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 Glazes were not a priority in the budget this year. I had to build up the essentials (like paper, paint, colored pencils, markers...). You can help solve our glazing problem by donating any amount to our new DonorsChoose project using code INSPIRE to double your impact!
Help us get some color on these leaves by making a donation today!
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  Today was the big announcement for the ArtPrize top ten and the ten winners selected for the first ever ArtStart Online Youth Competition. As you have read in previous posts, students in my class have been working hard and creating works inspired by ArtPrize for this competition. Today they announced the winners and I am proud that one of my students was among them! Congrats to Emma and her work entitled "Blaze" for receiving recognition at today's event. Here is Emma fast at work at the beginning of this drawing:  This week has been a whirlwind! Students have been drawing, painting, sculpting, entering competitions, and working out their Photoshop skills! It has been amazing to see and be a part of and here a a few highlights from the week: 1. ArtPrize EntriesStudents worked on their ArtPrize ArtStart online Youth competition entries this week. It was really fun to see them come up with so many different ideas inspired by what they saw art ArtPrize this year. You can view more on our online gallery at www.artsonia.com/schools/byron1. We will find out the winners of this first ever youth competition this weekend - good luck to all who took the plunge and entered! 1. Photoshop PhridayPhotoshop is an amazing tool. I am very fortunate that my students all get the opportunity to use this tool on their computers whenever they want. As a 1:1 school, students have access to their MacBooks daily and students in Art have Photoshop installed on their machines. I decided to try something new this year to replace the common sketchbook assignment and that was Photoshop Phriday. The goal was that we would start a Photoshop work on the first Friday of the month and throughout the month use various tools and acquired skills to add elements of what we were making in class to it until we turned it in by the end of the last Friday of the month. You can see the full array of examples on our gallery. 3. Rocking Artsonia!Our classroom has been an active member of Artsonia since 2007. It has been through various updates and changes over the years, but the new use of Art Classroom mode has been revolutionary for both me and my students in our classroom! Instead of taking individual pictures myself and uploading their work to the site, students take the pictures and use a class code to upload their projects to the proper page. They edit their images and write corresponding learning statements to help the viewer understand what we were learning in class and how that shows through in their work. The response has been amazing - we are currently ranked #1 in Michigan and have close to 500 works posted in just the first 24 days of school! That is amazing! Please consider leaving a comment for one of our artists and checking out their learning journey as you read their statements that go along with their art. 
4. Other amazing work that happened this week: Ever since ArtPrize came to the West Michigan area five years ago, it has transformed the streets of Grand Rapids into an interactive array of Art. In addition to having the opportunity seeing great (and some not so great) pieces through the Artcation days, students now have the opportunity to create work that will then be judged by artists and others in the ArtStart Online Youth Competition. Above are some images of students from my After School Art class working on their entries (all inspired by at least 3 elements from ArtPrize). The rules are outlined on this website and the due date for participation is next week. I am really excited to see how the works turn out from my students and the winners that will be announced when they also announce the top 10 finalists for this year's main competition. If you do not get a chance to go downtown, but are looking for some inspiration, you can check out this awesome video that overviews just a sample of what ArtPrize is like in Grand Rapids: ArtPrize 2013 from ArtPrize on Vimeo. 
Students started working last Friday on a new weekly challenge this year called "Photoshop Phriday!" The goal is that each week students will complete a digital work of art that has been edited in Photoshop using elements and pieces from work created in class. This is the ultimate remix project and I am really excited with the results I am seeing, including those above. You can see more on our gallery.
We have had one of the most amazing starts of the school year that I can remember at BCWMS! It would not have been possible without the generosity and support of the students, parents, and greater community! Here are some of the things that I am most proud of for our second week of school: 1. Uploading 285 pieces to Artsonia! Students worked on traditional and digital means of art making this week, as showcased on our Artsonia gallery. I have been using Artsonia in the classroom for many years. I am so excited with the new Art Classroom feature that allows students to upload their art and write their artist statements directly to the site. Students can find the codes for their assignments through our Moodle page and even upload work from home! This allows more work to be uploaded at a faster pace, ensuring that families are able to share the work of their student artists almost instantly after it is completed in class! Please take a moment and visit our gallery and leave a comment to one of the talented students (you can see that as of right now, we do not have any). 2. Felting has been Funded! Thank you to everyone who donated this week and helped make this project a reality for my students! Now we will be able to work with creating felted textiles and sculptures with this never-before-used material in our classroom. I have had several projects funded through Donors Choose over the years, but this one broke a record at getting fully funded within one week of posting it! I am excited to share the news with my students on Monday and getting the materials so we can start felting in class! 3. Getting ready for ArtPrize! I am very excited aboutArtPrize and our field trip coming up in a few weeks. Students can get even more involved by participating in the competition above. If your child is interested in attending ArtPrize, the permission slip to attend is due on Friday of this week. 
Thank you for making our first weeks of school a great success! If you have any questions or concerns, please let me know. I look forward to all of the great things that we will accomplish in my classroom and cannot wait to share the success with you as it happens!
Students are taking our classroom to the next level with the new Art Classroom feature from Artsonia. We have been using Artsonia in the BCWMS visual arts classroom for many years. The site keeps improving and making it more student interactive every year I have used it. Now students can upload their own art directly to the site through the Art Classroom portal (the pass codes for assignments are on our Moodle page for students to access) and also include their Artist Statements to better inform the viewer about what they learned, how they made their work, and what their feelings were about the process and end product.
I am so thrilled with how easy this was to use, that I could not wait to share it! Check out the images of the work students made and their artist statements that explain their learning on our online gallery. This new feature that Artsonia has released will ensure that parents, students, and our school community will be able to view art made by students almost immediately after it is completed. Thank you, Artsonia! Students uploaded their first projects yesterday and today to Moodle and Artsonia. Artsonia is our online gallery that showcases the work of students over the years in the BCWMS Art classroom. You can leave students comments and read their artist statements about their work. It is pretty awesome - you can even purchase notebooks, magnets, and T-shirts with their art on it and 20% of the funds goes to our classroom! Check out our latest uploads on our gallery and some pictures of the process below! I need your help to acquire a new process for art making in my classroom: felting! Please click on this DonorsChoose link and donate any amount towards our project. If you use the code INSPIRE, you will double your impact with matching funds. The sooner this gets funded, the sooner I will be able to make something like the image below with my students! 
7th and 8th grade students continue to work on finishing up projects started last week. Students are working on their personality name tags for the front of their portfolios as well as adding color to the pieces of art started last week in class. 7th grade is working on their Modified Blind Contour Drawings and 8th grade is working on their Exquisite Corpse Drawings. We also spent some time on their compositional pre-test, where they expressed what they know about Art though a drawing. I also loaded the kiln full of their clay creations from last week and plan to fire it up in the next day or two so we can start glazing at the end of the week. |
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August 2018
 Janine CampbellTeaching Visual Arts since 2004 and making images since picking up a crayon.  Categories
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