What's in a nickname?

Some cities have the most interesting or coolest nicknames.  But what if a city was shaped like it's nickname?  Think about how the "Big Apple" would really look.  That is where I got my inspiration, I saw a drawing of someone transforming New York into a big apple (it was on Pinterest).

So I looked up what the nicknames were for some major cities and I made a list.  I drew names out of a hat and that was the order that they got to choose the cities that they wanted.  They then could draw the city in the style of its nickname however they saw fit.

Briana B. - Chicago - The Windy City

Brooke A. - Paris - City of Love

Jacob K. - Sao Paulo - Brazil's Locomotive

Describe without saying the word

So I am going to date myself here a little bit, but I enjoyed watching the game show $25,000 pyramid.  Do you remember it?  People gave clues, but couldn't say the word that they were trying to get the other person to guess.  The board game taboo is pretty much the same thing.

Well what made me think of this?  During our inservice in November, the speaker had us all stand up and play that game.  She gave us five words and we had to give clues to another person so that they could guess the words.  I was really inspired by that to turn it into one of my challenge projects.  I wanted to see if students could describe a word with images and other words, but not the word that they were given.  So I put a whole bunch of words on my board and made them sign up for a word that they wanted to describe.  Then I let them use any images that they wanted to put it together.

Bree H. - "Dream"

Danica H. - "Soul"

Jacob K. - "Soar"

Mikayla R - Brave

Riley H. - "Grace"

Sydney H. - Tranquility

Prints galore!

Up until a few years ago I hated printmaking.  For one, I wasn't really good at it and had never really taken a good class about it, but more than that I hated the oil based ink that you had to use.  I hated having to keep turpentine around, and everything getting sticky and messy and all of that mess transferring to hands, clothes, counters, tables and whatever else was touched with that messy ink.

But now that they make waterbased printing inks, I am much more inclined to do printmaking as an assignment.  This year I didn't exactly know what type of printmaking assignment I wanted to give to my advanced students, so I kind of left the category open ended and let them do anything they wanted.  A few of them really surprised me with some great designs, and I am really in love with the double project where they first carved the outline (most of them did an animal) and then they made about a dozen prints with that outline in a variety of colors and then they carved details into the outline shape and then reprinted it over their original, but in different colors.  I think that is a project that I will continue to use for years to come.

Adan M.

Brooke A.

Emily H.

Jacob K.

Kayla E. 

Mikayla R.

Riley H.

Terra C. - 4th place at state competition

What a winter

I don't know about you, but I love photos of the seasons.  And while I don't always love winter (especially when we are in a warning at the end of March, by now I am so done with it) there really can be beautiful photos of the snow.

So here are a few photos from my winter photography assignment.  If anyone has any suggestions for next year so that I get an even bigger variety I would love to hear it.

Brooke A.

Courtney M.

Drea B.

Hannah S.

Heidi S.

Riley H.

What to do with a line

Okay, so the more I look at what I assigned last quarter, the more I realize that maybe I do have an evil side.  But I think all teachers have to have a little devil in them when it comes to finding challenging projects.

Anyways,  I was inspired by the video that was running across facebook that featured a mom letting her daughter scribble on paper and then she would turn it into amazing works of art.  Well I thought about going down to our kindergarten and having those students draw us some lines, but with it being so late in the year I thought their lines might be too refined for what I had in mind.  So instead I made the advanced students make the lines.

I know that sounds like a contradiction.  I was worried about too refined lines from kindergarten but I let advanced art students create the lines?  You are probably thinking I went mad, but I promise I was completely sane.  Before they came in I laid out paper for everyone, I put brushes on the tables and dishes of black paint.  When they came in I had them sit by a piece of paper and grab a brush.  This was my only mistake, I gave them too big of brushes.  I then told them to dip the brush in the paint and draw a line.  Of course, they had to ask a million questions as to what kind of line, and I finally just had to tell them to make a dang line on the paper.  After they made one line, I had them move to another piece of paper and make a line on that paper.  And then so on and so forth.  I didn't have them do all of the papers, but each student made a mark on about half of the papers in the room.

Then they were all told to go back to their original and figure out what to do with it.  They could add more lines to create shapes, they could add color with paint, watercolor, chalk or any other medium, and they needed to find a way to make it their own.  Some of them had challenging lines to work with, but here are a few of my favorites.

Jacob K.

Carter H.

Courtney M.

Emily H.

Paige Q.

Finding Circles

One of the photography assignments was to photograph circles.  I was very impressed by some of the circle images that my students found.

Danica H.

Emily H.

Kayla E.

Mikayla R.

Nikole K.

Sarah C.

Paige S.

My Evil project

So in my mind it was not an "Evil" project, but my Art 3 students didn't agree.  In fact after this project, they started painting emoji's on my wall (picture later) and the first one to go up was the mischievous/naughty purple one.  I guess I need to work on perfecting my witches cackle when I give out assignments.

The "evil" assignment I gave them, was an 18" coil sculpture.  In my defense it had been forever since we had done a big clay sculpture and I thought this was a great way to use up the rest of my clay for the year, and create a giant sculpture.  I mean there are so many great designs and textures that can be created with coils.

Well after a couple of long weeks (mostly because of their complaining) they finally finished them.  These are a few of my favorites.

Bree H.

Emily H.

Kayla E.

Mikayla R.

As you can see, a few of them got creative towards the end so that they could meet their 18" goal and be done with the project at the same time.

Painting on tables?

So last year I decided to find a fun way to introduce printmaking to my Art 1 class.  That is when i came up with the plan to use washable paint right on the tables and then use paper to make a print.  We also sprayed them with water after the first print, and got a ghost print.  

The students have a lot of fun with this and they feel like they are doing something wrong at first.  It does take them a while to get started.  But once they do, they ask if they can do it several days in a row.  Gotta love any project that they are excited about.  

I even let them finger paint, which brings them back to their childhood.

State Art Awards

This past weekend we competed at state art in Sioux Falls.  We contributed 11 pieces from 10 different artists.  This was the first year that I entered something in all eleven categories.  I kind of new we had some serious competition when I dropped our artwork off on Wednesday, but I didn't realize how hard it was until I saw all of the hung artwork on Saturday.  I am very impressed with the level of talent that is in this state.  We might not be a big state, but we have some mighty talented artists.

  So when we got to the awards ceremony I wasn't expecting too much.  That being said I was pleasantly surprised that as a team we placed 3rd in the state.

Terra C. - 4th place in Printmaking

Drea B. - 4th place in Painting (oil/Acrylic)

Blake B. - 2nd place in Multimedia/Graphic Design

Courtney M. - 3rd in Photography

Naomi N. - 5th in Mixed Media

O'Keefe the flowers coming

For the Art 1 chalk project we looked at the American Southwest artist Georgia O'Keefe.  I love the large, close up views of her flowers and I think it is the perfect project to do with chalk.  I think the chalk can also add a sense of softness that she has brought to her flowers.  It also spreads well and can cover a large area with little effort.

That being said, I (like most art teachers) have a love hate relationship with chalk.  I love what it can do, but I hate the mess that it leaves behind.  We make large 18x24 drawings, that are very beautiful, but leave behind a color bomb in my classroom.  It looks like we did our own color run in the art room.

Anyways,  here are a few on my favorites.  

Sommer B.

Morgan L.

Mercedes F.