be to our group and I can't wait to post about our first opportunity to use this great program.

Little Hands Art Group - April

Our Little Hands group studied Tessellations this month..

My friend Kim taught the lesson and she did a great job...The artist name was M.C. Esher (you can find out more about him here)...Anyway, a tessellation is a collection of figures or shapes that fill an area with no overlaps and no gaps... it was neat and the art form relates to math and there were so many avenues to research about it as I had never heard of Tessellations before... but after the lesson I came home and found some great ones online... you can find out more about them here...

Here are some examples of the art form:     

and here is how we did it...we just cut a shape from cardstock (or any other firm material) and traced patterns back to back to fill in all the empty space... The kids did a great job with it...

Here are my kidlets work:

Libby's Art 

Tommy's Art

 

March Little Hands Group...

Today we had our Little Hands Art Group meeting... Michelle chose to teach our lesson on Michelangelo...It was great... She had sent out an e-mail on who the artist was and a link, so we could research it beforehand..(you can chek it out here ) ... I was so surprised by what my kids retained and were able to answer when she was teaching today... even my 6yo DD could remember "The Last Judgement" and that a particular sculpture was of the Virgin Mary and Jesus... I also used a great book as a resource... It talked all about his life from birth to death and some of his more famous works..

                                                                 

For our activity, Michelle had planed 2 art projects... The first one was to tape paper on the underneath side of tables and to draw pictures under it in a position simliar to that of Michelangelo when he painted the Sistine Chapel and the 2nd project was sculpture and the kids got to carve their very own sculpture out of soap.. They loved it.. and DD is carving another bar of soap right now as I type.. She may be my budding artist...   =)

December Little Hands Art group...

This month we studied Nadir Afonso... A Portugese artist known as the creator of "Kinetic Art"... We learned about his education in architecture and his conversion to his art career (his first love) ad how he is still painting today in his 80's... We looked at several examples of his work involving his "Cityscape" series and how over the years his art had become more abstract...

  Aliados Square   Moscow

We did our own versions of his watercolor work... Here is some pictures of our group and their work...

 

Little Hands for April...

   

Today we had our April "Little Hands" Art meeting... It was so much fun... Michelle had a wonderful lesson... She taught the kidlets about cave art and early man and their use of their environment to express themselves and detail their lives in story by the use of pictures, petroglyphs, pictographs, rock art, and engraved boulders. She also discussed the use of color and different mediums available to early man, like feathers, charcoal, berry ink etc...

She placed 4 tables end to end in a square to resemble a "cave" and placed brown paper on them for the kids to "tell their story" in pictures using brown, burgundy, and black crayons... It was great.. the kidlets had a great time and I think it will be something we do again soon...

You can see more about "CAVE ART"  here...

January's Little Hands Art group...

Today we had a lesson on Claude Monet... It was very enjoyable and informative...

Mrs. Linda did the lesson and she had several books with examples of his art work and comparisons of his work to others... Like the comparison with Renoir you can see here. It is of the La Grenouillere, or "Frog Pond"....

The kids got to do their own versions of his work.. Using black construction paper, brown and green crayons and white tempura paint, the kidlets created "Winter landscapes" by drawing with the crayons, trees mountains, and such and topping them with new fallen snow with the paint... It turned our really well...

You can find out more on Monet for kids here.

Happy Learning!!!

November Little Hands Art Group : Self Portraits

Our Little Hands group topic today was Self - Portraits...

Miss Holly discussed the different artists, their self-portraits and the differnet mediums used...

Then each child got to make their own "self" using whatever medium they had chosen... DD decided to use watercolors and DD decided to make himself out of clay... (the end results were great, even though I secretly thought that DS sculpture looked like "Mr. Bill"... *LOL)

 

 

October Little Hands Art group : Hokusai

This month was my turn to lead the class... I chose to use the works of the Japenese artist Hokusai who was famous for his works with etching and the "Views of Mt. Fuji" prints...  

We started the class by looking at a map of Japan and discussing a few things that the country is known for.. Then we practiced saying "hello" and "goodbye"  in Japenese... then we got to the "FUN" part the actual etching...

First we used clean styrofoam trays and etched our drawing (of each kidlets choosing) into the tray using "chopsticks"... (staying with the "Japenese" feel)... After etching our pictures, we painted the outlines with paint....

Then we placed a piece of cardstock over the top and used a small roller to transfer our image onto the paper... I think they turned out quite well... and my DC were very pleased to show them to daddy when he came home this evening...

Little Hands Art Group for September : God, The Great Artist

We had our September meeting for our art group today... We read "The World God Made" and discussed how he is the "Great Artist ", having made the whole universe and all the beauty in it... Then we looked at the artist, Richard Long and one of his works using mud handprints.

... Then we went and made our own "handprint artwork" on T-shirts... The kids had a great time and really enjoyed making the T-shirts... Here is there finished masterpieces...