Welcome to the Vista Grande Art Gallery! This site will give you the opportunity to peer through the window of Room 306 and explore the visual arts at our school. Currently, second and third grades are completing their 8 classes. Kindergarten and first grade will begin soon (also 8 classes) and fourth and fifth grades meet with me in the third trimester for 10 classes. All classes are on Mondays and Thursdays.

All lessons are based on the California standards for the visual arts. Emphasis is placed on the elements of art (line, texture, space, shape/form, value and color) and the principles of design. I encourage all Vista Grande artists to express their own viewpoint visually and to welcome the process of making art.

We started the year by making our own color wheel with primary and secondary colors to be a page in our Element of Art Accordian book and a reference for future art activities. The Swiss artist Paul Klee was our inspiration for our cityscape using a variety of shapes. His Landscape with Yellow Birds was a wonderful example of combining both the organic and the geometric. Look for warm colors below the horizon and cool colors above when you see your artist's final piece! We are in the final stages of our mask/printmaking art and most classes have completed a clay project to go along with Native American studies. Accordian books are just about finished. Mrs.McGovern's class has theirs on display in the multipurpose room. Be sure to take a look if you happen to be in that area.

Second graders created their own color wheel for their portfolios. There was (and is) lots of emphasis on symmetry with the second grade art.  Our first project was printmaking which is always a fun way to create more than one piece of art using the same printing "plate". With fall in the air we looked at leaves and created leaf prints as well as our own leaf stamps. We defined symmetry and discussed balance in art. Butterflies and chalk pastels were combined to create our second piece. (I'm sure some artists arrived home with smudges on their hands and faces.)  Artists created clay sun faces reminiscent of the clay suns of Metapec, Mexico. We will be painting with glazes soon. Make sure you make space on your bookshelf for these. They are amazing! After studying Van Gogh's Fishing Boats on the Beach and talking about foreground, middleground and background students created a watercolor wax-resist of boats.