The fifth grade recently finished some marker drawings inspired by Keith Haring. Keith was born on May 4, 1958. He grew up in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, the oldest of four children. He started to draw right away. Then Keith started seeing empty black pieces of paper on the subways. He knew that this was the perfect place for him to draw. He started making his subway drawings every day. Take a look at some of our Keith Haring inspired marker drawings. The fifth grade has spent several weeks learning about the life and artwork created by Vincent Van Gogh. Vincent van Gogh loved color and used it as his chief symbol of expression, was born in Groot-Zundert, Holland. Vincent's is considered the greatest Dutch painter after Rembrandt, though he had little success during his lifetime. Van Gogh produced all of his work (some 900 paintings and 1100 drawings) during a period of only 10 years. Take a look at some of our Starry Night inspired paintings below. The fifth grade recently started a new ceramic project. We have been working hard on building clay houses. There are several stages that occur in working with ceramics.                                   1.      Create the art work. Several concerns must be kept inmind: thickness of the piece, strength of the piece and any joins, and surfaceappearance. Until the work is finished it is kept wrapped in plastic to avoid drying.                  2.    Let it air dry--this takes about 1-2 weeks and is thehardest part of the whole process--waiting! When it's totally dry it's called'bone dry'.                  3.    When enough work is ready, we do a bisque firing. Workis loaded in the kiln and heated to a temperature of nearly 2000 degrees! Thefiring takes about 8 hours, and then the kiln must be allowed to cool down. Atthis point it is called 'bisqueware'. Then the work is unloaded and ready forthe next step, which is...                4.      Glazing (or painting). Students who choose to can painttheir work with acrylic paints--that is the final step in that case. Most ofthe students, however, choose to glaze their work. Glazes look likepaint--liquid and colorful--but they contain little particles of glass whichcreate amazing effects when fired again.                  5.    The glazed work returns to the kiln (this time more carefully inthat the pieces cannot touch each other, and no glaze can touch the kiln) andis fired a second time. The kiln goes up to about 1800 degrees and fires forabout 5 or 6 hours. The glaze is activated by the heat--the glass in the glazemelts, and then solidifies, giving a beautiful sheen to the finished piece. Ontop of that change--from matte to shiny--the colors often transform as well.Opening the kiln at the end of the glaze firing is like opening a big present fullof magic!                 Take a look at some of our clay houses straight out of the kiln! Take a look at our newest fifth grade project! We are making collage self-portraits. Here we are hard at work. The Fifth Grade has started the year out by looking at still-life paintings. We are studying Paul Cezanne's Apples and Oranges painting.