Alexander Calder Inspired Mobiles

Alexander Calder (July 22, 1898 – November 11, 1976) was an American sculptor and artist most famous for inventing mobile sculptures. In addition to mobile and stable sculpture, Alexander Calder also created paintings, lithographs, toys, tapestry, jewelry and household objects.

Field Trip to LACMA - Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Walking through the Jesus Rafael Soto exhibit. Interacting with this sculpture

caused your sense to feel as if you were in tubes of rain that you could move around.

Here is one of the most important reasons why students write about their art that

they choose to have in the art museum. Label copy is how the artist can tell a little

story about how, when and why the work was made.

Standing under Tony Smith's "Smoke". The sculpture completely encompasses the large room of the Ahmanson Building.

Viewing Art of the Ancient Pacific Islands.

Ancient Buddhist sculpture

Louise Nevelson sculpture

The LACMA trip also gives students a chance to practice their art skills. Sketching the work in the museum is important to help connect what is being done in the class with

the important art from our history.

Alberto Giacometti room

Pablo Picasso sculpture

Experiencing the Bruce Nauman video

Discovering ancient sarcophagus

Egyptian art

Paintings during the Renaissance

Kindergarten's Response to Piet Mondrian's - Broadway Boogie Painting

Piet Mondrian - Broadway Boogie

The conventional or easy way to teach Mondrian's use of color in this classic painting would be to give students only the primary colors, black and white to use and ask them to create perfect geometric shapes. In this lesson I spoke with the students about what a city is like, how it sounds and how, especially in New York City, things are constantly moving. I wanted the students to use what ever colors they felt a connection with then to use the energy you would find in the city to come out in their drawings. You can see how each student blended their oil pastels differently and strongly.

5th Grade Acrylic Painting Techniques

In this lesson I am teaching the 5th graders various acrylic painting techniques. We initially started with a base background color using long brush strokes, which showed students how to blend paint together. The students then loaded some of their paint with a generous amount of water, applied the wet paint to their canvas and let the watered down paint drip down or across the canvas. Some students stuck with creating a few drips, while others relished in the chance to give the paint a life of its own. A few students even substituted dripping paint with dripping water creating the effects of a reverse painting method.

Step two will incorporate an illustrative painting over the background colors you see here.