This has been a great first semester of Art! We have made over 1500 pieces of art, won various competitions, worked with all kinds of media, and had a ton of fun doing it all! 

To finish out the term, students worked on their final exams which included a reflection video, piece of art that demonstrates what they have learned, as well as a test filled with Art related questions. 

I am going to miss this group of students, but I am excited to get a fresh batch on Monday and explore new possibilities with them. 

In addition to teaching 7th and 8th grade Art, I also have the unique privilege to teach Dual Enrollment courses for Kendall College of Art and Design. This semester I am teaching Intro to Photo for Non-Photo Majors. It is a digital photography course that will acquaint students with the fundamentals of using a digital SLR camera and composing a quality image. 

We are currently working on a project dealing with the concept of perspective and point of view. Students can make any type of image they like, with the emphasis on breaking away from traditional habits of centering images or only using standing eye view. 

After today's lecture on lenses and focal length, as well as a process critique of select images taken, students were asked to play a game - a seeing game. Having only 30 minutes, students went around the classroom and hallways of the school to take pictures of objects in ways that resembled letters to their names.

It was fun to see students search out letters and try unusual methods to solve this design problem. I am particularly proud that this mini-lesson was inspired by one of my students.  

This week has been a busy one! Both 7th and 8th grade students are working towards finishing up all of their work before switching to STEM at semester (which happens next week). As a part of finishing their work, 8th graders are posting their projects based on transforming an old work into something new and then creating a video reflection on their own growth in art over the course of their time here.

Check out some of the work below; you can see our full gallery at Artsonia: 

Today was a snow day, but students still were able to find the results for the 2015 West Central Michigan Scholastic Art Awards. 

Work will be on display at Kendall College of Art and Design through the month of February and the awards ceremony will occur on February 28th. Gold Keys will move onto the next level of competition and national winners will be announced this Spring. 

Congratulations to all of the students who participated! I have submitted work to this competition for the last eight years and this was by far our most successful one. With 23 winning pieces, our Middle School was the most decorated from all Middle Schools in the region. With 41 winning works, BCPS was the most recognized district in Kent Country and third most in the region. 

I would like to extend a special thank you to The Byron Center Fine Arts Boosters who helped sponsor student entries as well as the students, parents, and BCPS educational team who foster such a creative environment for our students to explore and enact ideas like the winning works below. 

You Decide - Film and Animation, Bre Coval and Jordan Cooper

7th grade students are exploring ways to show value in their work through the use of our different shading pencils or stippling with Sharpies. We used Chuck Close and Noli Novak as artists of inspiration for this work. Novak is also being used to inspired the collage portraits being done in class, like the one below. Using a variety of media at once is always fun in the art room and I look forward to seeing how the work turns out in a few days. 

8th grade students are starting their last project theme of the semester. As a way to wrap up the time we have shared together, students are looking through their portfolios at work on Artsonia from this year, last year, and as far back as 5th grade! After looking through their portfolios, they are to select one work they would like to reimagine either through a change of style, media, or demonstrating an improvement of their skills.

After students had some time to research and peer conference, they also looked at the work of Takashi Murakami and how he uses the concept of old and new in his work. Here is a video of him explaining his work at Versailles. 

2014 started out with updating the space outside of my classroom. Outfitted with modern Steelcase furnishings from Custer, kids utilize the area so much more now that there is a versatile and welcoming space. 

February was filled with showcasing opportunities for my students. Between the MAEA Region 9 show at the GRAM and the West Central Michigan Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, my students had their pieces on display all over Downtown Grand Rapids. Both shows led to work being moved onto State and National recognition, too. 

This was the 7th year we have put on an Empty Bowls event at our school. It gets better and better each year, with more turn out and more donations. Thank you again to our local Subway and School Community for helping make this such a wonderful success! 

Thanks to a grant from the Michigan Youth Arts Council, I was able to take students to the Meijer Gardens. Using methods learned from fellow art teacher, Tricia Fugelstad, I put the kids in charge while at the Gardens and they led us through the sculpture park by highlighting the work along the way.

May was a month full of celebrating student success as we displayed work around our school at at the Van Singel Fine Arts Center. One thing students did to celebrate this month full of Arts, is make the images below that were in response to Governor Snyder declaring the first week of the month Youth Arts Week.

The end of the school year was celebrated with our National Scholastic Silver Medalist, Makenzie Reid, in New York City. It was an amazing time celebrating the students from across the country and seeing the winning work. I am honored to be a part of this program and hope to keep this tradition of competing going with my students year, after year.

I offered several summer challenges to students and was so pleased with the participation. Thank you again to Ava, who participated in them all! Here are the works she uploaded to Artsonia in the month of July. 

It is always fun to get ready for the start of the school year. With help from donors like you, I was able to get this first project I posted on Donors Choose funded quickly. Thank you for your support over time and helping me make a positive learning environment for my students. 

I have been taking students to ArtPrize annually and enjoy the way the annual competition engages the audience each time. Thanks again to a grant from ArtPrize, I was able to help fund this trip and students were able to interact with this award-winning work by Anila Quayyum Agha.

Thank you again for voting to Asia and helping make her an Artsonia Artist of the Week in October! It was fun to share her work with others and see the support she gathered over the course of the week. 

I am very honored to have been named MAEA Middle Level Educator of the Year at the Annual Conference that happened in November. It was a great time to share resources with other teachers and also spend time with my sister, who teaches art in Indiana! 

It is hard to pick one major highlight from the month because so much of it is a culmination of hard work and dedication over the course of the year and before. From Emma finishing her dress, to Anna experimenting with found objects for jewelry, to Gabe honing his Photoshopping skills and so many other students finding new ways of saying things through visuals... I have seen students push themselves in new ways and amaze me in the process. My favorite part is showing that at our annual December show. Every year I think that it has been the best year ever; I know next year is going to offer the same. 

I hope everyone is enjoying their time with family this Holiday season. Even though there is not a spec of snow on the ground in my neck of the woods, I challenged students to create some snow inspired Photoshop works before we left for break. Here is a video highlighting their efforts. 

You can see the full gallery of work on our Artsonia gallery. 

As we finished up our last project of the calendar year, I looked around the room at my students feeling very proud and thankful that I get to do what I do on a daily basis. 2014 has been an awesome year and here are some responses from my students who were simply asked to make something for their last assignment. I am particularly impressed with the level of thought and diversity in outcome as they selected the theme, material, and given only a week to complete. You can see the full gallery of work on Artsonia. Here are some highlights: 

7th grade students worked on finishing their clay pieces as we prepared for Winter Break. We started with hollow clay balloons, that some students turned into rattles by inserting clay pebbles inside of paper towel (so it does not stick to the side of the clay body). Then students planned out their creatures and got to work making the needed forms and applying it to their work. It will be fun to fire these over break and get to finishing them off before the end of the semester.