Printing in G7 & 8

The Last Unit of the Year

Since this unit was taught in the last two weeks of the year, I changed it quite a bit. Firstly, Grade 7 were meant to be printing superheroes and Grade 8 were meant to be printing human right issues connected to their learning in social studies. We did begin the process, but after the art party, I decided it would be quicker if we “stole” the images and focused more on the printing techniques rather than design our own, so I said the students could choose any theme or superheroes or human rights.

It is so interesting to see the variety of topics they chose and makes me rethink the way I set topics for students. Last year my students all printed owls however, I think opening it up to their interests is much more interesting for everyone.

Considering this took us to the last class of the year, I honestly can’t complain about lack of engagement. The students were all (except one) focused and highly engaged, even with end of year fatigue, it was truly amazing!

I really wanted grade 8 to focus on 3 cut reduction printing or stencils and grade 7 to focus on special effects like colour blends, sponges and bubble wrap. I loved the results and can’t wait to do a “proper”, longer unit next year. Printmaking is going to come earlier next year, we will even have a new printing press. Exciting!

To truly appreciate the final results you need to look at each one individually. So when looking at a print what can you look for?

• A clean sharp image, smooth ink
• Neat carving with textural lines but not distracting lines
• Experimentation with layering, textures and patterning
• Colour choices
• The surfaces they are printed on
•  HAPPY ACCIDENTS My absolute favourite when printing- those moments where it did not go to plan but the results were exciting, for example, the ink was too runny but created awesome drips, where the print was not aligned but gave you a cool shadow effect, where colours smudge into each other to give one-off effects.

I told my students they are being graded for experimenting, not success because experimenting is success! Can’t go wrong with printing and look how awesome these are! The students had to submit:

• Their best clean solid colour
• Their all time favourite print
• Their best experiment (even if it was an “oops”)
• Their best fail/ oops/ learning moment

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THIS IS MY LAST POST FROM THIS SCHOOL YEAR. I’D LIKE TO THANK MY STUDENTS FOR THEIR HARD WORK AND ENTHUSIASM IN THE ART ROOM. I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO PLANNING NEXT YEAR!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS AND SEE YOU IN AUGUST.

An Incredible ART PARTY

Two weeks ago we had our annual art exhibition and party, and it was HUGE. We had over 20 student-run art workshops and the whole SSIS community was invited to participate! As you can see by these photos we had an awesome attendance, and people of all ages and art experience were participating.

ART REALLY IS FOR EVERYONE! 

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Awesome changes compared to previous years.

Student designed banner.

This time we had the HS students participate in behind the scenes work. The students: designed art cards for charity, created posters, wrote publicity emails, designed the decorations, gathered playlists, designed a program, had large signs with maps and even shared commercials. After the event, all students said they loved being more involved. Here’s some of their work:

We also had MS students run the workshops only and HS were managers, demonstrators or participants. Next year I think we only need demonstrators or participants.

The popcorn stand was a new addition and incredibly popular, not to mention all the collaborative projects. In my first art party 6 years ago, I had the students make folders and take all their workshop art home, but I think the collaborative art was a little more successful this year.

Lastly, we introduced a stamp sheet where once you have completed the workshop you can get a stamp. This let people know what workshops there were, and gave the students something to collect.

We could not have been happier with the success of this event, and can’t wait for next year, as it is only going to get better! See you in a year.

The Last Weeks Of G6 ART

The grade 6 students have had an AWESOME quarter, it is hard to believe it all ends next class. So sad! I’ve enjoyed artistically challenging you.

So what have we achieved over the last two weeks? Here is a visual overview.

CREATIVE COLOUR WHEEL WATERCOLOUR PAINTINGS

 TINTS SILHOUETTES WITH ACRYLIC PAINT

ART CHALLENGES

“Creatures under my bed” and “Something eating my shoe” (or my shoe is turning into..)

AN ART AND END OF YEAR JOURNAL REFLECTION

We are finishing off with a task similar to this.

The students have traced their hand, added a boarder and are now journaling about the year, what they hope for for grade 7, and what they miss from grade 5. I can’t wait to see their final results. I’ll add them here when they are done.

A TRIBUTE TO HUNDERTWASSER G7

Vietnamese Landscapes in the Style of Hundertwasser

I wrote earlier about this project but wanted to show the final paintings and sculptures now that the unit was complete. These paintings are the students’ interpretations of the Vietnamese landscape but in the style of Hundertwasser. The students studied his use of symbols to communicate important environmental messages. They were particularly inspired by his use of spirals, lollypop trees and bright colours. Once they completed their paintings they then created a video reflection which they knew would be sent to the Hunderwasser museum in Austria.

Group Sculpture in the Style of Hundertwasser

The students had to choose a location and then a technique for creating their model. The location choices were:

They began by researching Hundertwasser architecture and choosing their top 5 buildings.

Once that was complete it was time to explore all the sculptural choices.

We did this by creating stations the students had small art challenges and had to experiment with model making, plaster, nets, iPads apps, and clay.

Now, they were ready to begin the task. Since it was a group task it was the students’ responsibility to document their progress, participation and reflect on the group challenges. Some students did this through slides, docs, photos or time lapse. The visual documentations made the final reflections VERY interesting. Here are the final results.

