BCWMS VISUAL ART & DESIGN
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Spring Break!

4/6/2018

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Always time for Art

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When people go on vacation, I am sure their goal is to get away from their jobs. It is my experience that when Art Teachers go on vacation, their main priority is to find the Art wherever they are. My Spring Break started with the opportunity to tour the Cincinnati Art Museum. In all my years of traveling south for this vacation, I had yet to visit this place. I am excited to say that is no longer the case. 

Driving up to the building that overlooks the city, I got to play one of my favorite games: guess the artist. It is this silly thing (and probably obnoxious to some) I like to do when I see a piece of art from a distance. I simply guess who it is before I see the tag/plaque and then check to see if I am correct. 

To my delight, I saw the giant statue of Pinocchio and instantly knew it was by Jim Dine, a native of the city. There is something so fun about reaching within your own knowledge base and testing it out in new environments. I was able to do this time and again as I saw works by Miro, Chihuly, LaMonte, and Warhol throughout the space. 

If you have yet to tour this space, I cannot recommend it enough. The staff are friendly, the fee is free, and the collection is well balanced with a mix of pieces from historical periods as well as contemporary works. One of my favorite things I saw while I was there was the positioning of the education area as well as interactive tablets for people to use as they explored the collection. It is clear that this museum prioritizes the experience of their viewers and wants kids to get into the action and start learning about, appreciating, and interacting with art at a young age. I was also inspired by the layout of their space in the education area and will try and find some ways to bring that back into my own classroom sometime soon. 
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Take a Hike

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A lot of people use Spring Break to catch up on sleep, catch up on their tans, binge-watch their favorite shows, or hike up a mountain. I am thankful I have the ability to venture to places like the Smoky Mountains and use the resources available to better connect with nature and in turn, myself. I have been hiking up mountains for almost two decades and each time it is a challenge. I am thankful I have the ability to keep climbing and the will to complete each trail. Remember, you can sleep when you are dead.

In the RAD

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In addition to our hiking adventures, we also took time to enjoy art in Asheville, North Carolina. I was fortunate to be able to plan a meet up with my friend and fellow art teacher while we were there and we enjoyed the vast array of Street Art and studios located in the River Arts District (RAD). 

If you get a chance, visit this art-filled place and enjoy the visuals (they also have a great array of eateries to try, too)!
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Spring break was a time to connect with nature, with art, and even with colleagues. I am very thankful for the opportunities I have and use them to help make me a better teacher in my classroom for my students. 

More from NAEA

After a week to really go over materials and the variety of items I brought back with me, I have a few key take-aways from this year's conference:

Stop Searching for Perfect Solutions

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One of the most impactful presentations I attended was actually the first breakout session I went to about Design Thinking. In this presentation, they discussed a concept I haven't really thought too much about before and that was the idea of finding a solution. 

As they shared their stories about students working with materials to develop items that could help communities in the developing world, they stressed the idea of using resolution rather than solution to discuss the end game with design thinking. By saying solution, we infer that there is only one ending that will work and in reality, there are many. In addition, solutions are impacted by resources. 

Through this presentation, I started to think about my own approach to making art and how I might need to approach it with my students as they are making art. If I stress a single solution to a problem, rather than the best was to resolve it, I may be shutting the door for some students on their thinking and ability to push past roadblocks in their own learning. Learning is about a continuous path. There is not a straight line that goes from one thing to the next. There are peaks and valleys and short cuts and long hauls. This presentation helped me refocus on that and I am excited to bring it back into my classroom.  

People Make the Difference

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For me, the conference is not just about sitting and getting information. It is about the interaction with my colleagues and hands-on engagement that occurs through discussion, creation, and presenting to others. I feel incredibly fortunate that I was able to attend this year and had the opportunity to learn from my colleagues about how they adapt learning for their students. This was done in many of the medley's and conversation with colleagues sessions I attended. 

It was also done in the session I had the joy of presenting in with my fellow Middle School Art teachers. Every time I have presented with this group, I learn something new. Because we come from diverse areas, we are able to share our unique perspectives with an audience of teachers as well as with each other. 

