Category: Artprize

Getting stARTed!

8/21/2018

Getting ready to go back to school has been different for me this year. I am starting my 15th year and this year, more than any other, I feel like I am really ready to get stARTed.

Part of that was the amount of preparation I have put into my classroom. I spent the last month cleaning out my main storage supply closet and organizing materials by type in back closets. Through this process, I had to finally let some things go (some things that have been here longer than the building) and get clearer eyes and what I need for my students.

I am particularly excited for some projects that were funded over the summer by DonorsChoose.org and two projects that are near being funded so that we can have resources we need to dive into new art materials and skills! Both of the projects I currently have posted are collaborative in nature, using new media that I am really excited about!

One of my favorite ways of getting ready for the school year was getting to see new and former students and parents at our open house/orientation. It was great to have our ArtPrize piece out for display during the night and to get people involved with adding their own spin to the work with an activity table in my classroom.

We look forward to getting our work to the Downtown Market for ArtPrize and hope we do well in the Youth Collaboration Award category of the competition. This year, there are 20 schools competing for two $2500 grants.

Ready or not, we will be getting to work with students in no time! I look forward to the work ahead of us and both the struggle and successes that will play out during the year.

Every year I start wondering what surprise will come our way and each year I am amazed with the answer. Good luck to everyone starting out their school year and I am so excited to get going with mine!

Reflecting on the Year

6/17/2018

At the start of the school year, I wrotethis post that gave an overview of why I thought it was going to be a great one. As we finished up just over a week ago, it has been fun to reflect on those predictions and to consider what became of them as we progressed through a school year that was one of the most successful in my 14-year career.

Here is a review of my five factors of a fun year outlined and predicted back in the fall:

1. ArtPrize

One of the best ways we started the school year was being able to see our work from the prior Spring installed at Monroe Community Church for ArtPrize9. Having our school and program represented in such a great venue was an awesome thrill for my students and me. It was great fun to visit the venue during the ArtPrize festivities and even see the work on the news as MCC was selected for the Juror's shortlist of outstanding venues.

This piece now has a home in our library and I am so excited that students will be able to enjoy it for years to come at WMS and remember how they were a part of this great, collaborative, work! Even better is that this work gave us the confidence to do it again, now with our entire k-12 school. We cannot wait for September when that work will go on display at The Downtown Market! Remember to vote 67314.

2. Robots and more

Since 2011, I have applied for and received over $13,000 in resources from DonorsChoose.org. This year accounts for almost half of that with nine projects being funded. Thanks to the generosity of donors and matching funds from a variety of organizations, we were able to bring robotics, 3D printing, hands-on projects, digital equipment, and more to add valuable experiences for my students in the classroom.

Thank you again to everyone who helped bring these resources into my classroom and positively impact student engagement with curriculum and content. I am currently working on getting Scholastic Art Magazines to help build literacy skills through art. If you are interested in helping us out, please visithere to donate.

3. Scholastic Awards

Since 2008, the BCPS Visual Arts program has had 15 students recognized at the National level for the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. To end the school year celebrating student success at the national level again this year was such a great way to reflect on and propel us into the next school year. I know this opportunity is one students will seize again next year because of students that paved the possibility of achieving such honors. I am thankful for everyone who helped make this year possible and am excited to see what next year brings!

4. Collaborative Projects

I love working collaboratively with students and seeing students working collaboratively together. This year was probably the most collaborative year yet. From the first say of school, where students painted rocks to go around our flagpole to the last days of school as we worked on our ArtPrize10 piece, the year was filled with different collaborative works students created.

I have some ideas for next year's collaborative opportunities and am excited to get working on it, especially the works that will be publicly installed!

5. The Unexpected

This year was pretty great. Every year I wonder how it is possible to top the year before. This was a year filled with new opportunities, for both my students and me, to get engaged with art in really interesting ways. Whether it was putting work into new competitions, shows, or connecting with classrooms to make a greater impact, I think this was a really special year and one I will reflect on positively for years to come.

I hope everyone had a great end to their school year and is enjoying a lovely summer. I look forward to taking some time to make art, read books, laugh with friends, and gear up for my 15th start in September!

