Tromp l'oeil April Fool's Day

Everyone in Mrs. Huffman's class today got glasses! Just kidding, it was an April Fool's joke. The 2nd graders all looked at photos of people's eyes to draw them onto a pair of glasses. This makes the students look very silly! They look real, but they just aren't themselves. I got this lesson from the blog, Art Projects for Kids.

The students learned a little about tricks that artists like to play on people. One of the styles they use is called tromp l'oeil. Below is a picture of a drawing that someone made on an actual side walk. The realistic drawing plays a trick on the viewer as it looks like the sidewalk is caving in because it is done so well!

Cougar Mascot Contest

Cumberland School is in search of a new school mascot. We are holding a drawing contest in search of a very special Cumberland Cougar. Here are the requirements:

-All 4th and 5th graders are welcome to submit a drawing of a cougar.
-Drawings should be in black and white (sharpie).
- Drawings and parent permission is due to Ms. Todorovich by Monday, March 18th.
- Teachers will vote on the drawings and a winner will be announced on Friday, March 22!
- Top 3 entries will receive a prize!

Valentine Teddy Bears

Last week, Staley the Chicago Bears' Mascot, visited Cumberland School to talk about bullying. It was such an exciting assembly that I decided to draw bears with my first grade students. They did a FANTASTIC job!

This week we drew teddy bears together and created Valentine's Day teddy bears by following step-by-step directions I am posting below. Every bear was unique and adorable!

I was so inspired by these bears and decided to do a painting of a bear myself. My bear is much more scary and fierce than our sweet teddy bears. Bears are one of my favorite things to paint.

February Display at Forest Board Room

This month Cumberland and Iroquois have an art display at the Forest Board Room for the Board of Education, and visitors to enjoy. The display is a sample of recent student work from all levels at Cumberland School. The following students have their art work on display:

Michelle G. - 1st Grade   Color Study Heart
Annaliese V.- 1st Grade   Symmetrical Mitten Print
Vivian P. -2nd Grade   Circle Color Study
Dimitri S. - 3rd Grade   Warm/ Cool Color Snowflake
Pavlina P. -3rd Grade   Positive/ Negative Space Heart
Angela L. - 4th Grade  Egyptian Mummy Case
Michael L.- 5th Grade   Henna Design Hand Art
Christian L. - 5th Grade   Snowman Perspective Study
Riya P. - 5th Grade   Leaf Line Relief
Elian A. - ELS Program   "There Was An Old Monster"

Also recently at the Forest Board room, Mr. Abraham Lee (who teaches at Cumberland and at North School) and I were honored by Dr. Westerhold and Mrs. Murphy the D62 School Board President for earning our National Board Certification in Art Education! Mr. Lee, and I wrote each wrote a four part paper explaining how our art instruction is aligned with National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. We also took an exam as part of this process. Fortunately Mr. Lee, Mrs. Curtis (a Literacy teacher at North School) and I can proudly call ourselves National Board Certified Teachers!

Happy New Year

Wishing everyone a very Happy New Year 2013! Be on the lookout for some new and fun features that will help you create your own art projects at home.

Circles, Circles Everywhere!

A sample of the students work by Itala, Melanie, Alex, Mitch and Rafael

The second graders have been experimenting with paint over the last several weeks. I challenged Mrs. Huffman's class to create a painting with as many colors and circles as possible. It took us 3 weeks to finish, but our paintings are absolutely beautiful!

by Mitch

Students started off by using the primary colors (red, yellow, and blue) to fill their paper with as many circles as they could using tempera paint. Next they used the color wheel to guide them as they mixed the primary colors together to create secondary colors (orange, green, and violet). The fun part came in when they were given colors that we don't normally use like neon colors, pearlescent colors, and glitter colors. The finishing touch was adding small dots and dashes to the paintings when the entire paper was filled.

by Aurelia

This lesson taught us how variety (using as many colors and kinds of circles as possible), pattern (creating circles within circles), along with balance and space(filling up our paper). We also discussed mood, and felt that most of the paintings were happy and energetic. You can tie the lesson into math if you try to count and sort the amount of circles on each painting.

by Daniel

Try and make your own piece of art creating a mood by just using circles!

Color Mixing

First graders at Cumberland have been very busy learning and experimenting with colors. For the last 3 weeks they have been mixing Primary colors together to create new secondary colors, just like we read in the book Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Walsh. You can watch a video that tells the story here.

Mouse paint video.

The first week we mixed the 2 primaries together of yellow and red. We painted orange circles.

The second week we mixed the 2 primaries together of yellow and blue. We painted green squares.

This past week we mixed the 2 primaries together of red and blue. We painted purple triangles. There are so many kinds of purples to make as you can see in the photos. Some are more red, and some are more blue.

Later in the year we will use these painted papers to make other art projects!