In addition, being able to connect with various vendors and see product demonstrations and hear from those who know best is so valuable for my own understanding and what I can bring back to my classroom. I am so appreciative to the vendors for their generosity (both of time and materials), which help advance my ability as an artist and teacher. Working in the exhibition hall with make and takes and other samples is also a great way to connect with other teachers and share tips and tricks that we use with various products in our own classrooms. 

​These personal connections are what makes a conference successful and it is why I am so thankful I was able to attend in person this year. 
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I am so lucky to be able to connect with other teachers from other schools at the conference. Being able to experience the sights with friends I have made as a result of my participation in MAEA and NAEA is something that has helped me grow as a person and better serve my students. It is so awesome to be able to spend time with other people who get it. They understand what it is like to be obsessed with Art and they share that obsession in the most unapologetic way with you during these events.
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Collaboration Is Key

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I have been a big fan of collaboration for a long time. It is silly to work in isolation and it is unrealistic to expect our students to always work alone when they are creating art. It was awesome to go to places this the Seattle Art Museum and the Chihuly Garden and Glass to see that spirit of collaborative work in action. 

One of the pieces I was most moved by at the SAM was the large installation by John Grade, titled "Middle Fork." Rather than explain it, here is a video short that explains the work and how it is still in progress and still being created by a collaborative effort.
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There were a lot of favorites during this conference. One of them included going outdoors and viewing glass artists at work in the hot shop at Chihuly Gardens and Glass. Again, working collaboratively to create large works is innate to artists and I will be sure to keep that in mind as my students begin their final collaborative STEAM project when we return from break.

Here are some additional Art sights from both places:
As a final note, I wanted to share some of the goodies I brought back and awarded to students who had completed a coding challenge from CSFirst. Finger feet and the Seattle Art Museum pen that looks like a paint tube for the win! 
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Week Nine

3/20/2018

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Automata's

STEAM students started Automata's this week. This is my first time teaching this concept and product. It was fun to see students work on this in pairs and connect their understanding of other subjects with this Engineering concept. Students should be finishing up these works next week. I am very excited with their progress and how they are combining their skills and understanding from a variety of areas to make this work! 

Air Zoo Hall of Fame Awardee

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It was very exciting to learn that one of our Dual Enrollment students, Lauren Doyle, was awarded the Air Zoo Innovation in Art and Science Award. I am so proud to see this student I first met in my 7th grade Art class grow into her own artist combining her love of Art and Science to create pieces featured above and below. I decided to nominate Lauren when I found out about this opportunity. Her work with electroplating made for a unique opportunity to connect Art with Science and I am so glad she was recognized for making this connection with her work.

Lauren will be recognized at the Air Zoo Hall of Fame Awards dinner in April. We are excited to see what more Lauren does as she finishes our 3D class and starts prepping her portfolio for next year's competition season which will include the Scholastic Art Awards.
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Spaces and Places

Students finished their second major themed project this semester using the theme of Space and Place as a jumping off point. Here are some ways they resolved imagery to best explore the concept:
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Adam: In this project, I made a canyon landscape out of clay. I made little jagged notches in the clay to give it texture. Also, I chose the materials that I used so that I could challenge myself. Working with clay is not easy. I had to slip and score everything that I put on it. I can compare and contrast this piece to an artist of note. For example, it looks like a Nathan Walsh artwork piece. This is because of the amount of detail I used. To add onto that, I over exaggerated the colors just like in his artwork.
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Patty: I decided to draw a mountain with an inspiration of the artist Ansel Adams, because he had a lot of drawings and paintings of nature, in gray scale, so I wanted to draw a mountain, and then use color pastel to add some color to it. The background seemed empty so I added some shade from the outside in.
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Alex: For this project I decided to use photography. I used photography to help show how from our point of view, far away, we may not see everything that is in a small place. I would compare my work to the work of Ansel Adams. Like him I used photography to show the space and value in the photographs. My work would be different form his in the fact where I use several pictures and put them into one, and I also take a landscape photo of a smaller landscape to really bring out the texture in the objects I'm photographing.
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Jason: I decided to use value pencils because I thought it would be the easiest way to show where the sun is showing and where it is not showing. I pressed harder and used darker pencils where the sun was not showing. I would compare this artwork to Ansel Adams because he only uses pencils in his artwork, which is like mine. In the principles of design, you can see a pattern where the houses get smaller the closer they get to the vanishing points.
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Gage: I made this picture on photoshop. I used photo shop because I am good at it. Also I would compare my artwork to David Hockney because it is natural but also abstract and cartoons. I made a tree in the Feld because I like the wilderness.
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Noah: We learned about spaces and places and I put in thee use of cold and hot colors the hot colors poped out and the cool colors pushed in and this made a cool affect so what I did was I painted colors on first blue, green, brown, yellow, orange and last but not least black and then I put tape on the paper so I didn't paint on the c0olors I made and I let it dry and I took the tape of and boom, this came out.

