Carolyn Braden's TOIE: The Artist Series with Marvin Finn

Keeping up with the arts this summer! Here's a new idea I had for videos; Carolyn Braden TOIE: 

The Artist Series.

I want to capture students attention about artists that may not be as well known to the world. 

I started my series with Marvin Finn. He was a folk artist that I hope many can be inspired by.

Here's the video I created:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CajpzDEsmaQ

5th Grade LVAA Grant Project: In progress!

I have started putting the 5th grade glazed tiles to form our mural. They did a great job of following their glaze maps. I am currently outlining the images to make them pop. Next is firing them in my kiln.

5th Grade LVAA Clay Tile Mural Project

After practicing with oil based clay and learning clay vocabulary and more, my 5th grade is finishing their tile mural project. This project was funded by a grant I received from the Louisville Visual Art Association. The portrait tiles will be put together to form our school mascot, a dolphin, after they are fired in my kiln. I may be art on a cart but I've made it work!

Carolyn Braden: LVAA 5th Grade Grant Tile Project

While waiting for my kiln to be ready for use, we are prepping to start our LVAA (Louisville Visual Art Association) funded tile project. Fifth grade students will be creating 4-inch low relief self portrait tiles. When they paint their tile, they must follow a painting diagram I created. After the tile mural is assembled, viewers will see the self portraits when standing close, then see our school mascot, the dolphin, when standing further away. See my diagram in the photo below. Some classes will start sketches next week.

Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft: 2nd Grade Field trip!

With the help of a Target Field Trip grant, the second grade went to the KMAC this week. They viewed multi-media folk art in the current exhibit that focuses on Caribbean influenced art. Prior to their visit, we talked about folk art and looked at many examples. We also discussed Marvin Finn's (Louisville artist) art. They created wooden animals with polymer clay heads. They truly enjoyed their day. They even wanted to stay longer and view more art. I think they really enjoyed being able to touch some of the things on display at the museum like adding onto the community braided rope with fabric scraps and exploring more about the art they saw on the museum's touch screen computers.

Be Creative Center Day!

If my classes earn 6 crayons (they get one crayon per week based on good behavior) they get to have a Be Creative Center Day. Students have the entire class time to do various activities such as finger weaving, straw construction, play balancing games, Lego architecture and more. Here are some of the super creative things grades K-5 made over the past couple of weeks.


Is this students a future Frank Lloyd Wright?






Great balancing!



A creative way to learn spelling words?


















Carolyn J. Braden
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Carolyn Braden Says "Welcome to Braden's Art Stars!"

Welcome to my new blog, Braden's Art Stars!  This blog will be used to document all the wonderful artwork my students will be working on this year.  We have a great year ahead of us.  This will be my fourth year teaching at Byck, and I am looking forward to seeing all my wonderful, talented students.  I love that I can start off this year knowing how much my students know.  They are all so smart and know so much about art!  After teaching them the past three years, I know their artistic abilities.  Due to them always meeting the challenges I put in front of them, I know we will soar in some more advanced projects I have planned for them this year.


This year I will be taking photos of the student's projects in the making and posting them to this blog site.  Bookmark this page on your computer so you can check back often to see what my students are working on.


http://bradensartstars.blogspot.com/


Sincerely, 


Carolyn Braden
Art Teacher, Byck Elementary
Louisville, KY