Art with Mrs. Elliott : Art Books! RES

Presenting, the Kindergarten Art Book.

Cover page, inspired by Van Gogh's Starry Night

I cannot take credit for this tradition, but do I ever love it. All year long, all of the two-dimensional Kindergarten work is saved and matted onto 12x18" paper. Towards the end of the year, students collate their books and glue on project descriptions that share a little with others about the goals of the project or what book, artist, or technique we explored.


This project focused on learning the parts of plants and mixing colors

There are many volunteers who make this possible over the year. People come in to help glue the artwork to the background paper, by far the most time-consuming, year-long task. You would be welcome anytime to come help with that!

A color optics lesson inspired by Eric Carle's Hello, Red Fox!

A special thanks goes out to the two people who did hours of book binding this year, the amazing Jackie Wintersteen and the fabulous Natalie Villeneuve.

Around 650 matted and bound artworks from our creative K's!

Over time (and sadly, many crushed, wet, or torn artworks), I have come to the conclusion that 2D artwork should go home in a bundle at the end of the year to reduce the likelihood of losing the work to catastrophe.

Another sunflower vase- all the colors were mixed from the primaries

A large percentage of the projects changes each year as I explore new ways to teach curriculum. For Kinders, my main areas of focus are on teaching use of tools (grip of writing and drawing implements and scissors, especially), exploring lots of textures and materials, color theory, and recognition of geometric and letter shapes in our world.

Below, we focused on shapes in people and architecture. Check out all of those rectangles, triangles, circles, and squares.

Our Families and Homes project

In the fall we went outside to look at a tree without leaves. Now, that is a really complicated thing to draw, but looking carefully, Kindergarten artists decided that drawing a tree was really just a line repeatedly splitting into two, like the letters V and Y. A look at how one came out:

Trees in Autumn project. Can you see all of the Y's and V's?

For our Owl Moon inspired watercolor resist paintings, artists used their knowledge of geometry and writing to create a scene from the story. Circles, ovals (even concentric ones!), triangles, rhombuses, semi-circles, the letter V... so many detailed observations by this artist.

Resting on a branch under the full moon

Students come in to class in September at a vast range of levels and abilities. The growth that happens in fine motor skills is huge by the end of the year.


Cutting so neatly!

Working in a grid (inspired by Jasper Johns), with thanks to Thea Hodgson in Burlington


Coloring inside of focused small areas with super control! Inspired by Joan Miro's circuses

The last project of the year for the book is a self-portrait, using math to place facial features and all of the geometry of shapes they have learned all year.