Perspective Bootcamp

Students also had a chance to work with perspective this week. Here are some examples of what they did in only a few days! 
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Chelsea
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NAEA in Seattle

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I had an awesome time at the National Art Education Association Conference in Seattle to finish the week. I am so thankful to be a part of the NAEA and participate in such a quality organization that offers the best of professional development opportunities for their members. Even better is the opportunity to attend conferences in cities I may not normally visit and experience the art and culture of that area so I can bring it back into my classroom in ways that are both enriching and relevant to my students. In addition, I get the time to connect with others who know my teaching situation best and compare notes.

I will do a more in-depth write-up of my time in Seattle and the things I learned at the conference next week, but here is a short snippet of the experience with images below:
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NAEA registration area was so organized this year and it was great to run into people I haven't seen since 2016 in line.

#teammiddle presentation at #naea18 is in the books! Love my art tribe! pic.twitter.com/qqHggX2Mix

— Holly Bess Kincaid (@ArtLadyHBK) March 22, 2018
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This is my 6th year presenting at NAEA. It was awesome to get our group up and moving in an exercise that demonstrates concepts about color.
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Hearing from Nick Cave was a highlight. I am a fan of his work and students learn about him in our objects/artifacts themed unit. It was great to also see his work at the Seattle Art Museum.
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Week Eight

3/16/2018

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National Medalists

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It is awesome to announce that we have two BCWMS National Scholastic Medalists for the 2018 Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. Congratulations to Sophia Bentley for her Silver Medal in Jewelry and Tara Rood for her Gold Medal in Sculpture. Tara's work will be shipped to New York City for the traveling show and we will get to celebrate her accomplishment as a Gold Medalist at the National Awards Ceremony at Carnegie Hall in June!

​Awards were made on March 13th and students were thrilled to see their works made the cut. It is an incredible accomplishment to make it into the top 1% of all entries! I am also excited for the opportunity to take another student to NYC for the awards and celebrate the 10th anniversary of my first National Scholastic Medalist who received a Silver Medal in Photography in 2008! 

Our high school also had a National Silver Medalist. It is always great to see my former students continue their success at the high school level. Harrison Kosack earned a Silver Medal for his Future New piece shown below. 

BCHS Jr. Harrison Kosak, received a silver medal from the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards for his sculpture, Avian of Pollution. With nearly 350,000 works submitted by students grades 7-12, this award puts Harrison in the top 1% of all submissions! Amazing!!! #bchspride

A post shared by Byron Center-High (@byroncenterhigh) on Mar 19, 2018 at 5:05pm PDT

Working on Spaces

Students worked on their Spaces and Places themed projects this week. I am very excited about some of the work I am seeing and already thinking about Scholastic for next year. It has been a real delight to see how many students have opened up their options with new media like 3D printing. We will continue to work on these next week along with a Perspective Drawing Bootcamp to help students gain skills with perspective drawing concepts.
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3D At Work

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Last week, students worked on their final collaborative by making the camera you see above. It was fun to see them recreate an enlarged version of one of the many vintage cameras you can find in the high school art room. 