Weeks Seventeen and Eighteen

5/31/2018

Arts a la Mode

For ten years our school has hosted an Empty Bowls event. It has gone through a few changes since we began to participate in this program that was started nearly 30 years ago by a group of artists who wanted to use art as a call to action to raise food and funds to combat food insecurity in their communities.

I am very thankful for those who have come out over the years to support families in our community by donating to this cause. This year's even was particularly special because of our band director's retirement. He has been an awesome partner in this project and I am excited for him and his family as he begins a new chapter in his life.

2018 Arts ala Mode - Mr. Klein Recognition (Byron Center West Middle School) from Steve Harryman on Vimeo.

We also got to use a lot of our DonorsChoose.org funded projects during this event. It was great fun to see the button maker we received in action during this community event. It was a HUGE hit! Many students, siblings, and parents made buttons (some more than one) and sported them for the evening.

We also got a chance to showcase our ArtPrize piece, of which I have an exciting update to share!

It was an awesome night to celebrate our Arts programs at WMS. My favorite part of it was seeing students step up in leadership roles and really take charge of the evening. This is something I want to do more of with my students and find additional leadership opportunities for them to share their knowledge and love of Art with others through acts of service.

Thank you TangerKIDS Program!

I like writing grants. I have presented about it at conferences and helped others write their grants and projects for their classrooms. I actually love helping others with theirs (even more than mine). I got started with grant writing because someone helped me and I look at helping others as a way of paying it forward.

Thanks to a more recent effort with the TangerKIDS program, we gained the needed funds to help our National Scholastic Gold Medalist get to the celebration at Carnegie Hall. We are so thankful for the opportunity this grant allows this student and our program in promoting a legacy of excellence.

I am particularly excited to attend the celebration, too, because it is also the ten year anniversary of my first National Scholastic Medalist and trip to NYC!

When Old Becomes New

To finish up the semester, students worked on one of my favorite themes: Something Old, Something New. This theme asks students to go into their portfolios and rework ideas from the past, showing they have grown in skill and understanding since that original work was created.

Here are some of the works students created as a result of this prompt:

Brayden: I did Photoshop because its fun and it looks good. I used a portrait from last year to change and make much better. I did better on craft, creativity, content, and composition. For example, The creativity is a lot better, and it looks a lot cooler and better. Also it is more neat. The last one looked like scribbles, and this one is real, and much nicer. I wanted to do Photoshop because I like the effects of it.

Olivia: In this artwork we had to create a new version of an older artwork we made and I decided to redo my observational shoe drawing from last year. To make this artwork better I made it more creative by spraying yellow water color around the shoe. Another way that I improved this artwork is by the composition. I added more color and because I used complimentary colors I think it added a better rhythm to the piece. I really wanted to revisit this idea because I never really got to finish it last year and I knew that I could make it a lot more creative if I used everything that I learned in class this year.

Alex: This piece of art is a recreation of my continuous line portrait “Tears of Destiny.” To improve this piece I used opacity and different color strokes as a new form of craft. I also used more things to fill the space like the bandana for more creativity. My personal connection to this art was that the original piece of this art was not created very well. I wanted to revisit it to make it better and show that I improved as an artist.

Ellie: I decided to use the technique of drawing, because I have never done it before. I wanted to try it so that eventually I can improve and get better at drawing. I used the art element of color because the gray portrait pops when it is against the blue background. I used the Creativity C because I used a new technique where I put swirls on the paper in washable markers, and then I put water color over them to smear them out. I also used the Craft C because I took my time to make it the best that I can. I decided to recreate this piece because I could see that I didn't do my very best the first time, so I wanted to do another piece that I took a longer time and did my very best.

Adam: In fifth grade, I drew a polar bear that was an okay piece of artwork. This year, I recreated the drawing. This time with paint. I definitely improved my art skills since then. This is because I used craft, creativity, composition, and content to make a great piece of artwork. For example, my craft improved a lot. It took me a lot of effort to draw it, and then paint it. Also, I used content because of the value on the polar bear. The darker colors emphasis shadows and highlights on the bear. I chose to revisit the idea of the polar bear because it was something that I knew I could do better on.

