Painting with light

I also started last year with this photography project, but I think it is a really fun one that the students instantly love.  It is called light painting, but it is basically working with the shutter speed on a DSLR camera.  

I love bringing out these cameras at the beginning of the year because most of them are going to take my photography projects with their cell phones and I love all of the tips and tricks that they will pull out and learn from using  nice camera.  Now not to say that they can't take good pictures with their cell phones, but you can't take an image like light painting on an iphone.

To do this we really slow down the exposure on the camera by putting our Canon cameras into TV mode, with the ISO on 200, and the shutter speed anywhere from 2 to 10 seconds.

Here are some of my favorites from the student's experiments.

Brandon G.

Connor K.

Heidi S.

Jena F.

Kayla E.

I think they did a pretty good job considering we had to do this in practically a coat closet of a room.

Learning names

This year I feel like I have been at a disadvantage.  The incoming freshman this year are students that I haven't seen for four years and so I feel like I don't know any of their names.  So even though I give out this assignment every year, it felt like a really good refresher for me.  It help me put a name with a face as I watched them work.

Now I'm still not perfect and I am trying really hard to just remember which class they are in, but I am sure that will come as the year goes on.

Anyways, I am sorry that these pictures are not very good.  I forgot to take the pictures before I put the artwork in the display case.   So far I am really impressed with the products that they have been putting out, lets hope they can keep it up.

Welcome back Tri-Valley!

Okay so I'm a week late, but better late than never right??

I would like to take this opportunity to say welcome back to my students and their parents.  Please check back here often to see what we are up to in the art room.

Today Art 1 is starting a new Line unit, and I have high hopes for the project.  Wish me luck !!

Final Photos of the year

Here are some of the favorite shots from their final photography assignments of the year.

Jayden - Ant View

Kelsey - Ant view

Demi - Architecture

Kelsey - Four Seasons

Emily - Games

Alasia - Music

Marcelle - Posed portrait

Emily - Reflections

Jack - reflections

Madi - games

Recycle a book into a journal

I have been turning books into journals for a couple of years now.  Unfortunately I don't think we will be able to next year, I am out of books to do this with.  But here are a few examples of my favorites.

End of Art 2

I figured I would show the last few projects that Art 2 had been working on for the last few weeks of the year.  They had a triptych project which was pretty open with lots of possibilities, a wire project and a watercolor progression project.  Some of these projects are the last ones I will ever see from these kids since they graduated this weekend.

Kamber L.

Maggie H.

Mikayla R.

Sammy K.

Adan M.

Riley H.

Sierra A

Dedication

The first half of my semester test for my advanced classes is the art show that they did a few days ago.  The other half of their points come from cleaning the room.  I make up cards of all of the jobs that I want done in the room.  Usually they are scraping of counters, or cleaning out cupboards.  I figure that the advanced classes usually make most of the mess over the year, so it is only fair that they clean it up at the end of the year.

I took this picture of Emily, who was so dedicated to her job of cleaning out the paint cupboard that she was inside of it, scraping out the spilled paint.  

I guess this earns an A.