This week, we continued to manipulate size with the start of the Alter Ego project. For this assignment, students have the option to either create a mini version of their alternative self or a wearable that helps them transform into that self. Most of the students are electing to create the miniature version. We will continue to work on this project for the next couple of weeks then then finish the term with a project designed by each student.
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Getting Ready for #NAEA18

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I am very excited for the opportunity to present at and attend the 2018 National Art Education Association Conference in Seattle, WA! It is going to be a super fun time that will help me further push myself as an artist and teacher and I cannot wait to meet up with all of my colleagues from across the country to share ideas and art supplies! 

I am presenting as a part of TEAM middle for the fourth year in a row. We are going to combine our efforts on Thursday, March 22nd at 2 p.m. to share our work with Technology, Environment, Assessment, and Management in our classrooms. I love presenting with these teachers and even better, I love our custom shirts we wear when we present together! Last year, I presented virtually so I am excited to actually be there this time. 

I hope to connect with many teachers while I am there and bring back the best of what I learn to my classroom right away! 
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Week Nine

11/5/2017

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Exploring Spaces and Places

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Students are working on their second major project this week. In doing so, we also looked at how using the principles of perspective drawing can help us create the illusion of space in our work. To help drive that point home, students were asked to select either a beginner, intermediate, or advanced level tutorial set to complete for their perspective drawing challenge. These challenges could have been completed in school or at home. They will be due on Monday. 

The schedule for work time this week also included working on their main spaces and places project, too. Some students decided to focus most of their energies on this, while others did not and used their time on the perspective drawing. Allowing students the option to choose how they use their time, while holding them accountable for their work and choices along the way is something I am always balancing in my classroom. Sometimes I am more specific in which way I would like them to work, but I find it tends to be more successful when I give them the option to decide. 

End of First Marking Period

As we finish the first quarter of school, it is important to reflect on what has happened so far:
  • BCWMS ArtPrize 9 entry - featured on WoodTV8 (venue on Jury Shortlist)
  • 883 artworks published on Artsonia
  • 10 works uploaded to compete in Scholastic Art Awards
  • Dozens of artists researched and shared through Scholastic Art Magazine
We will begin the second half of our time together before students change classes. I hope that in that time we are able to continue to push forward with ideas about what and how we define art, ways we use design in our lives, and applying knowledge to find purpose both in and outside of the classroom. 

Passion and Purpose

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I had an awesome end to the week learning and sharing at the Michigan Art Education Association Annual Fall Conference in Detroit. It was a great time to connect with other art teachers and be with those who support, understand, and elevate what is possible when we put both passion and purpose into a profession. 

I spend the first day of the conference sharing with other teachers in two sessions. One was with an art teacher from Pentwater Public Schools, Carrie Jeruzal. She actually is the reason I present at conferences in the first place. In 2008, she urged me to join a presentation with her on Literacy in the Art classroom. I have been hooked ever since. This year we presented on how we use the Empty Bowls project in our classrooms and use Art as and opportunity for Service Learning. 
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I also presented on Gelli Arts mono printing and had an amazing time sharing methods and technique for using this versatile art material. We had a great crowd of teachers who were so excited to learn, play, and share their excitement. My favorite part of the workshop is seeing the diversity of outcome and experimentation that occurs. I love presenting this workshop and thank Gelli Arts for giving me the opportunity to do so for the last five years. 
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As much as I love to share, the best part of the conference are the sessions I get to attend and the things I learn along the way. We had awesome speakers at our conference and I am very thankful to the organizers of our professional learning for the weekend because I am able to go back to my school and share information that will help push my students to that next level as a result. 

