Welcome Back to the 2016-2017 School Year!! :)

Hello Students and Parents,

Key points I review in this post:

• Mrs. Nicholas’s Art Blog
• Art Folders/ Appropriate Art Clothes
• Artsonia
• @hillcrestartroom Instagram
• My Name Change--Brown to Nicholas

Art Blog: I’m really looking forward to working with all of you for the 2016-2017 school year! I have a few important bits of info to share with you. I’ll usually send a Skyward message to let you know when I've posted something you might need to know or might be interested here on the Art Blog. Please ‘follow’ the blog to automatically get alerted when I post something new. My blog and Skyward are my main ways of communicating with you at home.

http://mrsnicholasartblog.blogspot.com/

Folders/Clothes: All of my students will need a folder with pockets inside of it for class. It can be plain, or have a cool design, whatever you’d like. No binders please! Just know that I will require it to stay in my classroom for the entire year and you will need to write your name on it in sharpie. I’ll send it home at the end of the year. I’ll send a reminder as to when exactly these are due in class over the next couple of days. Also, I do not provide art shirts or smocks in class. My advice is to remember what two days of the cycle you have art and make sure you don’t wear your favorite outfit on those days or you will risk getting it messy. I do use washable paint 99% of the time, but I cannot guarantee stains will always come out. Students are welcome to bring their own art shirts, but they cannot be kept in my classroom and will be the student’s responsibility to remember it.

Artsonia: The sixth grade students are mostly all familiar with Artsonia, but this is probably new to most of the fifth graders. Artsonia is an amazing website where we will be uploading photos of the students artwork in class. I have created an account for each of my students already and parents, you will receive an email asking if you approve your child’s artwork to be shown live online. If you don’t get the email, check your spam folder, it may have gotten filtered there on accident. The kids’ username does not show their last name for privacy, it’s typically their first name and a bunch of numbers. It’s a really great tool for a few reasons, you can log on and comment on your child’s artwork, you can invite family members to check out the work as well by sharing it, and you can order merch with your child’s artwork printed on it. I’ve had so much positive feedback from parents in the past so, enjoy!

@hillcrestartroom Instagram: I created a Hillcrest Instagram account last year for my classroom. The handle is @hillcrestartroom. I tell the students that they must follow your rules at home about Instagram usage and it is not a requirement to follow me on there. I simply noticed that a large majority of my students were already on instagram and decided to try and add something positive to their feed.

Name Change: And last, I got married over the summer and changed my last name from Brown to Nicholas. It’s still Brown in a lot of places, like on Skyward. I’ll try to remember to sign my emails with (Brown) in parentheses. For the first part of the year at least my email will still be mbrown@norwinsd.org. Sorry for any confusion!

Looking forward to an awesome year! Thanks!

Mrs. Molli Nicholas (Brown)

6th Stop Motion Videos-- Principles of Design

In this 6th grade lesson, first, students learned all about the Principles of Design. Once they were familiar with those, they were introduced to Stop Motion Videos (SMV), or Stop Motion Animation. Many movies they already knew of were made using this technology.

The kids were placed in groups of three and asked to come up with an idea for a SMV using a whiteboard and wet erase markers that showed between 1 and 3 different Principles of Design. The groups first worked on a three stage storyboard, planning out their ideas before learning about the specifics of the app iMotion.

Once they were ready to animate, they learned the basics of iMotion and worked within their groups sharing the jobs of Photographer, Director, and Artist until the video was completed. Last, they learned how to add sound in iMovie.

Principles of Design:

• Balance-concerned with equalizing visual forces, or elements, in a work of art. There are 3 types: symmetrical balance, asymmetrical balance, and radial balance.
• Pattern- concerned with decorative surface design. It is the repetition of certain elements (lines, shapes, colors, values, textures, or space) in specific order.
• Contrast- shown through extreme differences in an artwork in the elements (lines, shapes, colors, values, textures, space) or in size.
• Rhythm- indicates movement by the repetition of elements (lines, shapes, colors, forms, values, textures, or spaces) or objects.
• Movement- used to create the look and feeling of action and to guide the viewer’s eye through the work of art.
• Unity- creates wholeness by stressing the similarities of separate but related parts or elements in one work of art.

Check most of the Stop Motion Animations here or if you can't find yours there, it would be in my second Dropbox here. Or find them on my YouTube channel.

5th Weavings on Hangers

Objective(s)—SWBAT…

• Identify examples of fiber arts.
• Locate and measure the radius and diameter of a circle.
• Identify and create perpendicular lines.
• Apply the use of weaving terminology loom, warp, weft.
• Tie a basic square knot.
• Create a weaving using various fibrous materials.
• Tie tassels onto a loom (optional).
• Remove a weaving from loom (optional).

Check out all of the weaving photos from this year here.

       

 

 

5th Grade Still Life Drawings with Chalk Pastel

Objective(s)—SWBAT…

• Identify a still life artwork.
• Draw fruit and other simple objects using the basic shapes drawing technique.
• Draw a still life.
• Apply chalk pastels to show light and shadow in a still life.

Check out the full project photo album here.

Visit the project's Artsonia page here.

              

Arts Day 2016

Our 11th annual Arts Day was held last Friday, March 18th and it was such an amazing day! We had over 15 artists in different rooms all throughout the building sharing their talents and knowledge with our students. Each class rotated throughout the school and saw 5 to 6 of the various artists. This year we had a number of new artists that were able to join us. Here's a list of them below with a few pictures. If you'd like to see all the pictures we took that day you can click on the Arts Day Album below.

Thank you to our amazing PTA and supportive principals for helping us make the whole day happen!
    :b

Arts Day Photo Album

Jordan Summit (high school student)	Jewelry
Kaitlyn Kersting (high school student)	Special Effect Make-Up
Megan Farr (high school student)	Fashion Design
Diana Mikash, Lindsey Mikash, George Weaver	Singer/Guitarist
Jan and Dwight Hackett	Violinist
Tisha Samuels	Yoga
Rosemarie Dvorchak	Basket Weaver
David Glover	Percussionist
Chris Donahoe	Ventriloquist
Mitzi Hall, Ann Andrejcak	Mosaic Artist
Duncan McDiarmid	Sculptor
Shannon Bost	Gourd Artist
Erik Greenawalt	Sidewalk Chalk Artist
Patty Vaughn	Oil Painter

6th Grade String Art

Objective(s)—SWBAT…

• Create and/or follow a pattern using numbering plotted points.
• Draw straight lines using a ruler to create a geometric line design.
• Create a string art project using the elements of art (line, color, shape, texture, space).
• Identify the difference between the x-axis and the y-axis.
• Explain how a parabolic curve was created in their design.
• Sew with a needle and thread through posterboard to create a string art design.

Click here to see more string art designs.

        

Artome Art Show 2016

This was our first annual Art Show at Hillcrest that we did with a company called Artome and wow! It was an absolute success!! Thank you to everyone that came out to the show! We absolutely loved seeing so many students here showing off their work with their families, checking out other students' masterpieces, and us getting to meet your families. We had in total 780 artworks on display! There were well over 200 students that attended the show and many, many more family member. Thank you Mrs. Teems for helping to organize the show, Miss Hyde for staying and helping out, and the lovely PTA moms that donated cookies and stayed to help us with checkout. It couldn't have been possible without everyone's help!

Click here to see all my photos from last night!