Faith: For this project I chose to remake was from project challenge 2:spaces and places. The piece that I did with project challenge 2, was a sun set on the beach. I really liked drawing out all of the things in that piece and I liked the materials that I got to use such as pencils and colored pencils. Although that piece still turned out pretty good, I felt that it wasn't my best work and I could do better and I really wanted to push myself on this last project. So I decided to take a picture that I had taken when I was on vacation in the great smoky mountains and look at it and draw what was in the picture. Some of the materials that I used in my last piece in project challenge 2 was that I had to draw everything out before I colored all of it. For this project I decided that I really wanted to work with different values with pencils and I thought that the picture that I took would be a perfect one because of the mountains. One of the four Cs that I used when creating this piece was craft. This is true because the way that I made this piece was with all different shading pencils and that was all I used because I really like the way that they looked. One other of the four Cs that I used in this piece is creativity. This is true because I think that this piece was pretty original because of the materials that I used because it seems like there seems to be a lot of pieces that use landscape and draw them. The reason I wanted to revisit this idea was because of how much I enjoyed making project challenge 2 but I really felt that I could push myself to do better then I did the 1st time. The personal connection that I have to this piece is I absolutely loved going to the great smoky mountains for vacation. It was my most favorite place that I had ever been to and I have been there twice and just loved being there and seeing the scenery so I decided that I could use one of the pictures from when I went there and use it in my art work.

Focusing on Math in STEAM

To close out our STEAM units for the semester, I asked students to create a work that employs math concepts in their work. Leaving the door open to a variety of options, I was a little nervous with what students would do for this one.

Students selected so many interesting options for their work and made new connections between math and art concepts to do so. It was fun to see them go through their works and land on finished pieces.

Here is a sampling of their work:

Sophia: For this math project, I decided to do origami because it seemed fun and it was something I have never done before. To make this, I created different sized 3D triangles using different colored paper. Then I arranged them in a frame (not shown in the picture) for a cleaner look. This relates to math because I had to measure the lengths of the triangles to create them and arrange them together using their angles. I like this project because it is clean cut and organized, but also fun.

Khiem: In this art I used angles and perspective from the filming unit. To make a video interesting you need different perspective so I took that idea and used on this one. I try to make it look like from a angle above. The crane is flying by the water and in the hand a person hold one of them.

Tess: To make this op-art piece, I used isometric graph paper to draw boxes in random directions, overlapping and going underneath each other. I did this twice to make two different patterns, then I traced the two patterns to create three identical copies of each. I decided to use complementary colors so each design would be unique, but still match with the other patterns.

Vanessa: For this project I did a tessellation and that means I made a shape out of paper and made a puzzle out of it and to color it I used water color.

Maria: In order to create this origami sculpture I needed knowledge of math concepts in order to be successful. Paper folding, or origami relates to shapes and angles. While creating the three dimensional angular boxes, every angle of each fold had to be exact. If not, each box would not be congruent, and would not represent the 3D shape I was trying to make. Recognition of shapes and designs that would make this project appealing were also useful. Making this project required me to use art ideas as well, such as printmaking, and other collage techniques.

We have a Venue!

I am very excited to announce that we have secured a venue to display our work for ArtPrize10! Our work will be on display on the second floor of The Downtown Market.

It is an awesome place I go to regularly and I know our students will be eager to head to the market and enjoy viewing the work as they also partake on the ice cream, popcorn, barbecue, and my personal favorite of chicken and waffles while there.

We are all still working on our pieces as we look ahead to installing the works in September. This is going to be a great event to kick off the school year in the Fall and get students excited about art. It is also awesome to be in the running for the Youth Collaboration Award for $2500!

Week Fourteen

5/6/2018

Show and Tell

This week in STEAM class, students moved on to their Art "Have to" project where they were asked to team up and work on videos that explained how to use a variety of materials. We were even able to use our newest DonorsChoose.org funded project with pop-up green screens for this assignment. My hope for this project was to create a pool of videos I can post for other students to use in our classroom (which will be so great for kids who need reminders, are absent, or joining our class mid-way through the term).

