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Arts a la Mode

5/30/2016

On May 24th, we had our annual Empty Bowls Event and Fine Arts Night. It was the first year we had combined the two on one night and it was a great time celebrating the work of our Fine Arts students as we also helped raise food and funds for our local food bank.

With a donation of food or funds, community members came to WMS and enjoyed Music and Art from our students and ice cream provided by Hudsonville Ice Cream thanks to our Byron Center Fine Arts Boosters.

We raised over $600 in food and funds to be donated to Buist Community Assistance Center to help families in our community!

It was a great night filled with Art and Music and I am so thankful to Steve Harryman who donated his time and talents to create the video of the event below:

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Everything Old is New Again

5/28/2016

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For our final project theme, students were asked to visit their Artsonia portfolios and select a past work they would like to revisit. In doing so, they had to demonstrate an improvement of skill, understanding, or (ideally) both in the process.

This is probably my most favorite of themes because it is interesting to see what students choose and read why they did. I also appreciate the use of skills to demonstrate their new-found understandings, abilities, and decisions for how they want to make art.

Here are a few of the reworked ideas from the past:

Alayna: I remade the free-day artwork that I made a few years ago at Nickels. I chose to revisit this artwork because I knew that I could put more work into this project than I did the first time, and I also knew that I should put more patterns into the circle-like-hills that I had drawn for this project than just the regular colors I had done the first time. One of the things I did different this time was I painted patterns into the circles instead of just a solid color. Another thing I did differently this time was that I drew out the circles and painted them in, and afterwards I cut out the circles and glued them onto a headband. I really wanted to be different in the media I used, and I am very glad that I chose to revisit this design and improved.

Matt: This artwork shows a lot of improvement from the artwork I chose to make better for many reasons. First of all, it shows improvement because my first artwork is random and does not use any artist techniques, it is just random. Now this video is better because I used a Julian Opie technique to create a cool looking portrait that looks like the people are cartoon characters. I chose to redo my prior art because I knew I could do better on it and I enjoy doing artwork that deals with people and portraits.

Lindsey: My artwork is an improved version of a 5th grade piece that we traced in class. But this I made a new background and I made it 3d with is a skill I have learned this year. I also freehanded this drawing and I used a splatter background which is a amazing technique I learned his year.

Matthew:I decided to re-do project theme 2. During that project, I envisioned the change of seasons and how it affected what we as humans do for fun (snowboarding, hiking, etc). So when I decided to re-do this project, I thought about the the Photoshop skills I had learned. I made a GIF or an animated image of the Earth changing seasons. I DID NOT use any images from Google. This piece is all from scratch. I feel the reason I wanted to revisit project theme 2 is that during that time, I was having fun snowboarding. Now, I am wake boarding. It made me think about the change of seasons. I think that this piece is really cool!

Josh: i choose a panda because pandas are my favorite animal. i recreated this but the first time i made something like this was in 5th grade. plus i picked these colors because they really stand out.

Nolan: For the last project theme of the year I made a rainbow salmon jumping out of water to improve my 5th grade king salmon. In this piece of of art I used a ultra thin black sharpie to outline some shapes. I also used many different colored pencils. With the colored pencils I made shades of different color. This is a new and improved piece of art because instead of just having the king salmon just stay in one spot, the rainbow salmon is jumping out of the water making the water ripple and fly every where. This relates to me because my whole family loves to fish. We have a cottage and a cabin that we go to many times a year. I made a rainbow salmon because I love to catch rainbow trout and I have always wanted to go king salmon fishing. I wanted to revise my 5th grade water color fish painting because I thought it would be cool to make a unreal fish jump out of the water. I also wanted to make a revision because I thought that it would be the easiest to make it look 10 times better.

Ella: The work that I created is a cup of hot chocolate made of felt. In 5th grade we had to paint a picture of a person holding a cup of hot chocolate, so what I did to improve my work and I created a larger and 3D like version of the cup that my girl was holding. The reason why I did this piece was because In 5th grade when I did the painting I felt like I didn't try hard enough to make it good so I wanted to make it better and be more creative.

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Meijer Gardens Fun

5/26/2016

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Yesterday marked our annual Meijer Gardens field trip. This year we combined Art and STEM students to attend the trip and tried a new tour that was all about Surviving in the Tropics.

It was fun to spend the day in the sun, learning about artists, and walking the grounds. This is one of my favorite things to do with students and I have some fun ideas on how to make it even better next year...

Check out a video from the day!

This week was a big week. We had our Fine Arts Night (look for a post soon), we had our field trip, and we finished up our last project (again, look for a post soon).

I am pretty sure I am going to be spending the weekend looking something like this:

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New Again

5/23/2016

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Shelby is trying the new Mayco silkscreens I purchased from Blick using our Artsonia AOW prize money.

This week is the last week for making new art in the BCWMS Visual Arts room. Students have been asked to mark this moment by going into their portfolios and reimagining their work using a new media, new method, or improved skill.

It has been fun to view the progress so far as students experiment, explore, and push beyond the obvious in their works. Although the end of the year is a bit of a struggle at times because the end is so close, we are working hard at finishing strong and maybe even having some pieces that are submitted for competition next school year.

Abby is trying another portrait, this time from the front.

Raven is reimagining a drawing using clay.

Matthew is creating another GIF, this time using a planet he rendered.

Josh is creating a series of Panda prints.

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Sooper Sunday

5/22/2016

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Sooper Art 2016 celebrations did not disappoint. It was great to celebrate all of the Michigan student artists from across the state and see their efforts be rewarded with recognition and prizes.

