Notes from Mr. Granucci, in the Art Room
 
This month, we have been very busy in the art room. Our Kindergarten classes just recently finished a still life watercolor painting of pears. I’m so impressed with the effort they put into their paintings. You would never know that they have only been in school for only a month!
In first grade, our students have been working on a life size mural of Vincent Van Gogh’s Sunflowers. We discussed the textures Vincent used in his paintings  and his technique using oil pastels and water colors.
The second grade students are in the middle of creating an apple still life similar to the style of Henri Matisse.  We are learning how artists use the element of art “value” to illustrate shading and highlights, as well as giving their pictures a three dimensional feel. In addition, we are using the elements of line and shape to create patterns for their paintings.
Our Third grade students are also working on a still life watercolor painting of some seasonal pumpkins. We are learning value scale with the watercolors to make the pumpkins look more 3-d. In addition, we have been learning how artists show overlapping within their paintings by placing one pumpkin part way in front of the other ones.
In fourth grade, some of our students have been working on showing value scales with artist charcoal and blending tools, symmetry, and the use of watercolors. What a beautiful job they are doing with their still life of colored bottles. Others are working on landscapes and how they can make the objects in their pictures look 3-D by overlapping as well as practicing on shading. We have also been working on showing the difference between the foreground, middleground and background.
~Mr. Granucci’s 

Our students in Mrs. Reynolds class and Miss James' class recently completed their Vincent Van Gogh still life mural. I think you will agree that they did an amazing job with their sunflowers! Have a great weekend! ~Mr. G.

Some of our students proudly displaying their sunflowers!

Our fourth grade students had an opportunity to start some amazing landscapes today of a 1922 Model T owned by Beth and Larry Gaiss who live Higganum, and whose children went through HES a number of years ago. The children had a wonderful opportunity to draw this gem up close and personal right outside the art room. Thankfully the weather cooperated! Although we are in the beginning stages of this drawing, the children stepped up to the challenge to look closely at what was in front of them and draw exactly what they saw. No tears or nervous children not knowing how to get started their drawing were seen for the next hour. In the coming art periods we will be adding more details into the foreground, middleground and background, then eventually we will be using colored pencil and watercolors. I will post more pictures as they progress in a few weeks. ~Mr. G