In addition to demonstrating use of material, they also needed to show where to find them, care, and an artist who uses it in their own work.

Here are a few of them:

Working With New Materials

Students worked on their project that centered on the theme of Objects, Artifacts, and Things You Leave Behind. One of the challenges of this assignment was that students were required to use media they had yet to implement in a project so far this semester. By requiring them to go beyond their comfort zone, students turned to a variety of alternative methods which is resulting in so many exciting outcomes.

For the past four years, a National Scholastic Medal has yielded from this prompt. My guess is that because I am requesting/requiring students to try something new in their art making, they are taking bigger risks and being a little more bold with their creative expression. I also think they are more than half way through the curriculum in the class at this point, so they are more open to experimenting with ideas and have seen so many examples of other artists making bold choices with big rewards to show for it.

Regardless of the reason, I am excited to see students trying new ideas and get excited about the work they are doing in class. Even better to see is the resilient nature in their approach to the process and pushing through blocks by finding alternative routes or improvising along the way. The finished works will be posted on Artsonia by the start of next week.

One interesting outcome in one of my 7th grade classes was the collaboration you see below. One student created the pencil and sharpener and two more wanted to join in on the oversized fun by making the notebook and eraser. Seeing students view other students as artists and partners in the creative process is what I am always striving for in my classroom, so this was a real delight to see. Anytime you get kids excited about what others are doing and then want to make more art because of it, is a win.

Connecting to Careers

One of my favorite things when I attend a conference like the National Art Education Association gathering is connecting with professionals in my field and those who have benefited from strong backgrounds in Art Education. It is awesome to connect with colleges and universities that offer teachers great resources to share with students who are thinking they would like a creative career in the Arts.

I was able to add to my collection of informative posters this year by hanging up two I have collected from multiple conferences by Ringling College. As soon as I put them up, students we a buzz with the companies where graduates of SO many varieties of Arts-focused areas worked. They were especially interested in Epic Games (which is the maker of the very popular "Fornite"). I am excited to see my students excited and thinking about how they can turn something they find enjoyment in doing into a career they can make a living doing.

Students love these @RinglingCollege posters I got from @NAEA #artsed #dowhatyoulove #startswithart #k12ArtChat pic.twitter.com/L7SNiFLvig
— Janine Campbell (@campbellartsoup) May 4, 2018

ArtPrize Progress

We are continuing to work on our ArtPrize piece. This week was all about sealing the mirrored paper and getting more portraits created on the bottle caps. Next week, we hope to have all of the sealing complete for our panels and begin to focus on placement of the caps. The goal is to have this ready for our May 22nd Arts a la Mode Empty Bowls/Fine Arts Night at BCWMS. We also hope to have a venue secured so our work can compete for the Youth Collaboration Award! If you are interested in learning more about that, you can visit our ArtPrize page.

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week!

This week is National Teacher Appreciation Week! Although I appreciate the week of appreciation that is to come, I would feel even more appreciated if we have a good turn out for our students and community at our annual Arts a la Mode Empty Bowls/Fine Arts Night on May 22nd.

If you are are student who would like to volunteer, visit this form. If you are a parent interested in volunteering, visit thisform. We are getting really close to this year's event and I am pretty excited about it and hope to see a great turn out for the evening filled with celebrating the Arts.

Out of the kiln for Empty Bowls! pic.twitter.com/hd5YRmEqbu
— Janine Campbell (@campbellartsoup) May 1, 2018

Week Thirteen

4/27/2018

Last STEAM Collaboration

Students presented their last STEAM collaboration for the year this week. For this challenge, students were asked to design and create structures that represented spaces we use like schools, businesses, homes, and other architectural works.

It was fun to see students from both classes work together to create a variety of buildings using blueprints, digital renderings, and physical models. The pieces are currently on display in our Library until the end of the year.

DE is DONE

Another semester of DE is in the books. It has been almost 8 years since the last time I taught 3D and I am so thankful I was able to come back to it with this group. These kids were amazing to work with, full of so many ideas, and willing to push themselves to try new ideas and techniques.

