I am always pleasantly surprised when students get so excited to create art for the sake of their school & for the support of their classmates. As the Science Olympiad team prepared for the state competition, the artist of St. James Day School created colorful posters and kind cards to send them off with. The students loved this task & were so excited to show their support.
We are exploring winter scenes while learning how to apply the collage technique. First through third grade created mixed media cardinals with watercolor and collage. Fifth grade created colonial homes to go along with the colonial fair. And cold weather penguins have been painted to keep us feeling cool on weird winter days in Texas when it’s actually hot.
The Daughter’s of the American Revolution invite us to participate in an art contest every year. There is a different theme selected each year. This year, the theme was 200th Anniversary of the Santa Fe Trail: Stars and Stripes moving Westward. The students always impress me with their focus and details regarding the theme.
After we spend plenty of time talking about lines, we then discuss how lines can create shapes if the line closes. Shapes are either geometric or organic and both play a significant role in artmaking. Kindergarten, first grade and second grade created robots using both geometric and organic shapes. Third grade created abstract artwork using shapes to create designs and patterns that cover the entire space. Fourth grade created cityscapes using repetition of shapes. Middle school has used their shape knowledge and skills to create decorations for the upcoming school dance.
Every year, each grade kicks off art with a lesson on lines. Line exists in all art. Therefore, lines are important to know and use in making art. The elementary classes learn a song about straight lines and will hopefully use it to identify horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines for many years to come. We then talk about how lines aren’t always straight and how they can be silly. Once, we discuss the potential of a line, we then use them to create patterns and shapes. This is fundamental as we start making art.
St. James was well represented Saturday, April 2, 2022, at the Daughters of American Revolution award ceremony. Five St. James students won 1st place in the State of Texas for their entry in the DAR poster contest that focused on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Of those five students, 2 of them also won 1st place in the region, which includes 8 states. It is such an honor to see such great work come out of my students, but even more exciting when they are recognized outside of school for their hard work and creativity.
Self-portraits are an essential lesson in Art. Studying the human figure is a fantastic, yet frustrating tool, in learning proportions. It is nearly impossible to get every feature exactly right unless you are a skilled artist who has had years of practice. However, self-portraits typically resemble the artist in one way or another because it is the face that they are the most familiar with as they glance in the mirror most everyday. It is this lesson that I see ample attention and effort from students as the artwork is personal and a reflection of both the inside and outside.
Wayne Thiebaud is most well known for his paintings of commonplace objects such as pies, ice cream cones, pastries, and even hot dogs. His ability to make simple things so exciting and interesting will forever be cherished in the art world. His work provides inspiration in classrooms across the country for sure and probably even across the globe. Sadly, Wayne Thiebaud passed away on Christmas Day, but without a doubt his legacy as an artist will live on like many other great artists. To start the new year, we used Wayne Thiebaud’s ice cream cones and cakes to demonstrate shading; using suggested light and shadows to make a flat object take form.
The connection between the classroom and home, or experience, always brightens things up. The student’s faces brighten up with the familiarity and the classroom brightens up with enhanced effort to make this work of art exactly how they remember it or imagine it to be again. Time and again, I see great value in the experience of creating art on subjects that are relatable, enjoyable and meaningful. Adding their personal touch to a Christmas sweater, whether it was ugly, jolly or bright, was quite a delite .This year I was also reminded to let go and remember the joy of giving. It is important to me that my students care for their artwork and keep it safe, which is why it is kept in their portfolio’s until the end of the year in hopes that it all gets home safely. However, there were so many requests to take artwork home to give as Christmas gifts that I had to let go and their pride in their work made my heart merry and bright.
A pumpkin has so much potential! A pumpkin can be a decorative accent as it is or it can be carved. A pumpkin can become a pie or loaf of bread. A pumpkin can even become a trend in spiced latte form. Every year pumpkins take stage in my classroom as our inspiration for a mixed media pumpkin patch and in the middle school pumpkins even transform into something else to their liking. Last year was the 1st pumpkin patch at St. James Middle School and the activities and opportunities it provided are endless. We painted pumpkins last year to represent the characters being created in a children’s book writing assignment for 8th graders as well as other characters from our favorite childhood stories. This year we didn’t stay within a theme and ended up with a little bit of everything and each one was amazing and full of personality!
Fall foliage and festivities provide so much inspiration in the art room. I make sure to pack in as many Halloween activities as I can because it’s fun to channel our inner spookiness and it helps build the excitement for the big day. Because there are only so many jack-o-lanterns you can draw or paint, we’ve also been exploring the simplicity and complexity of folk art. Folk art is characterized by cultural traditions and values of the artist. Most folk artists are not formally trained in art techniques and use the objects and scenes around them as the subject matter in their artwork. Folk art is more decorative and often symmetrical. We’ve created landscapes, flowers and dinosaurs in folk art fashion.
