4th Grade Polar Bears

The 4th Grade learned a little about the Northern Lights before we even started on the mixed media painting of Polar Bears.  They created the backgrounds of the artic landscapes with chalk pastels on beautiful colored paper. The students were asked to include the Northern Lights in their artwork.
Then they drew their own unique polar bear, (no tracing here!) on a separate paper and cut out the inside of the bear, creating a stencil - very difficult to do!  Finally, they placed their stencil on the composition and sponge painted the polar bear onto the paper.  Details were added with black oil pastel.

Lesson Inspired by Deep Space Sparkle

3rd Grade Marvelous Moose!

The 3rd Graders created a multi-media collage of a northern moose in a snow scene.  First they painted their backgrounds depicting the snowy countryside of northern Canada.  Then we drew our moose on brown construction paper & added features and textured fur with oil pastels.  The antlers were cut out separately and purposely enlarged for effect. After viewing many pictures of moose, we realized just how big those antlers are!  The last step was to glue everything down.  Happy, marvelous Moose!

Lesson inspired by Deep Space Sparkle

2nd Grade Snow Angels

Our 2nd graders had a blast creating these collages of snow angels.  First we painted the backgrounds, creating the shadow for the angels.  We laid on the floor pretending we were making our own snow angels in the snow to get the sweeping motion of the arms & legs.  Then they cut out the pieces of our person, - coat, gloves, boots, face & hats.  Put them all together and finished it off with some white splatter paint to look like it is snowing down on us!  Fun!

Lesson Inspired by Deep Space Sparkle

1st Grade Peaceful Winter Trees

The 1st graders painted these beautiful and serene winter trees during a snowfall.  The students were asked to paint one or two small red accents somewhere in their paintings.  Little did I know that first week of January, that these painting were a foreshadowing of our weather to come!

Lesson Inspired by Deep Space Sparkle

Life in St. Mary's Art Room

I thought I would post a few candid pictures of what goes on in our Art Room on a typical day.
As you can see for yourself, much creativity and lively spirits fill these walls!

3rd Grade busy painting their Canadian Moose!

5th and 6th grade enjoying the creative process.

7th grade painting the colorful yet serene Northern Lights

8th grade worked together in groups to design & create unique "Whoville" type Gingerbread Houses.
Unfortunately, due to snow delays and Christmas activities, many of their amazing design never got completed before Christmas.
Never fear, it is the creative process that is important!

5th Grade Blessed Mother and Child

The 5th graders did such a beautiful job on their oil pastel drawings of our Blessed Mother and Child.
The students were given very brief instructions on how to draw St Mary, then drew her in black oil pastel on black paper.  They colored in with oil pastels, leaving some paper showing through.  Gold and silver metallic paints were used to create the halos.  I believe this is my favorite art piece done so far this year!
I have left the art hanging upstairs long after the Christmas season has past in honor of our patron saint,
St. Mary.

7th Grade Whimsical Christmas Trees

The 7th grade students amazed themselves once again with these fun whimsical Christmas Trees, reminiscent of trees that would be found in Whoville.  Simple chalk pastel drawings on colored backgrounds made for some striking artwork!

6th Grade Stained Glass Trees

The 6th grade made these stunning geometric Christmas Trees with a stained glass look.  They first painted the background with liquid water colors.  The trees were created by layering colored tissue paper and glue on construction paper.  Triangular shaped trees were cut out, glued down to background and finished off with gold and silver metallic paints details.

7th Grade The Holy Family

The 7th grade created these bold graphic illustrations of the Holy Family.  Their only restrictions were to keep the Holy Family as one unit, a single graphic element, and the focal point of the illustration.  They were also encouraged to use bold colors and repeating patterns in their designs.

3rd Grade Painted Paper Christmas Trees

St. Mary 3rd Graders created these majestic Christmas Trees by first creating sheets of painted paper.
Then snow was painted on various blue backgrounds.  The trees are torn strips of the painted paper and the students finished the multi-media piece by creating presents and ornaments out of patterned and painted paper.  It definitely put us in the Christmas spirit!

4th Grade Elf Themselves!

The 4th Grade had a blast creating these whimsical elves with their own faces.  The objective was to illustrate an animated Elf in a fun, jovial way.  Mission accomplished!

1st Grade Christmas Angels

Our 1st graders did a beautiful job on these multi-media Christmas Angels.  First they created their own painted paper for the wings, then using a variety of papers cut out the angel's body pieces and glued them together in the right order, pretty tricky!  Then they created stars and snowflakes in the background using white oil pastels.  Heavenly!

Art Auction at Christmas Bazaar!

Hello St. Mary's families, be patient as I am about to try to update this blog from the past 3 months!  I will do my best to keep things in order, so... here we go!

Last November St. Mary's held it's very first Art Auction and what a success it was!

Each class created a one of a kind masterpiece together and the results could not have been more stunning!  The bidding war was on during our annual Christmas Bazaar and with the huge help of Mrs. Kim Spina, the auction raised over $1000 for St. Mary's

Some of the beautiful framed art work for auction created by our talented students!

Finger Print Paintings, Hand-Dyed Tiles and Multi-media Collage
were among the many works of art

The Creative Process!