I was really excited to see their final exam projects complete and how they took the opportunity of designing their own prompt with their choice of media. It gave students to try some things they were interested in doing or revisiting ideas left undone from the past. Here are a few of the results:

For our final farewell of the group, we met at the Meijer Gardens to complete a scavenger hunt and sketchbook activity. A special thanks to The Byron Center Fine Arts Boosters for sponsoring our trip!

Building More Skills

Students also spend this week building skills by learning about printmaking and observational drawing. Our newest themed project asks students to examine the objects we interact with on a daily basis and make art that focuses on that relationship. In addition to that, students are also being challenged to use a different media to work with for this piece.

Next week we will spend time refining ideas and finalizing media for use to work towards project goals. Here are some works in progress so far:

Arts a la Mode Prep

We are getting excited for our annual Fine Arts Night on May 22nd and starting to put the finishing touches on our preparations for the event that includes Empty Bowls, Performances, Art Displays, and STEAM activities (two of which were funded with DonorsChoose.org requests earlier this year).

We are also in process of gathering volunteers for the night, asking students and parents to help out. If you are a student or parent at BCPS and would like to help, please contact me for more information.

Finishing touches on bowl for May 22nd Arts a la Mode event at BCWMS. pic.twitter.com/ztubEqKIdC
— Janine Campbell (@campbellartsoup) April 26, 2018

ArtPrize10 Update

We are continuing work on our part of the ArtPrize piece this year. I am so excited to see it coming together, but know we still have A LOT of work to do before it is complete. This week was spent cutting a lot of reflective paper and then figuring out how to place it on the work.

Hopefully next week we will be able to get our profile up and running and start to secure a venue. If you would like to connect, please visit our ArtPrize page.

Week Twelve

4/23/2018

Finishing Up with DE

Students in my KCAD 3D DE class are working on their final exam projects as we get closer to the end of the course. With only a week left, students are at different points of progress when it comes to their final works. It has been an awesome time seeing students select what materials they want to work with for their final projects and how they can adapt the skills and ideas we discussed throughout the term into something that is uniquely their own making.

I have been so impressed with the students from this term and cannot wait to see what they land on for their final works. I am also excited to see many of them return as a part of our program and even more excited and proud for those who will graduate and begin their next learning journey at the college level!

Architecture Almost Complete

Students continued their STEAM projects this week that worked at designing an building models based on architecture. Students will finish up and present these works on Monday/Tuesday of next week. I have appreciated seeing students work together in groups for this effort and discover skills and talents using a variety of tools.

These pieces will go on display in the Library of our school for the remainder of the school year and we look forward to keeping some as examples and decoration for our classrooms.

Working on ArtPrize10

Working on our @ByronCenterPS #ArtPrize10 Youth Collaboration piece for @ArtPrize collaboration today pic.twitter.com/YVc7kmdfDC
— Janine Campbell (@campbellartsoup) April 17, 2018

Students were busy at work last week getting the background for our panels painted for ArtPrize10. We are so excited about this installation that celebrates diversity and how we can come together as a community to work on this statement. Now that we have our backgrounds decorated, we need to finish up the portraits on the bottle caps and apply those to the panels along with reflective paper.

It is going to be amazing to see the other schools' work, too. Especially when we put them all together. I am also looking forward to sharing our completed panels at our Arts a la Mode/Empty Bowls/Fine Arts Night celebration on May 22nd!

LOVE the additions students made to our #artprize10 Youth Collaboration entry as a part of the @ByronCenterPS @ArtPrize work. Hoping we will find a venue this year to showcase our work! More to do tomorrow! pic.twitter.com/3NaBoCOBmh
— Janine Campbell (@campbellartsoup) April 18, 2018

Week Four

2/15/2018

On the News

Monday kicked off with student work being featured on our local news as a part of a segment that highlighted a grant program we received in 2016. It was fun to see student work featured as other teachers are encouraged to apply for the TangerKIDS grant this year. I am hoping to receive another grant this year for a project idea I have to transform our hallways into a gallery for student work.

