Welcome to the 2008-2009 Art Room

Recently the art room and the media center collaborated on a dragonfly unit. The idea for the unit began last spring when our multi-talented media specialist Mrs. Massey and I were watching all the dragonflies visiting our school water garden. In doing research for the unit, we learned that Walker County has one of the highest concentrations of dragonfly species in the state, a fact that both surprised and pleased us. We had noticed that it appeared that several different kinds of dragonflies were frequenting the pond, and our research confirmed our observations.

Mrs. Massey began the unit by introducing the students to the dragonfly life cycle. She assisted them in doing research on more dragonfly facts, and then most classes used the facts they had discovered to write an informational piece about dragonflies, which Mrs. Massey then displayed in the media center. We followed up in the art room with two different art projects. Kindergarten through third grade students drew a picture of a typical dragonfly habitat, and then they drew, colored, cut out, and placed dragonflies in their habitats. Fourth and fifth grade students created small nature journals with their facts and added pictures illustrating each fact. Shortly the pictures will be going up in the halls and the nature journals will be on display in the media center.

The students have also been learning about various aspects of color theory and then doing art work representing the element of color theory they have studied. Kindergarten students begin with learning about the three primary colors and how they can be combined to create the secondary colors. First grade students also review the primary colors and how they can be combined. Second graders learn about tints and shades and then warm and cool colors. Using warm and cool colors, they made some striking paper weavings. Third graders add tertiary colors, which are colors that are created by mixing a primary color with a secondary color. These are the colors that have double names, such as blue-green, red-violet, yellow-orange, etc. Fourth graders work with complementary and neutral colors. Complementary colors are those colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel, such as orange and blue. Mixed together, they make mud, but when they are placed side by side they make each other stand out. Neutral colors are white, black, gray, brown, and tan. Fifth graders review complementary colors, and to that they add analogous and monochromatic colors. Soon examples of their color theory work will be displayed in the halls.

CAPITAL ART SHOW: In February two students will be representing Gilbert Elementary in the annual Capital Art Show in Atlanta. Sarah Hornik, a fifth grader in Mr. Campbell's class, and Kelly Jones, a fourth grader in Mrs. McRae's room, will have their art work exhibited in the state office buildings. They and their families will be invited to a special reception in February where they will have a chance to meet their state legislators.

FOOTHILLS ART GALLERY: The Foothills Art Gallery, located in the old Long John Silver's building in front of Bi-Lo, has a room dedicated to student art. Art from local schools, including Gilbert, is exhibited on a regular, rotating basis. Stop by to see some wonderful work produced by our local students.

ART CLUB: Art Club students are currently completing painting their taco fish. They have also made and decorated 3-D lizards from file folders. They'll be working on origami next. We're scheduled to have a guest artist come in to demonstrate some new origami techniques.