Some highlights of the conference include:​​​
  • Scholastic Art Awards Plagiarism and Copyright workshop. This workshop lead by Amy Armand was an amazing tool for helping me better recognize when students are taking that next step to make transformational work rather than copying what already exists. It was eye-opening and useful as we get ready for submitting pieces to competition this year and in future years. 
  • Keynote presentation by Jeff DeBoer and Ralph Gilles about creativity and the importance of art education for industrial design. This talk was incredibly impactful. Sometimes we get stuck in thinking about our classrooms and the curriculum we teach and forget the larger implications and how we can better connect to careers. This session flipped a switch for me to reconsider how I approach my subject matter and how I can make additional connections with my students. I was really blown away with the potential of the Michigan Design Prize Jeff shared through the Michigan Design Council as well as the stats Ralph, who works as a design manager for Fiat/Chrysler, shared in terms of the need for designers in the field of automotive design. For example, did you know that 4300 designers live in Detroit and earn $10,000 annually more than their counterparts who live in other areas? I also learned that one of the careers they are having a hard time filling with qualified staff is clay modelers. I know of some students who love cars and clay that will be quite interested when I share this with them as a potential career option. 
  • Creative Problem Solving is a class in some schools. MAEA Teacher of the Year, Tricia Erickson, and her teaching partner, Tanya Lockwood shared their curriculum with us in a presentation that included both her principal and superintendent from Northview Public Schools as co-presenters. It was awesome to hear from a team of teachers and administrators about how creativity and employability go hand in hand and how they use this class to help build the soft skills needed by those in various industries. 
  • Detroit is amazing. I have lived in Michigan my entire life and have been to Detroit over a dozen times without ever really being to Detroit. I know know it was not until I stayed with a true resident of Detroit that I feel like I can now say I have been there. I want to thank my friend, Deb, for sharing her home and amazing wealth of knowledge as she toured us around the city. I had a great time seeing new areas of the city and the growth and the history she shared with us as she gave us a tour of this great American city. One of my favorite new places is now Signal Return. It is a print shop near the Eastern Market and offers opportunities to learn about printmaking as well as a chance to buy original artwork made in their shop. I love printmaking and purchased some items for myself as well as some lucky students when I return to school on Monday (I have a contest every time I go to a conference and the winners get goodies I bring back from the places I travel to). One of my favorite parts of the shop was the tour we were offered as well as a suggestion I check out another shop located on my side of the state. Connecting with new places and spaces to experience art and ways to connect craft to careers for my students is what professional development is all about for me.
My experience in Detroit was awesome and full of art and I am already counting down to when I get to go back. Thank you to everyone who helped make it so memorable! 
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Week Four

2/16/2017

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#WIP

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Students really started applying all of the demonstrations we went over last week as they made final sketches before diving into creating the work for this Challenge. The theme this time around is Biography/Autobiography. It has been fun to see the different people students have selected to highlight in this work and the narratives they have shared and created to turn their ideas into concrete works of art for others to see. 

Here are some of the highlights as students make their work this week:
I even got in on the fun and was able to bring in elements of a piece I have been visiting for the last two months and finish it. I enjoy demonstrating my process to students so they can see how I struggle through solutions and work with a variety of media to figure out exactly how and if something is done.

Working side by side with my students is something I just started doing in the past few years (really since I adapted a choice-based or TAB studio). As my students were encouraged to become artists in their own right, I found it was more powerful if I did the same. This helps me practice what I teach and it helps students 
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Artist of Interest

This week, we watched the TEDx clip of Austin Kleon's talk, "Steal Like an Artist." I show this to students to encourage them to gather ideas and use them to make new work. I even took part of one class period to do some independent research and writing about artists using Scholastic Art Magazine.

​I love using this resource in my classroom because it is easy to get students to use it and the content is so rich for our subject area. It is always fun to see what students select as being the work they want to write about and why. My hope through doing activities like these is that students will be able to "Steal Like an Artist" and use the ideas offered in ways that make sense in their own work.

Here are some of the responses given:
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Movement

The second assignment in our DE Intro to Photo for Non-Majors course is all about capturing movement. Students worked on various methods and means to capture motion with most of the focus being on controlling the aperture and shutter speed. 

Here are some of the highlights from their work with this challenge:
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Do What You Love

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February is tough. At least it always seems to be for me.  I wish I could say it was easy because it is so short, but it is not. I think that is why it is a shorter month. And although everything is starting to come to a fever-pitch with competition deadlines and notifications, it is nice to come back from lunch to a note like this on my board. 

I love what I do and am so thankful I get to go it. I cannot imagine anything other than being an Art Teacher to children, even when it gets a bit tough. 

Share The Love

I love to share what we do in the classroom with others. I talk to my students all of time about how their work is being viewed by teachers from across the country and that they are really the thought-leaders and models for what great Art Education looks like. 