Building Skills

Since moving to more choices for projects in our classroom, I have found that the beginning weeks of skill-building exercises have been important in challenging students abilities to manipulate materials and work with a variety of concepts in their work. The hope of these skill-builders is to equip students with the tools needed for them to independently develop and work on the thematic works we do in class in a way that is both informed and intentional.

This week, we worked on the use of line and watercolor techniques as we continued to explore ideas of portraits as a way to capture the likeness of others - well, actually maybe the opposite of that. Using blind contour and bilateral drawings, students used their observation skills to draw, but most definitely ended up with very abstract outcomes. We used this opportunity to discuss that as artists, we have the option of how we want to portray our subject. Sometimes it calls for more realism and sometimes it needs to be more abstract or expressive.

It was a fun process to take students through and I will be interested to see if any of them end up applying it to their final works as we get moving on our "You, Me, Everybody" themed projects.

Lexi

Brayden

Olivia

Ellie

Clay in STEAM Class

I am teaching a STEAM class as a part of my schedule this semester. This is my first time teaching STEAM and developing a curriculum that asks students to use their art skills and design thinking to tackle ideas and concepts across other disciplines.

In this class, students have a "Have to" and "Can do" project for each of the letters in STEAM. This means that there is one teacher-directed project and one student-direct project within Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics.

For our first set of projects that are Science-based, students had to work with clay and create a piece that could play music/sound. The design of the ceramic works were based on endangered species.

In addition to this, students also had the opportunity to hear from two of our high school ceramic students as they visited and demonstrated their abilities on the wheel. It was awesome for students to hear how they work with the clay to create their works and in doing so, explain the chemistry of the clay and the physics of throwing and manipulating forms on the wheel.

This opportunity to have skills students present to our younger students is something that I hope to do more of in the future. I was very proud of all of the students who asked questions and the way those questions were answered.

It was also a great opportunity for our large Empty Bowls bowl to be created for auction on our upcoming Fine Arts night, known as Arts a la Mode. I am excited to get this piece fired and glazed. I have some fun ideas for how to best glaze it (those hands you see next to it are going in the kiln shortly and have helped inspired some ideas).

From Objects to Art

This week in 3D, students worked on finishing up their object sculptures. Some more will be finished next week. It was fun to see students work with multiples of the same object and create a form from something you would see in the everyday in a non-art way.

I have really enjoyed seeing these students take on challenges and apply their skills and understanding of 3D media in ways that push towards new understandings and inspire new ideas. Students will be moving onto a new project next week where they will be looking at architecture and structures.

Thinking About ArtPrize10

As we move into spring, we will also be moving into the season we start to think about this year's ArtPrize entry. Last year was the first year our school entered work. This year, we are hoping to enter again and our materials for the work began to arrive this week.

The K-12 Visual Arts team will be meeting soon to hammer out ideas for the overall look of our over 3000 bottle caps when they are painted by students, but regardless of what we create and if it is actually on display in a venue this fall, I am excited we are trying something new and coming together to make it happen.

If you are interested in more information, please contact me (especially if you are interested in hosting our work as a venue).

Week Four

10/1/2017

ArtPrize 2017

As another week of ArtPrize 9 was in full swing, so was our excitement to be a part of it. For those of you not familiar with the competition, it is a 19 day annual event in Grand Rapids that really begins much earlier in the year with creating work and connecting with a venue.

This year was the first year that a Youth Collaboration Award was offered, which was the incentive for us to pull something together rather quickly last spring. We almost did not make it in, though. It was not until the last day of venue connections that we found ours in Monroe Community Church. We are so thankful they took a chance on us and the response to our display has been amazing!

Students this week were especially thrilled when our work showed up over the course of several days on local news because our venue was named by the Jury Shortlist as a Most Outstanding Venue finalist. Even though our work may not win the $5000 grant for the Youth Collaboration, being a part of a venue to receive this kind of recognition makes us feel like we won.

When we came up with this concept to create a work that was a visual response to standardized testing due to the timing in which is was made, the goal was to make something that went beyond cliche kid art. We wanted to make something that we could put up in our school as art in and of itself. I think we did that and I am very proud of the response we have gotten for it.

