The winners for the 4th Annual Sooper Art Competition were announced this evening and I am proud to announce that BCWMS students Anna Pavlak and Emma McCloud were among those whose work was awarded. 

Both students will have their work on display at the Grand Rapids Art Museum and receive $100 prize for winning. Their work also has a chance of winning the Mark Heckman Special Merit Award where they could win an additional $250. The winners will be recognized at a ceremony on December 14th. 

We have participated in all four years of this event and it offers such a special opportunity for kids to share their talents in a meaningful way. Congratulations to the winners from Nickels and the High School, as well. BCHS Winner Ethan Karnes will celebrate his second win at this competition (he won with this work as my student four years ago). 

Students selected and prepared work that they wanted on display for the BCPS Visual Arts show. The work will be on display for the month of December with an artists' reception on December 16th from 5:30-6:30. Every student in the 7th and 8th grade Visual Arts classes has a piece on display. The Van Singel Fine Arts Center is open daily from noon-5p.m. 

For the past two weeks, students in both 7th and 8th grade classes had a lot of decisions to make as they worked through their projects. 7th grade students focused on story-telling as they worked on creating videos, video games, or comics. 8th grade students worked with form as they decided what to create with paper. You can see all of the results on our online gallery, but here is a peek into the process below: 

Other students created their videos for the Meijer Great Choices Video Competition to focus on Healthy Choices, Character, or Diversity. 

I posed this question to students several weeks ago as I announced an opportunity for them to participate in a competition through our local pizza places. I found out that one student decided to take up that challenge and you can help him by clicking on this link and liking his entry shown above! First place wins $500 and Pizza! Good luck to all the contestants as they compete in this challenge! 

7th grade students learned about how contemporary artists Karen Lamonte and Michael Stuts draw inspiration from ancient art from Greece and Rome. After comparing their work to the originals, students were asked to create action poses inspired by what they found in Greek Red and Black Figure Pottery. You can see the results on our online gallery and follow along in the process by watching the slideshow below: 

Students also learned interesting facts like why the Parthenon no longer has a roof, that Nike is not just a great shoe company, and the ugly truth about those classical white statues everyone thinks look so elegant. We are currently in the process of working on our plaster casting of fingers based on our exploration of Pompeii and should be complete by Thanksgiving with that. Below is a little preview of where we are at so far: 

8th grade students also got in on the printmaking action this week by creating a two-color reduction print using Wondercut and Linocut tools. We looked at the work of Swoon, Kathe Kollwitz, Andy Warhol, and Banksy before editing our images in Photoshop and transferring them to our printing plates. Reduction printmaking is always a little tricky because you have to think in reverse and make sure to get your registration just right. You can see the results on our online gallery and the process below: 

8th grade students worked on Monsters last week, inspired by Japanese contemporary artist, Takashi Murakami. This year was especially fun because we got to use a new technique of felting wool on for extra details due to a Donors Choose project being funded! Here is a video from last year, explaining the process: 

7th grade students worked on Collages last week using their previous portrait and cut up magazines. It was fun to see the creative solutions students came up with to create a face out of many other faces. you can see the full gallery on Artsonia or watch the video below. 

As highlighted in previous posts, students worked on portraits a couple of weeks ago inspired by the work of Noli Novak. As you can see from the above comment, she took notice of student work and commented on Artsonia! Thank you, Noli, for taking the time to encourage my students and their creative endeavors in class. 

Students worked on their profiles again, but in a new way. Inspired by my friend (and former Countryside Art teacher), Danielle (Sanregret) Hanna, I taught my students a drawing/Photoshop project where they used line and shape to create a pattern within their hair and clothing. 

We first read an article from Scholastic Art Magazine about posters created from Toulouse-Lautrec and Glaser. Then we examined a variety of posters from the 1960s before creating and editing our works in Photoshop. Check out the full gallery here. 

8th grade students finished up their portraits last week, using a material of their choice. From paint, to candy, to make-up, students selected a variety of tools to demonstrate the variety of values found on their face. You can see the full array on our Artsonia gallery. 

7th grade students are working on their portraits this week. We learned about the work of Chuck Close and Noli Novak before getting started with our own expressive images. Students were able to select whether to add value with pencil or dots and how to fill in the background. 

We will finish these works by tomorrow and post the result on our Artsonia gallery. Here are a few finished works so far.