I typically get overly excited about fun art lessons and I typically assume that it will be rainbows of joy and great success. However, as I begin my 8th year of teaching art, I’m constantly reminded to keep it simple and throw all expectations out the door…especially in a pandemic. As an artist, I see the challenges as exciting and my students want to see them as achievable. We’ve had a few trial and errors with line patterns and dinosaurs, but found great success after a little simplification!
Have you ever stopped to look at all the different patterns around you? There are patterns in nature and patterns that we create in our spaces that bring us comfort because they are consistent. Learning how simple lines can create exciting patterns in art is such a fun lesson for all of us. I continue to be impressed with how a pattern can shift or morph with simple changes. I love watching the students surprise themselves with their work after they’ve created a complex pattern with simple lines. In 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade classes, we are creating our own patterns in a turtle shell and each section of the shell should contain a different pattern. This encourages the students to experiment with different combinations or different angles or even variation in the size or width of a line.
We are back in the game...or swing of things...or back in the saddle, however you want to say it, we are back at school. This year is starting off with a lot of questions and uncertainties, just like the year before, but this year I sense more confidence and hope in the community. We are determined to survive the pandemic, which can sometimes feel like a game...and you don’t want to be tagged with “it”. In art we are creating graffiti tags for middle school lockers and lower school desks and this kind of tag is less stressful and definitely more colorful. We are signing our names on another day, another week, and hopefully the year. Creating your own tag, or signature, can encourage confidence and ownership, which is exactly what we need. We are going to confidently own our place at this moment, no matter the challenges.
I will admit that I’ve never used clay in my teaching career until this year. I didn’t have access to a kiln in Memphis, I wasn’t prepared for it my first year teaching at St. James and then when I was good and ready, we shut down due to the pandemic. Although clay isn’t my area of expertise, teaching it was quite delightful and rewarding for all of us. It will be something we look forward to at the end of each year...and it being 3 dimensional, it’s like our trophy at the end of the year.
After pandemic protocols of quarantine, limited traveling, and life as we know it shuts down, it feels like a true trophy that we’ve made it through this school year! It’s had it’s hiccups here and there and to top it all of the Snowmageddon that hasn’t happened in 100 years! We’ve learned a lot about ourselves and our community in all of this and I think we can all agree that it’s good to get outside. We can take off our masks and breath. We can enjoy each other without all the worry. We can enjoy the beautiful earth and all its glory. As soon as the sun came out, I saw the opportunity for us to study the work of Andy Goldsworthy. Andy Goldsworthy is a contemporary artist well known for his sculptural works outdoors. None are permanent and some can blow away in the wind in a small instance. He loves using natural resources to find color and textures for his work. I was truly blown away by what was created by the students.
There is no doubt that the pandemic takes a bigger toll on some people than others. Some social circles are more productive than others and I can confidently say that if I ever create a quilt, I’d rather do it with the help of a quilting circle. The middle school students and myself accepted the invitation to create large art on panels for the TRAHC outdoor art exhibit. To coordinate with the indoor quilt exhibit, we were told to create quilt like art using paint. However, in our current circumstances of social distancing, a quilt collaboration is quite a challenge...the social circle of collaboration is not an option. There was a lot of tag team and picking up where the class before left off in creating these large works of art. There was a lot done and then redone. The sixth graders watched it all come together and had more of a hand in it than anyone. I can’t wait to see them on display.
We just finished up Art to Remember, which means many masterpieces are on their way to becoming an everyday accessory! There are so many possibilities of what you can print your child’s artwork on...water bottle, mug, pillow, tote bag, and of course MASKS! Each purchase helps raise money for the school and more importantly shows your artist how proud you are of their work.
With the first glimpse of sunshine and spring air, we’ve been “Goghing” in the direction of sunflowers and bright colors in the art room. We’ve used Vincent Van Gogh as our inspiration to layer on colors a plenty and with oil pastels we are able to smooth and blend like Vincent Van Gogh did with paint.
When there was potential snow in the forecast, my girls and I have a few rituals that we do to increase the our chances of a snow day. We put every white crayon we can find in the freezer, then run around the dining table 5 times, go to bed with our PJs inside out & backwards, and lastly put a spoon under our pillow. Each time we do it, we truly believe that we are going to make it magically snow like never before…so, far we’ve not been successful. Regardless, we can create our own snow in various ways & create the northern lights too (another magical phenomenon that very few of us have ever experienced).
Even with social distancing and masked faces, you can’t take the joy out of Christmas. The lights, trees, and holiday cheer make it a special time, year after year. Each year we document a piece of Christmas cheer in our artwork and if we are lucky, the learning process can bring as much joy and surprise as Christmas day...not that anything is comparable to Christmas day, but it brings me great joy when I can provide teaching moments that light up the faces of my students because they are in awe of what they are capable of creating.
