Arty iPad Apps

SUMMER FUN!

The summer holidays are a great time to be creative and practise our skills. I love creating art on my iPad and wanted to share some of my favorite apps with you. I hope you can download them to take with you on your summer holidays! 

Can you think of a great title for this?  
-by Gabriel and Mrs Murphy

The photo above was made with Repix, a free photo editing  app with additional tools that you can purchase for a small fee. This picture was made with the free version. 

Art Puzzle is a great app that lets you put together many famous paintings in the form of a puzzle. The Lite version features 15 paintings from famous artists. 

Magritte It will transform any picture into a surrealistic wonder!

Try Faces imake for a fun collage making app. If you like, save your picture and edit it in another program such as Brushes to add details!

Experience symmetry as never before with Amaziograph. You have to try it to believe it... so much fun! Choose your symmetry type and the app will recreate each line you make with that kind of symmetry.

Starry Night Interactive Animation is a must see. Watch it come to life with music and interact with the painting. You can make the sky swirl and the cypress trees sway!

Van Gogh Interactive allows you to move elements of the paintings around or explore Van Gogh's work in new ways. Explore 'Potato Eaters' with a candle or fill a basket with fruit in 'Still Life with Basket of Apples'. A great app for the little ones.

Press Here is based on the bestselling picture book by Herve Tullet, Press Here features 15 colorful, unique, and inspiring art games. It's a must for those long plane rides!

MoMA Art Lab has some very unique and creative activities. Be sure to visit the activities section and try the suggestions. My kids and I really enjoyed making sound compositions inspired by Elizabeth Murray.

Draw&tell HD has many options to create art. The easy to use recording button lets your child tell about their picture when it's done!

BrainPop Jr now has an app! Key in our school password and have access to all of the BrainPop videos, activities and features from your ipad! be sure to watch the videos about Van Gogh, Picasso and Georgia OKeeffe! Look for ideas for art projects in the activities section of these videos.

I will be adding more apps to this list. Please comment in the section below to add your favorite art apps too! 

Celebration of Arts Slide Shows

I'm very sorry, but I'm currently having trouble with Animoto videos. They are not playing as they should... Check back. I hope to have the issue solved soon! 

Click on the videos below to see high quality slide shows of the Celebration of Arts videos from the KG2-Grade 1 and the Grade 3-5 celebrations. You can find the full videos of the performances on the GWA Weebly. I hope you enjoy them! 

KG2 Art

Grade 1






Grade 2



Grade 3 Art



Grade 4 Art




Grade 5 Art




KG2-Grade2 Art Slide Show

3-5 Art Slide Show

My Many Coloured Days (KG2)

KG2 students are investigating how artists show emotions in portraits. They have looked at many famous artist's portraits and found that colours create an emotion. Facial expressions and lines show how we feel too. Look at 'The Scream' by Edvard Munch! 

Last week the students chose a colour and painted tints and shades of the colour to match the way it made them feel. This week we added the photos that show students expressing their chosen emotion. Chalk pastels were used to colour the portraits to show the feeling. It was a lot of fun and we think that these portraits really express our feelings! Here's a video of us at work:

Celebration of Arts

May 14th is the Grade 3-5 Celebration of Arts. It's an exciting time for students to perform and display their art. Below are a few photos from the KG2 - Grade 2 Celebration of Arts earlier this year.We hope to see you all this Tuesday! 

A Paint Party! Exploring Watercolour Techniques

Grade 2 was challenged to come up with some new water colour painting techniques. They were introduced to the wet on wet and dry brush techniques and asked to invent some other ways to use the paint to get different effects. They will be using their water colour skills to complete their observational drawings of machines next week.

Here are a few of the student's reflections after their 'pair share'. It was important to listen very carefully to their each other so they could explain what their partner had done to the class.

-Dylan splat the paint all over his book. He loaded his brush with paint and quickly splat it on his paper.

-Elena painted on one side of her book. Then she added water on top. She closed the book and when she opened it there was a copy on the other side! She called it Double brush.

Creative minds at work! 

Students noticed progress from their first drawing to their last.
On the second day they used very small markers to add more details. 

Overlapping can be tricky, but students are catching on! 

Grade 1 Colour Investigation

Grade one students started with just red, yellow and blue paint. Look at the many colours they created when they blew the paint through straws!

