Welcome back!

Welcome back Hosmer artists and families! To start off the school year, students in 1st - 5th grades collaborated on an artwork that is now on display in our school lobby. Inspired by the wing murals of artist Kelsey Montague that have been popping up all over the country, students created and designed a feather using a monochromatic color scheme -- one color family. 

We started with pencil, choosing either an abstract design made up of lines and shapes, or a theme like nature, personal interests, etc. Then students outlined their design with Sharpie marker and used markers, colored pencils and crayons in their color family. We thought about using different materials and shades within that color family to emphasize different parts of our design. 

The last step was to cut out the feather. The feather were organized and sorted by color and then arranged and glued from the bottom up, so that the feathers overlapped each other. It took a while to put it all together!

All the feathers are part of our rainbow pair of wings display downstairs in the lobby of Hosmer. Collaboratively they form the wings that will help us fly and soar this year!

Collaborative Line & Color Paintings

1st grade artists started the year by reviewing our different kinds of lines with the book Lines That Wiggle. Working collaboratively as a group at each table, students painted a variety of different lines on a large paper. We thought about how they might overlap and connect. 

For the second day of art class this school year, students remembered a lot about lines, as well as some of our painting clean up procedures! Students worked together to set up and clean up their materials.

Next class, students received their collaborative line paintings back. We noticed how the lines interacted with each other to create shapes and spaces. We painted these areas with tempera paint, remembering to wash out our brush between colors and make sure to get enough paint in our brush. 

Students moved around their table to reach all the areas of their large line painting, and worked together to decide when it was done and ready for the drying rack. Check out some of our collaborative line paintings below:

Emily, Rishi, Mohammad & Maya (Landay)

Nirvaan & Sarah (Mandile)

Hannah, Mohan & Teddy (Massa)

Naysa, Graham, Violet, Matthew (Massa)

Kaylin & Arlo (McCarthy)

Lucas & Avneet (McIsaac)

Lil & Zoie (Salvucci)

Our Rainbow Tree

To start off the school year, students in first through fifth grades traced the outline of their hand and designed it using a monochromatic color scheme -- using one color family. We started with pencil, choosing either an abstract design made up of lines and shapes, or a theme like sports, outer space, the ocean, etc.

Then students outlined their design with Sharpie marker and used markers, colored pencils and crayons in their color family. We thought about using different materials and shades within that color family to emphasize different parts of our design. The last step was to cut out the hand design.

All the hands are part of our rainbow tree display downstairs in the lobby of Hosmer. Collaboratively they form the rainbow leaves of our tree as we grow together this year!

Mandalas, Part 1

This past month, 1st grade artists have been learning about the mandala, an art form that originated in India. The word mandala is from the Indian language of Sanskrit and means "circle." We looked at an example of a mandala and students noticed that it had a repeating pattern in its design, and to many students it reminded them of stacked plates or a rug. We also connected the radial symmetry of the mandala to that found in snowflakes, which we recently learned about.

We looked at different mandalas and pictures of people creating mandalas on the ground, using what looked like chalk. We noticed that they start in the middle and work their way outwards. We thought about what happens to drawings that we make on the sidewalk or asphalt when we use chalk and talked about how they wash away eventually, which might also happen to these mandalas. 

We then watched a time elapse video that showed Buddhist monks creating a sand mandala over a period of a week. It took them many hours and their design was very complex and detailed. We noticed that they used teamwork to create their mandala. Afterwards, they destroyed the mandala, brushing the grains of sand into the middle. This surprised many students! We talked about why they might do this, and connected it to when we have drawn on the sidewalk with chalk. Even though the result is not permanent, it is still a fun and a worthwhile experience to create something together. 

To explore this idea, students worked in groups at their table to create a mandala using a variety of different materials. Groups either received colorful foam shapes, wooden shapes, or found objects. We noticed that in the video, the sand mandala was created from the center going out, so students were encouraged to start with the middle and build out.

Students had to work together to share their ideas and create their mandala design as a group, which was part of the challenge! Students also had to keep radial symmetry and the circular shape in mind. 

At the end of class, student walked around to see each other's mandalas before (calmly!) destroying them and putting all the materials back into the plastic bag. Here are the group mandalas from each class: 

Group mandalas from Ms. Landay's class

Group mandalas from Mrs. Mandile's class

Group mandalas from Ms. Massa's class

Group mandalas from Ms. Salvucci's class
 

Group mandalas from Ms. Torchio's class

Monochromatic Self Portraits

During the first two weeks of school, students in every grade level created monochromatic self portraits using different shades of just one color. Students used crayons, markers, and colored pencils to represent themselves in realistic, cartoon and abstract ways. Students had made self portraits in the past, but this time it was challenging to be limited to just one color family! Older students were encouraged to show emphasis using these materials, separating their self portrait from the background to help their work stand out. Learn more about our process here.

Then all of the monochromatic self portraits were sorted by color and counted, with the help of after school 5th grade volunteers, and arranged in rainbow order before being stapled and taped onto larger panels.

This week, all of the monochromatic self portraits were put together in two separate rainbow displays. There are more than 570 students here at Hosmer, so we could not fit them all on one bulletin board! Below are our monochromatic self portrait murals on display. Check them out in person at Back to School Night, this Wednesday, September 28 from 6-8pm.