BCWMS had two winners this year, continuing the tradition that started six years ago. This annual competition has been a great tool to get students thinking about the environment and to showcase their ideas and skills.

I am very proud of Ana and Sarah and look forward to seeing which students enter work again next year.

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More GIFs

5/21/2016

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Here are some more GIFs from students last week.

In order to create these moving masterworks, students first went to the Artsonia galleries of our elementary schools. After selecting which image they would like to animate. They copied and pasted the work into a new Photoshop image. Using the quick selection tool, the clone stamp, and the motion workspace, students navigated between layers to create looping images. To save the files so they will move once they are uploaded online, students went to file>save for web and then save the GIFs to turn in on Schoology for a grade.

Overall, it has been really fun to see students learn this method and the amount of interest in turning other student's works into something new.

It was a perfect feeder lesson into our final project, "Something Old, Something New," which we also started this past week.

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GIF Challenge

5/17/2016

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Students were challenged this week to make a GIF using the Artsonia galleries from our BCPS Elementary and Intermediate schools. Here are some of the results so far.

I got this idea from an an art exchange with Ian Sands a couple of years ago, when his students made GIFs of my students' work.

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BIG check

5/17/2016

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Yesterday was an exciting day!

It was the day our 3D printer dreams became a reality, thanks to the grant funds awarded from TangerKIDS grant program! We are super excited to use this tool in our upcoming STEAM collaborations and to see what students will create. This is the largest grant our classroom has ever received.

We are so grateful to Tanger Outlets for having a program like this and for the support of our school to go after big ideas and bring new opportunities to our students.

Stay tuned for more great things to come!

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Arts a la Mode - May 24th

5/16/2016

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I am super excited about next week! It is our 8th year of hosting an Empty Bowls event at our school and this year we are upping our game with a few changes. Instead of soup, we are having ice cream. Instead of a stand-alone event, we are pairing it with our Fine Arts Night celebration.

To enter, bring any donation of food or funds for our local food bank. Once here, enjoy the ice cream music, and art. Stay for even more concerts and STEAM activities throughout the evening. Make sure to leave with a hand-crafted ceramic piece created by a WMS student.

It is going to be a great night! We are looking for parent volunteers. If you would like to help, please sign up here.

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Final STEAM Collaboration

5/13/2016

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In addition to getting a project completed this week, students worked in groups for their final STEAM collaboration: Radial Symmetry Chalk Art!

On the first day, students got into groups of four and used a method outlined in the first part of this video to create a design that is using radial symmetry. They took turns drawing lines, shapes, and then repeating the designs across each line of symmetry.

On the second day, students went outside and translated their image to fit one of the concrete blocks on the sidewalk. Some chose to divide the work by quadrants, others selected which lines or shapes they were in charge of to draw.

After establishing their shapes, the finished by adding color. The groups were amazing to complete ALL of this in only 45 minutes!

The third (and final) day, students took their understanding of symmetry digitally and used Sumopaint and Photoshop to explore this idea further. In Sumopaint, students used the symmetry tool and kaleidoscope filter to create mirrored images and in Photoshop they used their original drawing and followed the steps outlined here.

Trevor O.: This was divided into 6 parts which means that it had 60 degrees of the image for each part. I liked How the lines point to the center with the music notes and blue. The colors got lighter towards the middle which was interesting with browns and blacks on the outside then oranges, reds, and blues in the center.

Alayna A.: While making this image, I did bump into some problems with the website, but these problems were a quick and easy fix. This compared to the large problem that was not so easily fixed on the radial design I worked on in class, was a very simple design. The image you see before you was so easy to make, and the radial design on paper was a hard to make. Transferring items over onto the paper was a difficult task and took very long, while transferring on this image happened automatically and did not require much work or time. However, on both images the artwork has been transfered, and has multiple shapes, (paper), or knots, (computer). I think that the work I created is good, but could use some improvements. As you can see in the image, there are serval spots where the curser moved, causing there to be some dents in the lines. One example is towards the top of the pink line, where it juts out from the curser moving. However, while this image has it's bad spots, I think it is fairly good, and I really like how all of the points meet in one spot for all of the colored lines. I thought that looked very nice, and it makes the middle of the paper quite colorful. Overall, there are improvements to be made, but nothing is perfect.

Blake P.: My color scheme is the same as the chalk art I had done and the colors try to keep cool but have warmer colors on the 4 corners and the small lines. Compared to the other Mandalas, mine is a little more complex. Working on photoshop is easier then on paper because on paper you have to fold then copy the image all around it.

Overall, the lesson and collaboration was probably the most successful to date! We had a great time working with both classes, students made beautiful work, and best of all they made learning connections across grades and subject areas throughout their activity!

It was a little awkward at first, when the STEM teacher and I decided to combine our classrooms for quarterly collaborations. We were worried about whether or not it was going to work and if our curriculum would both benefit from the experience. After four successful quarters, it is safe to say it was the best decision we could have made for our classrooms and we would urge others to do the same.

I am excited to do more STEAM collaborations next year (especially since we just learned that we received grant funding to purchase a 3D printer) - stay tuned for even more fun in 2016/17!

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Arts a la Mode

Everything Old is New Again

Meijer Gardens Fun

New Again

Sooper Sunday

More GIFs

GIF Challenge

BIG check

Arts a la Mode - May 24th

Final STEAM Collaboration

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Janine Campbell

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