This weekend, the sharing continued as I participated in The Art of Education Online Conference. I shared how I transitioned my classroom to choice and I really cannot imagine a better decision I have ever made in my career. 
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Conference Recap

10/20/2015

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Last weekend, I had the opportunity to share with other teachers at the MAEA Annual Fall Conference. This year, the conference was in our neck of the woods in downtown Grand Rapids. I took advantage of that opportunity and presented at four sessions as well as attended all kinds of different workshops to help improve my teaching.
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Mr. Dennett and I presented in the Ambassador Ballroom about how we combine the Art and STEM classes for collaborative projects.
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ComiCon was also in town and it was very entertaining to see fans dressed as their favorite characters around the convention hall.

In additional to all of this, students who participated in the ComiCon art competition had their work displayed at DeVos Place. It was really neat to see some of my students' works on display and I am thankful for the teachers who took and posted these pictures on the MAEA Conference Facebook Page.

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New Orleans and Knots

3/31/2015

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I had a great time in New Orleans. It was quite an honor to be recognized for the work I do with students when I was awarded the 2015 Western Region Middle Level Educator of the Year.
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In addition to attending great sessions, I also was a part of four presentations while at the conference.
It has been an exciting end of last week and start of this as my students finished up projects and I spent some time away at the 2015 National Art Education Association Convention in New Orleans, Louisiana. I was so honored to get recognized for the work I do in my classroom, share ideas with other art teachers, and learn so much to help me become even better in my own practice. 

While I was away, my students worked on a finishing up their Celtic Inspired Knots. We learned about symmetry, color, and some Art History in this lesson, as well as how to blend watercolors, colored pencils, and create line designs in Sharpie. I am so proud of them and here are some of their images made:

Practice Sheets:

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Students worked on their drawing, value, and watercolor skills for this project by creating practice sheets to experiment on before applying their discoveries to their final large papers. 

Students explored how white colored pencil can be used to blend colors evenly and how there are so many ways to apply watercolor to the paper. It was fun to see the varied results as they played. 

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Traditional Media Knots:

After practicing various ways of applying the different media to their practice sheets, students worked on filling their knots with the varied techniques. I used to have specific requirements about where to put color and how, but I recently have lifted those and students are free to do as they wish. The results are spontaneous and beautiful: 
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Digital Knots

We tied this project up with a final exploration of knots in the digital realm. Students used SumoPaint and the symmetry tool to create the colorful creations below: 
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Back to Work

11/19/2014

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Students were back at it today after a brief break due to poor weather conditions on Tuesday. I decided to implement a new method for implementing "I can" statements that I learned from Art Teacher, September Buys, at the MAEA conference this past weekend. I had students make a calendar for the rest of this project and start to fill it out with personal "I can" goals to help them stay on track and complete their work on time. They leave them out on their desk and I can go around and conference with them about their goals and whether or not it will work. It has been great so far! Check out some more work below:
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Where's Mrs. C? And Other Interesting Stuff

10/21/2014

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Thursday and Friday and Monday was spent away from my students. When this happens, I feel bad, but I was hard at work each day working on educational issues important to my field.

Thursday and Friday was spent in Lansing. For the past two years, I have been working with a team of Visual Arts Educators in the State of Michigan on the Michigan Arts Education Instruction and Assessment Project. This project is offered to Arts teachers as a solution for implementing and developing high quality programs and assessing those programs and students within. I am very proud of the work I have been able to do, although it does require some time away from my students to work in Lansing with the other teachers and project management involved. 

MAEIA Visual Arts Promotion from Jason ODonnell on Vimeo.

