Brimfield Elementary Winter Art Show

Making Footprints Worth Following


Welcome  to Brimfield Elementary School!  We just held our Winter Art Show. Please take a walk through our hallway galleries and enjoy the creative excitement of Visual Art!

Our fifth Grade students developed autobiographical Shoe Tread Designs.  Their designs reflect areas in their lives that require effort.  Our students created amazing designs that embrace the idea of leaving footsteps worth following. After printing their images on individual wooden blocks, we collaborated to develop an installation piece which is on permanent display in our school lobby. 

This student's tread depicts caring for smaller children and the effort required to meet the needs of others.

This shoe tread represents the visual arts and the effort required by the artists to achieve his/her creation.


Exploring Our World

As you walk into our main lobby, you are greeted by a collaborative architectural structure.  This is our Ndebele House modeled after Ndebele tribal homes in South Africa.  Second grade students developed symmetrical geometric designs.  Following the guidelines of symbolism used by the Ndebele, our students carefully chose colors and shapes to create designs that reflect their families or themselves.

Both the interior and exterior of the house is filled with brilliant color and symmetry!

Third grade students sculpted Ceramic Leaf Bowls using a slab and drape method of handbuilt pottery.
Many pieces were fired using colorburst glazes.

Continuing  our study of tribal arts, our fifth grade students used clay and watercolor to create
Tribal Masks.  Their brilliant creations use additive and subtractive sculptural techniques.

1st grade students learned about the Tlingit tribe of western Canada and Alaska as they developed their own Chilkat Blankets  Working with traditional colors of blue, yellow, black, and white, students combined oil pastels, watercolor, and raffia to create their designs. 

Second grade students learned about Ancient Egyptian Art and made their own, wearable Pectorals.  Designing within a circular format is tricky but our second graders did a masterful job!

As you enter our "Specials" wing, you will walk through our Ohio Gallery.  Many pieces in this hallway reflect work inspired by our state. 

Fourth grade students studied the work of Ohio artist, Charles Burchfield.  They learned about the materials and techniques that he used to capture landscape images of Ohio and western New York.  Burchfield often listened to classical music while he painted. 

 His rhythmic lines appear to dance on his canvases.

Our fourth graders listend to Mozart as they developed these Ohio-based images.  Students drew upon their memories of favorite places as they integrated one point perspective in their images.

 These Burchfield Landscapes were created with watercolor and crayon.

5th grade students viewed images of Ancient Egyptian Wall Paintings.  We discovered that the Egyptians recorded the happenings of their daily lives.  Ancient Egyptian Wall Art provides primary source of our knowledge of Ancient Egyptian life.

Applying our understanding of Art as historical record, our students set forth to capture daily life for  fifth grade students living in Ohio in 2010.  Their remarkable wall-sized murals echo the stylized figure rendering of Ancient Egyptian Art, with a contemporary twist.

We were thrilled to have a student teacher during the months of November and December.
Mrs. Charette shared wonderful ideas and worked with our students to produce some
very interesting pieces.

Community Facades
Kindergarten students created their own towns.  Using construction paper, crayons, and markers our students built restaurants, libraries, doctor's offices, etc., to develop a shared community. Our kindergarten students learned about facades, roofs, cubes, and architectural details.  They explored the role of architecture in our lives.

Fourth grade students discovered that Public Art can help revitalize abandoned spaces in our community.  Students selected images of neglected places within our community.  They brainstormed and developed ways in which these spaces could be renovated for public use.


 

Students in fifth grade produced paper prints of their Shoe Tread Designs  Their initial printing plates were carved in styrofoam, and students used block printing techniques to reproduce their images.

Additional displays for our Art show included a variety of projects developed during the Fall and Winter of 2010.

In conjunction with  our district -wide ant-bullying campaign, fourth grade students created images of a world in which conflict is resolved.  In these Peaceable Worlds, our students depict animals that would typically be enemies, but are shown living in harmony.

Continuing to be inspired by our animal friends, third grade students viewed the
works of American artists, George Rodrigue and Laurel Burch.  Students used their renderings of dogs, cats, or horses to take us on a journey in their lives.  Each painting depicts places which are significant for the artists. 

Fifth grade students designed and painted beautiful trees in the style of Gustav Klimt.  Using metallic paints and foil paper, our students stylized texture to create repetition with variation as they developed unique versions of Klimt's Tree of Life painting.

Value Self Portraits were completed by our fifth grade students as part of a school-wide theme of self-discovery through self-portraiture.  Using charcoal and pencil, students applied learned concepts of facial form and placement as they blended charcoal to create areas of light and dark in their drawings.  These light and dark areas are called value.  Embracing a play on words, students then wrote their own personal values within their art work.

Our fourth grade students learned about the Fauve Art movement of the Post-Impressionists. They used tempera paint to create self-portraits filled with arbitrary and emotionally charged colors.

Our Helping Hands portraits were created by our first grade students.  Exploring the concepts of portraiture and dimensions, our students made self-images that seem to pop off the page!

A view of some of our displays in our Cafeteria Gallery

Brimfield Elementary students are full of exciting and creative ideas.  

Please revisit our site to see our amazing world of art as it evolves throughout the Spring!