In Kindergarten we just finished our first multi-week project.  We combined all that we had practiced with lines, shapes, cutting and gluing to create a giraffe.  We had to make sure we showed all of the details of the giraffe to make it look like one!   First graders are finishing an ocean drawing of fish and their surroundings.  We had to color really heavy two different times on a piece of tagboard to create a scratchboard.  After practice drawing detailed fish and plants, we scratched our drawings on the crayon.  The black layer on top came off to show the colors underneath for the lines.  We showed lots of contrast.  Mrs. Henks’ class finished coral reef sculptures after looking at and drawing coral.  We combined painting, drawing, cut paper and paper sculpture to create some cool reefs.  Second graders and Mrs. Patnaude’s class are creating snake color schemes.  We are learning about overlap by drawing two snakes overlapping each other.  We are also practicing complex patterns for the designs on the back of the snakes.   Our third graders just finished their molas and will be beginning a spider web project.  You may see them practicing at home as they were having a lot of fun with this in class.  

​We are going “discover the animal kingdom” with our art projects this year at Hilltop.  In Kindergarten we spent our first few art classes doing all sorts of things.  We drew a self-portrait to save for a special “Me” book we will be working on throughout the year.  We also did a line and shape survey which we will do again at the end of the school year to show you our progress.  Currently, we are practicing different lines and shapes with our crayons.   First graders began the year with a “mystery” drawing of a koala using simple lines and oval shapes.  We learned about texture and created the fur texture and the bark texture for the tree the koala is climbing with a pencil.  Mrs. Henks’ class created fish paintings using warm and cool colors.  They showed repetition by repeating the same fish shape multiple times.  Second graders and Mrs. Patnaude’s class are also working on repetition by creating a whirligig project – ask your 2nd grader what a whirligig is!  The whirligigs repeat across the watercolor-painted paper and we then repeated circles around all of the whirligigs.  Our third graders are working on a mola project.  Molas are art made of many layers of fabric stitched together by the Kuna Indian women of Panama.  We are using paper for our molas of birds.  We will also be using repetition in our work by repeating a shape throughout the background and by making stitch lines with marker.