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THREE AWESOME REFLECTIONS

The last step was to write an artist’s statement and display it with the final model.

I am sure Hunderwasser would be very proud of these awesome students but since he unfortunately isn’t around to ask, it is now time to see what the Hundertwasser museum thinks! If they reply back I’ll share it here. 🙂 Fingers crossed.

WE HEARD BACK!!!!!

WE HEARD BACK FROM VIENNA IN RESPONSE TO OUR HUNDERTWASSER UNIT.

HOW AWESOME IS THAT?

Dear Rebecca Jardin,

Thank you very much for your kind message and the link you have sent to your website.
We are delighted to see the creative output of your Hundertwasser workshop and the wonderful work your students have done.

We are impressed with the free and individual creativity which these works of the students indicate. This means that you and your students fully understood Hundertwasser’s beliefs, that each of us can be creative in his own and individual way. We are extremely happy that the students found their own style and manner and did not copy or imitate Hundertwasser.
We think that the students have fulfilled Hundertwasser’s belief of creative knowledge as he has defined it in one of his texts, which you find attached here.

If you share with us some paintings of the students which we can save in our digital archive, I will appreciate it a lot.

With kindest thanks from Vienna, also to all of your students who participated in this Hundertwasser project,
I remain yours sincerely

Andrea C. Fürst
Die Hundertwasser Gemeinnützige Privatstiftung

CULTURE FOUNDATIONS:1 PAINTINGS

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I wrote earlier about this class  but just realized because of the art party preparations I never posted the final paintings. So here you go…

“Foundations Art: 1 Culture Colour Paintings.”

The students created colour mixing tutorials, learnt about RGB and CMY colour mixing, and then had to apply their own colour harmony to a culture of their choice. It could be a culture they are from, or a culture they are fascinated with. Once the paintings were complete they then analyzed them in a video. Here is a snapshot of their ideas and opinions and tutorials.  Enjoy!

ENDANGERMALIA RAISED $850 USD

GREAT news:

‘Endangermalia—Before It’s Too Late’, our book which was researched, written and illustrated by grade 8 art students at SSIS, in collaboration with Commack Middle School, NY raised a whopping $600.00! These profits were gained from donations during our art party last week and from book sales.

Plus the profits from our online store which brings the grand total to $850.03 USD.

SCREEN SHOT FROM LULU.COM

The students worked very hard creating, promoting and selling this book. They researched and chose the charity they wanted to support based on findings from the CHARITY NAVIGATOR. This project was entirely student run.

They even designed art cards for our art party and 50% of the sales went towards WWF. The other 50% has been given to HEARTBEAT VIETNAM.

For previous blog posts about the behind the scenes of Endangermalia please click here:

A Collaboration for Charity and Please Purchase Our Book

Where Does The Money Go?

It Is Not Too Late To Purchase The Book!

Since this is an online shop it is not too late to purchase the book. Checks are sent monthly to WWF, if books have been purchased, so you can be guaranteed your money is going to WWF. You can order online and it ships worldwide.

It couldn’t be easier, for less than a massage $25 (plus shipping)!

SHOP LINK HERE

A Huge Thanks Goes To:

Graeme Base for his enthusiasm, support and quick replies to the student letters.

Grace Barrett for her passion, support and willingness to see this project through, despite some differences in technology, class times and holidays, not to mention the difficult time difference. You were incredible to work with.

Lulu.com for their support of this project, quick replies, helping Vietnam receive their books as quickly as possible and for the professional quality of the books. 

Kevin Honeycutt for the inspiration behind the book and the recommendation to use Lulu.

WWF for their incredibly inspiring work which gave students an authentic reason to create art.

Everyone who purchased a book, cards or donated, the success is not possible without you.

Last but not least, the hard working students of CMS and SSIS, you were incredible with your passion, motivation, enthusiasm and determination, not to mention your fabulous communication, problem solving and artistic skills! Thank YOU.

G8 Chair Sculptures are DONE!

The process of these sculptures can be seen in previous posts. This is a celebration and showcase of the students hard work as this unit draws to an end. It has been a 12-14 week journey and still remains to be one of the best units I have taught!

When their chairs are complete the students have a checklist to work through.

1. They need to annotate the elements and principles on their chair using Skitch
2. Then they need to create a movie/ Gif/ Slideshow capturing the entire visual process of the making of the chair.
3. We have been reflecting daily with 30Hands so now all those videos need to be compressed into one movie.
4. Lastly, they need to reflect on the process using a tool of their choice for example: Green screen, Prezi, Pages, Explain Everything, ibook author, 30 Hands or iMovie. They also have the option create a 5-6 paragraph blog post.

We have also created clipboards for the general public to guess the student’s theme. This has been fun and brought up some great discussions abut how we all view work differently depending on our backgrounds and experiences.

These chairs will be on display at our ART PARTY next week. Come along and congratulate our students!

MORE INFORMATION COMING SOON ABOUT THIS EVENT.

Commercial link

In the next post I’ll add photos of everyone’s chairs and link their reflections.