Names Complete

I have a hard time with remembering names and I share with my students that as a visual learner, it helps me to learn something when I am able to see it connected with an image. This introductory project not only does that, but it also helps me learn about my students and what interests them most. It is fun to see how they approach this challenge and the variety in solutions as well as rationale behind the visual choices they make to complete it.

Kaylynn: In this piece I used objects and colors that I enjoy to spell out my name. For example for my L I used a lighthouse because I enjoy going to the beach. This project was a really great way to show who I am as a person in the form of art.

Cooper: Everything in the name Is something i like c is for the game rocket league the 2 o's are a soccer ball and the chrome symbol, the p is for science the e if for one of my favorite numbers 1,111 and the r is a alligator, my favorite animal.

Anna: What inspired me to draw in this style and what to draw for each letter came from what I love and what I care about. I love to go to Anna Maria Island which is my A, and I love art which is why I did that for N, I love plants and succulents which inspired to do that for N, and last I love to be happy and I love rainbows so thats why I did that for my last A.

Logan: I love this project, I chose all my letters based on scooting. It my favorite thing ever. The L is a scooter, The O is a brand that sells scooter parts.(outset select) The G is a brand also that sells scooter parts. (proto scooters) the orange things are allen wrenches. and the A is a wheel. The N is a rail for grinding on with the scooter.

Photoshop Challenge 1

In addition to finishing up their names this week, students also learned some new skills on Photoshop by selecting a level (beginner, intermediate, advanced) and completing a tutorial within that level. It was nice to see students use their technology to advance their skills and try something new. Here are some of the results:

Overall, this past week was pretty exciting. It was so incredible to see our work on the news, learn more about my students, and see my students try new ideas using technology.

I am very excited to learn about the ArtPrize results later this week and everything else that is planned with my students!

Week Three

9/23/2017

ArtPrize 2017

I am going to start out by showcasing our final event of the week first: ArtPrize9! We had a chance to spend a day downtown on Friday and make our way to venues that included the place where our work is being displayed. Our piece, "Painting Under Paper Cuts," is in the running for the Youth Collaboration Award of a $5000 grant. You can help us win with a vote. Voting for the YCA ends on September 30th. None of this would have been possible without the help of parent and teacher chaperones.

It was a very warm day outside on Friday, but students stayed hydrated and in good spirits throughout the trip. One student reminded me how important experiences like these are when she explained this was her first time ever going downtown in Grand Rapids. I am happy I was able to be a part of that memory and introduce her to the awesome sights and sounds of ArtPrize9! I am also thankful to the ArtPrize Education team for offering this opportunity of both showing our work in the Youth Collaboration category and for having grants available for traveling downtown.

Check out the video below for more highlights from our trip:

Names to Know

Students worked on a project I use to help me put names to faces this week. I am a visual learner and I explain this to my students as I go through this challenge. Students start out by creating interest lists (what are five things that are essential to you, what are your favorite colors/objects/shapes) and then use those lists to generate ideas for transforming the letters of their names into their interests on their portfolios.

We also use this challenge as a way to explain how we will be using sketchbooks this semester. It is a great way to get students used to the idea of sketching out ideas and working through solutions on a smaller scale before tackling it larger.

Students also learned a variety of colored pencil and marker techniques to apply to their names. We will be finishing these up on Monday and posting the results to Artsonia.

This week had a lot of action in it. We started it with presentations of their Spinning Tops in the STEAM challenge and ended with a trip to ArtPrize9. It was super fun to see students begin to stretch their creative minds through projects that ask them to rethink and reconsider things we see or use everyday in new and interesting ways.

I am looking forward to seeing how students finish out their names on Monday and work on our first major challenge that starts next week. I am also excited to meet with students about The Scholastic Art and Writing Awards next week and to find out the results of the Youth Collaboration Awards when voting ends on the 30th!

Week Two

9/16/2017

Spinning with STEAM

We kicked off our first full week of school with a STEAM collaboration. For those of you who are new to this blog, the STEM teacher and I combine our classes once a marking period to create a STEAM experience for students. In these sessions, students use Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math to create and collaborate on solving a variety of problems.

