Chalk Art

I had our third annual Chalk Art Event at my high school and if I do say so myself, it was great. The weather had been great the whole week and the morning of the event the weather dipped into the 40's with a high of 75 late in the afternoon. I usually do this event in Feb. but I was asked by the powers that be to do it in Oct.

This time I invited a few alumni to participate and it sure was good to see them again.

One thing that bothers me every year is the lack of support from my administration. In the past three years not one (I have 5 principals) has ever gone out to view the work of the students and when they do say something it is to complain about a piece of trash left out, graffiti they want to blame on the participating students, or offensive language they heard from a window. I feel like yelling to them, "Look down, see what the students have done!!". Unfortunately none of the principals are interested in the arts, except band, of course.

Well, as I said before, the kids had a great day and we exposed the student body to art.

Technical Piece

These are close-ups from a technical piece from an Art 2 student of mine. I am extremely proud of him, his finished piece came out amazing. If you'll notice, he used several mediums in this piece, he used paint, pencil, pen, colored pencils and watercolor. Can you tell which is which?

I will be submitting this particular piece into a competition this Fri., along with a few others. I hope it does well.

Reflections

This particular project evolved from one idea to another. After the pen still life I give my Art 2 students a colored pencil project and I usually incorporate their faces in the mix. After the kids finished doing a skin colored portrait of themselves I had them create another portrait using different colors for the skin. This usually takes them for a loop. Once they finished that portrait I had them put the two together to create a "reflection" of sorts. They had to come up with an idea for the background that said something about themselves. The hardest part of the project is trying to get the kids to put more value in the face and to burnish a bit. They're afraid of how they will turnout, you know how it is at this age, God forbid they don't look good! By mid-year I will make them work with more layers on their faces. These are the only two that have been completed, I will post a few of the others once they are done, which should be by Monday.

Still shading

As you can see I spend a large amount of time teaching shading. This particular project deals with placing forms on the paper and creating the illusion of space. This particular example has a few minor mistakes but it looks good overall.

This project is prior to doing their first pencil still life, I think learning about overlapping and shading before hand makes a difference in the end.

Graffiti Art

I have a student this year that has taken art for several years, but this is his first time in my classroom. I asked him to show me some of his work from previous years and he had nothing to show me. When I asked him why this was he confessed to me that his style of work never pleased the other teacher (I do not have a good working relationship with my coworker, but I'll get to that later) and so he just "coasted" through class.
After a long talk we came up with a game plan that would satisfy both of us. He was extremely excited throughout the process of creating this piece and he is excited for what is to come. He is in my classroom every chance he gets. I intend to slowly gear him towards other mediums that will still incorporate his style, I hope it works.

Popcorn

I've seen this popcorn project before but I had never been tempted to try it. I decided to go for it today and I must say, it was harder than expected. The kids struggled with it at first and it took them a while to get comfortable with their subject matter. The majority of the kids were pleased with the results and they loved eating the popcorn when they finished the drawing (It takes so little to make these kids happy, they're like little five year olds in big bodies).

On Display

I believe that as art educators it is our responsibility to get our student's work out to the public, albeit the public being the rest of the student body. Our school librarian is always so gracious in letting us display our work throughout the library.

We do have a beautiful gallery in the school but it is far away from the rest of the school and it is very difficult to get anyone out there!

I am planning on having an exhibit for my students and sending out invitations to teachers and parents, hopefully I will have a good turn out. I will let you know!