Can you find orange, green and purple? 

Try this fun site to practise colour mixing.

The Colour Factory

Making Movement in Art

KG2 investigated movement in art this week. We read a book called Action Jackson and made some art in a similar style to Jackson Pollock.

Some students loved his artwork. Some students didn't like it at all. We talked about perspective and agreed that we all have different opinions about art.

Although everyone didn't agree about whether or not they liked to look at Pollock's art, everyone agreed that it was very exciting to make art with so much movement! It made students feel energetic and happy. Check out the Jackson Pollock website below to create more online art.

Love to Draw? Try this site!

MR DOOB

The Grade 2 classes are loving this site in art this week! Practise your observational drawing skills here to get some neat effects, or let your imagination go wild!  

Our Healthy Bodies: Abstract Art

Grade 1 students had a great time forming their bodies into the things they most love to do. Whether playing soccer, eating, running or making music, our bodies do a lot for us.  Friends traced around each other and overlapped shapes. Students chose their favorite colours and painted the art. They finished the paintings with oil pastel patterns. Look for the organic shapes and patterns in this fun collaborative project!

Drawing Georgia O'Keeffe Style

Grade 1 looked at a book about Georgia OKeeffe and learned that she loved to draw and paint pictures in nature. We went for a visit to the Peace Garden to draw the plants and trees, and listen to the birds sing :)

We learned to air draw. It helps us to observe an object better and get to know it's shape.

When we returned to the classroom, everyone got to choose the medium they wanted to finish their picture in. Some of the little artists chose chalk pastels, some chose paint and some used pencils or markers.

After class, we had a visit from Mrs Pencil! She asked us what we learned and we showed our drawings to her!

Special Guest

Mrs Murphy’s friend, Paintbrush, dropped by the Grade 2 art class this week (while Mrs Murphy was out).  She came to teach the students about her very special job. Paintbrush thinks she has the best job in the world because she gets to make things look more beautiful. She taught the students how to make thin marks and thick marks with a brush and how to choose the correct brush to use. Students learned that paintbrush likes to keep her beautiful hair clean and sharp looking.  They met paintbrushes little brother who can’t work as a paintbrush anymore because he was left head-down in a tub of water! Grade 2 students practiced their brush work on their pinch pot creatures as they painted them with shiny acrylic paints.

What an Amazing Grade 2 Gallery!

Here are the proud Grade 2 students with their collaborative circle art. Beautiful work, Grade 2s! More pictures coming soon!

Tree-ish

  KG2 students enjoyed Peter H. Reynolds book, Ish, in class today. It's a story that celebrates creativity and helps us understand that not everyone sees things in the same way.

Later in our class students examined a bonsai tree very closely. They touched the leaves, the soil, the bark and twigs. They also looked carefully to identify curved lines, straight lines, angles and circles. When they went away to draw, the KG2 students kept their eyes on the tree and looked very carefully. Below are a few examples of their work. 

They decided to title it this project Tree-ish :) -A great title, I think. 

Although some students think that their drawings look very realistic. What do you think?

These drawings took about 15 minutes.

Students loved using charcoal to draw in their art books.

Students touch the tree to identify different kinds of lines.

These guys tried white chalk on black paper.

Family Puppets

KG2s are making puppets of their family using the elements of art. The puppets show how the students' families have grown and changed over time. KG2KA students wanted to take them home so badly, but they have to keep them in school until after the holidays when they are finished. I promised a photograph so they can share their creations with their parents today. Here it is :)

KG2 Meets Vincent Van Gogh

When I showed the KG2 students this painting on Google Art Project, they talked about the happy colours and thick paint (we zoomed in very close to see the bumpy textures). They thought that the flowers looked like big suns. 

Next we read Camille and the Sunflowers by Laurence Anholt to introduce the students to the artist. They were very excited to go on a search around the room and find some of Vincent's paintings! On the very last page, when students saw the sunflower painting and realized that Vincent Van Gogh was the artist of the painting on our board, they were thrilled, and eager  to make their own textured flowers!

It was exciting to see the paper tear into curves and spirals.

We learned how to spread glue without getting too messy :)

Beans and lentils add a bumpy texture.

 and finally some leaves!

We are adding all of the student's flowers to a big vase, just like the one Camille gave Vincent in the book.  Come and take a look. We think Vincent would be proud!