1st Grade Weaving

First Graders at Byam learned about Native Americans earlier this year. We talked about the different tribes and learned how Native Americans made baskets by weaving pieces of bark and straw together. We used the same techniques they did when weaving to create a beautiful design on paper. Here are the results below!

K-12 Chelmsford Public Library Art Show

Congratulations to all of the students who were selected to participate in the Chelmsford K-12 Public Library Art Show on March 4th! It was so nice to see the collection of artwork. My favorite part about this night was meeting families and talking to students about their artwork. I also enjoyed seeing the beautiful middle and high school student work next to the elementary artwork. District-wide art shows are an excellent way for the community to come together and acknowledge all of the talented artists. Well done everyone! And thank you to the teachers who volunteered to set up the show!

Here are a few pictures below...

4th Grade Baskets

Fourth graders at Byam have been working very hard on their baskets. We started with a coil and learned how to wrap yarn around the coil to form a basket. They turned out amazing, here are some examples below. Come see them at the K-12 Chelmsford Public Library Exhibit this Wednesday, March 4th from 5:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.!

Kindergarten Valentines Day Hearts

This week, two Kindergarten classes created Valentines Day hearts inspired by an artist named Jim Dine. We first started by using watercolor paints to fill the background and paint the newspaper. Once those were dry, we talked about the different lines and shapes we saw within our artwork. Students loved seeing the bright colors mix together and the different designs within the newspaper! Next, we cut out hearts from our newspaper and glued them on. Here are some results below.

1st Grade Abstract Picasso Faces

This week, I introduced Pablo Picasso and abstract art to my first graders. We learned about Pablo Picasso's life as an artist and we talked about Cubism as well. Students also learned about the difference between realistic art and abstract art. We focused on Pablo Picasso's famous painting, Three Musicians and looked at how the painting was made up of simple shapes like squares and triangles. We also looked at some of his female portraits and talked about the placement of the facial features. After, we created our own Pablo Picasso inspired portraits using paper and markers.

Three Musicians, 1921

Dora Maar au Chat, 1941

Once that was finished, we moved onto cardboard. I like to allow students to explore different mediums when learning about a new style of art or a new artist. We also focused on complementary colors in this lesson. Students studied the color wheel and chose two complementary colors that are opposite from each other. They painted these colors onto the cardboard and then moved on to cutting out different shapes for features.

Kindergarten Penguins

This year, kindergarten students at Byam have been learning all about the color wheel. We first talked about primary colors, then moved on to secondary colors, and now are working with warm and cool colors. We started our project by painting a warm color (red, orange, yellow, pink) or cool color (blue, purple, green, indigo) background. Once that dried, we read the book If You Were a Penguin by Wendell and Florence Minor and we learned how to draw our own penguins. Each penguin turned out to be unique and beautiful! Here are some examples below.