Year-round art classes - Boulder

Is your child interested in art? I came across some year-round art classes offered by Sunflower Kids Art Studio in Boulder for ages 3.5 to 15. They are located at 5345 Arapahoe Avenue. Call Lika Maldutis at (720) 939-7545 or e-mail lmaldutis@gmail.com or click on the link above to visit their site. 

Clementine Studio in Boulder also offers a variety of art classes and camps for kids. Check them out! 

February 5 - Watercolor Elephants - 1st/2nd graders

We learned how to draw elephants today! I based this lesson on one found on this AMAZING website, Art Projects for Kids. If you're ever looking for fun project ideas with tutorials for your kids, I highly recommend this site. 

These elephants turned out beautiful. The class enjoyed learning the steps of how to draw an elephant as well as seeing how crayon resists watercolor paints. 

Below are some photos from today's lesson:

Thomas and Jerrick

Zoie and Cooper

Matt

Back: Madeleine, Ben and Andy

Front: Kayva and Malachi

January 25 - Field Trip to the Museum of Natural History - CU Boulder

On Friday, the 3rd-6th graders participated in an art field trip to the Museum of Natural History on the CU Boulder campus. It was exciting to go to a college campus and mingle amongst students and faculty. We participated in a hands-on workshop about pottery of the Southwest. Our tour guide, Jim, helped us learn the steps of ancient pottery making and examine prehistory pottery designs and shapes. We ended our short gallery tour with a hands-on activity: creating our own coil pot out of air-dry clay to take home. Here are a few photos from our day: 

October 16 & 23 - Greek Art

In the Kindergarten through 2nd grade classes, students discussed the history of Good Luck beads in Ancient Greek culture. They looked at pictures of different types and identified what types of materials were used to make them, such as wood, seeds, metal, animal bones, and glass. Students used Crayola Model Magic to create 10 beads. Then they used a plastic sewing needle and string to create their necklace. The following class, once the beads were dry, students painted them using watercolor paints. The following pictures are from the K/1st grade class wearing their finished necklaces!

The 3rd through 6th grade classes studied a different aspect of Ancient Greek culture: Greek Vases. They discussed three different types: amphora, krater, and kylix. They observed how Greek vases were either black background with red images or red background with black images as well as how they typically told a story. They discussed the patterns used on the vases as well. 

After discussing symmetry, students chose which vase shape they wanted to make and cut this shape out of brown construction paper. In pencil they designed their vases with patterns and/or a Greek story. The designs were then traced with black Sharpie marker, paying attention to the ratio of black vs. brown. The final step was to glue the vase onto a teal background.

 Take a look at the finished Greek vases the 5th/6th grade class created. Beautiful!

Finished Egyptian Art

5th/6th grade class - Egyptian Mummy Cases

1st/2nd grade class - Egyptian Hieroglyphs

September 25: Aztec Art

Kindergarten through 2nd grade looked at the Aztec Sun Calendar and discussed how facial expressions show emotion (happy, sad, surprised, mad, etc.). We talked about what shapes made up the sun (circle, triangles). Lastly, we talked about warm colors (red, orange and yellow) and cool colors (green, blue and purple). Students drew a sun as big as the paper and drew the sun's facial expression. They then colored it in with crayons and/or markers using warm colors. After they cut it out and glued it to their background, they added a border of cut paper using cool colors. Here a few pictures from the Kindergarten/1st grade class:

Ben and Brooklyn

Elijah and Brigit

Taylor and Marik

Ben

Elijah

Jake

Marik

Brigit

Brooklyn

Third through 6th grade students viewed and discussed a variety of Aztec Animal artworks. We discussed shapes and lines used to create the simplistic animals as well as if the artist used thin or thick paintbrush to create a particular line or shape. Lastly we discussed positive and negative space, which tied in nicely with their sketchbook assignment that week. They started by coloring in their backgrounds using oil pastels, filling the page with blocks of color. Next, they used acrylic paint to paint their Aztec animal onto their colored background. Here are a few finished pieces from the 3rd/4th grade class:

Alex

Jacob

Unknown

Jack

September 11 & 18: Egyptian Art

For our second art project, we studied Egyptian Art. Kindergarten through 2nd grade discussed hieroglyphics and how "symbols" are pictures that stand for something else (such as the alphabet). They were given an Egyptian Hieroglyph Alphabet worksheet to choose at least 3 symbols to draw on their paper. They could choose more and also make up their own symbols if they wanted. Students then had to trace their hieroglyphs with Sharpie marker and add color with crayons.

On the second day, we reviewed what a "symbol" was and continued adding color with crayon. Once the crayon portion was completed, we discussed "crayon resist" and how when you paint over crayon with watercolor paint, it doesn't stick because of the waxy consistency. Students practiced their painting skills by add watercolor paint to their artwork. Below are a few pictures:

Kindergarten/1st grade: Adding watercolor to their artwork.

Kindergarten/1st grade: Jake and Taylor painting.

Third through 6th grade students created Mummy Case drawings. Students viewed and discussed various mummy cases during a PowerPoint, specifically looking at patterns used and how highly decorated the mummy cases were. We also discussed three different types of symmetry: symmetrical, asymmetrical and radial. Below are a few pictures of completed artwork by 3rd/4th graders:

Alex

Jack

Pierce