8th grade students took a break from their Art infomercials today to learn about the work of Andy Goldsworthy.

This environmental artist uses nature as a way to create art that is meant to last for a short period of time. He uses objects found in nature to create his sculptures and as you can see from the video below, the effects are stunning.

With such a nice weekend ahead of us, I challenge you to go out and make some art using nature as inspiration!

7th grade students are currently working on animations using Photoshop. Tomorrow they are going to go a little less tech and do it the old fashion way with flip books and thaumatropes. If you are interested in learning how animation works, check out the video above that explains the concept of persistence of vision in animation.

Tonight was our 1-12th grade show at the Van Singel Fine Arts Center. It was a great time talking with parents and sharing student success with the community.

The show is a great retrospective of the offerings at BCPS and offers students a chance to see how they can progress through the program at each building.

The sunny afternoon offered a picture perfect moment for students interested in creating cyanotypes. This type of picture making occurs by using the UV rays from the sun to interact with objects on paper that is coated with a light-sensitive chemical. Thank you again to the Kids in Need Foundation for helping fund this project and experience!

8th grade students are finishing their monsters before moving onto their comics that use the monsters as the main characters. We are using this article to help us get in the mode of telling a story through pictures.

8th graders are also getting geared up for their final video projects on the artists and materials we have studied throughout the semester. This project will help them get ready for their final exams.

7th grade students finished up their mandalas this past week. In addition to making one using traditional materials, they used applications learned from www.sumopaint.com to create a variety of digital ones. Check out our full gallery on Artsonia and remember that you can help us earn an iPad for our classroom by ordering items with this artwork on it from www.ipadraiser.com. Watch the video below for the details.

Today, my After School Art students were delighted to receive the box of Artist Trading Cards from a partnering school in North Carolina.

I met Nicole Kirkpatrik on a social networking site for Art Teachers and she and I arranged for our students to exchange these transportable masterpieces with each other.

This arrival prompted many "oohhhs" and "aaahhhhs" from the students, as well as the inspiration to make even more (trying to figure out how the Dunn Middle School students did theirs).

I am always interested in using technology to extend lessons and enhance the creative process for students to try a lot of different things in a lot of different ways.

One way we are doing this is with the use of SumoPaint, an online free Photoshop-like program that allows you to make and manipulate images.

Students are exploring making more mandalas using several tools in the online program and as a result, explore the concept of the mandala and radial symmetry even more.

8th grade students are continuing their work on making monsters by finishing their patterns, cutting them out, and applying it to fabric. After cutting the fabric, they are sewing their pieces together and stuffing with fabric fill.

This is a fun project to teach and students like being able to make the funny little creatures based on the work by Takashi Murakami.

I can't wait to see them finished!

Students are continuing to work on their projects this week. 7th grade students selected the materials they wanted to work with before applying various color concepts to the divided areas of their mandalas and 8th grade students finished their plans, before making and cutting their patterns to apply to felt.