This year, we decided we wanted to jump on the spinning craze that we all experienced with fidget spinners last spring and have students create spinning tops. After doing some research, we found an awesome resource at TryEngineering.org. We also found this video about the Physics of a Spinning Top that was posted by high school students on YouTube to share with our kids (they especially liked the background music):

Through this challenge, we wanted students to implement Design Thinking using the DICE model (Discover, Ideate, Create, Evaluate) and to work collaboratively to meet performance standards for the top they were going to make. Students were given the following items to use in their bag of materials to work with and many used the materials to create more than one top:

CD
2 hot glue sticks
2 toothpicks
1 black plastic cup lid
2 small clear cup lids
2 marbles
2 washers
1 nail
1 screw
1 plastic bottle cap
1 string
2 craft sticks

Before building, students created a variety of sketches showing how they could use the materials to create their top. They also had a series of performance standards to consider in their design that outlined both the criteria and constraints of what was expected in their work. For example, the top could not be more than 20g, had to spin for at least 10 seconds, and they could not use extra materials outside of what they were given in their bag of goods. We also asked for them to consider aesthetics in their design and gave them an option to earn extra points for designing additional spinning tops.

After their tops were created, they had to test them on two surfaces and record the results in a data table. To complete the project, students worked in teams to create a presentation that included images of their sketch, top, results of tests in the form of line graphs, and overall findings from the project.

We like to combine our Art and STEM classes for this STEAM collaboration because it gets students to see the connections between our classes and how we are going to use common language and expectations during their time with us. This is the third year we have been doing these types of activities and students will be presenting their finished work for this first STEAM collaboration of the year on Monday.

ArtPrize 9 Preview

Here is our work on display at our venue. Thanks to Steve Fridsma for sharing this image on Facebook!

ArtPrize 9 opens this week! That means starting on September 20th, people can vote for our work at Monroe Community Church and help our classroom win $5000 Youth Collaboration Award! I am so thankful to Jamie Dennett, our STEM teacher, for helping our work make it to our venue and to Steve Fridsma, our Venue Coordinator, for connecting with us and hosting our piece. There was an awesome team of volunteers at Monroe Community Church on Saturday who worked for hours on installation. In addition to that, I would also like to thank The Byron Center Fine Arts Boosters for covering our costs and our greater Byron Center Public School Community for their support in this endeavor. It has been a humbling experience and I look forward to celebrating at the opening reception on Tuesday, September 19th from 6-8:30 p.m. (here are the details if you would like to join). We would love to see you there!

Here are some details sent from the ArtPrize Education Team about how to vote:

Voting for the Youth Collaboration Award is just like ArtPrize voting. Before you vote, you will need to download the ArtPrize app to your phone, or vote online. You will also need to visit ArtPrize in person. Visit this link to learn more about how to vote.
Eligible voters must be age 13 years or older to sign up for an artprize.org account and register to vote at ArtPrize.
You have to attend the ArtPrize in person in order to vote. You can verify attendance by downloading the ArtPrize mobile app and having your location services turned on while inside the ArtPrize district; or stop by an ArtPrize HUB.
For the Youth Collaboration Award, voting begins on September 20th at 12pm and ends on September 30th at 11:59pm. This is also the end of Round 1 voting for general ArtPrize. You will not be able to vote for these entries during Round 2.
The winner of the Youth Collaboration Award will be announced at the ArtPrize Awards Ceremony on October 6th at 7:30pm and can be viewed at the Rosa Parks Circle viewing party or on TV!

One of the best parts of this experience is getting to see other artists' work on display and talk to them about their process and work. The images above include works from artists who traveled from Toronto, Oklahoma, Montana, North Carolina, and of course, Michigan. It is such an honor to have our work with such skill and talent and it will be so fun to see our students react to the exhibition.

The next two weeks are going to be a whirlwind of an experience! Even if we don't win the $5000 grant, it has been worth the effort. We are already talking about what might be possible for ArtPrize 10...