On Monday, I had the honor to present to Student Teachers at the Fire Up! conference at Aquinas College. It was really fun to share the amazing things my students do with the power of technology and how we integrate our learning in many ways and break down classroom walls to engage globally. Here is a picture of one of the groups I had the pleasure to present to on Monday (and as you can see, they were a fun bunch):
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Even though I was away, students have been hard at work making loads of art. My 7th graders have finished two major projects in the past few days and my 8th graders are starting to wrap up their Environment/Space/Place projects. Here are some pictures of what has been accomplished since last time: 

7th grade Space Projects 

Ian Sands (a High School teacher in NC) posted this tutorial a while back and it has been an amazing resource for my students and I in learning new ways to use basic Photoshop tools. Thanks again, Ian - I owe you another scone at NAEA in March. You can see a full gallery of results on Artsonia, but here are few: 
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Nate's image works with overlapping planets to show deep space.
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Arminda's image works with different gradients in the planets to show light and shadow.

7th grade Knots

Students have been working on these colorful knots for the past week or so. they have learned about line, symmetry, color, and various application techniques of colored pencil, watercolor, and Sharpie. It was fun to see the results as students made choices about how to construct their design, color it, and add finishing details.
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Jordyn M.
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8th grade process pictures

Each of the following students is working with similar subject matter (home, interior/exterior space), but attacking the visual representation in very diverse ways. It has been fun to see how students interpret this assignment and the plans they have made in their sketchbooks be realized in their work. 
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Blake is constructing a wire sculpture of his home as seen from Google Streetview. he is constructing it out of wire and including details like windows and doors.
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Kollan is creating an interior room of a house with leather hard slabs of clay. This has been a more challenging project, but I am excited to see it complete with items populating the space.
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Anna was inspired by a work at ArtPrize called "Michigan in Motion" for this work. She is going to create an illusion through the application of perspective to make this object that sticks out, look like it is going back into space - MAGIC!
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Nolan is using a more traditional drawing method to recreate his front door using one-point perspective. He is applying value with different graphite pencils to help give depth to the shadows and make it more believable.
I am getting really excited and a little nervous as we finish up this theme; nervous because I am worried about time and some students waiting until the last minute to get their work in and excited to see if this all turns out as amazing as I know it can be! I will post some finished examples tomorrow and as they start to roll in from students. 
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A Weekend to Remember

6/8/2014

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It was so great to spend some time with Kenzie and her mom before the big celebration at Carnegie Hall. We both sported our Scholastic National Medals for a photo before heading to dress rehearsal on Friday.
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You can see the full Carnegie Celebration through the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards Webcast.
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The project I taught that lead to Kenzie's Silver Medal Winning work, Copper Head, was inspired by Alexander Calder's wire portraits.
This past weekend has been a whirlwind of activities. From meeting with award-winning students and teachers from across the country, to hearing inspiring speeches delivered by notable creatives in the industry of design, literature, and film, I had an amazing time in New York City for the National Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. 

It was such an honor and thrill to see Makenzie get recognized by this organization that has a 91 year history of saluting outstanding student talents in Art and Writing, fostering many to become standouts in creative industries. In addition to seeing the work, learning with teachers, and enjoying the celebration, I also had a chance to explore and be inspired by the city. Some of my favorite moments include walking from Central Park to Battery Park, passing through Rockefeller Center, Times Square on the way to Parsons to pick up our tickets, and proceeding onto the 9/11 Memorial and then Battery Park. I was excited to be invited to The Pratt Institute gallery and hear from leaders in the field as we discussed how to best prepare students for their next experiences. I also enjoyed exploring the High Line Park and viewing the work on display at Whitney Museum of American Art (who is moving location in 2015). 

I want to give a special thanks to everyone who donated and helped Kenzie make it to this celebration. I want to give a special thanks to the Byron Center Fine Arts Boosters, who foster so many creative experiences for our students in Byron Center, as well as BCPS Superintendent Dan Takens, Fine Arts Director Marc Townley, and BCWMS Principal John Krajewski whose support helped make all of this possible. I work in an amazing district that helps students develop and reach goals, bringing them closer to their dreams.

It was a great celebration of creativity and hard work. I am proud to have had this opportunity and invite my students to start thinking over the summer about what works they might start to land them in NYC next year. 
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It was fitting to end the trip by seeing this work from artist, Alexander Calder. Notice the similarity in style and subject from our winning work? Thanks, Alexander, for the inspiration!
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    Janine Campbell

    Teaching Visual Arts since 2004 and making images since picking up a crayon.

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