2014 Scholastic Art and Writing Awards

This year I entered seven students into the annual Scholastic Art and Writing Awards Competition. I was so please with the work the students submitted. Check them out below.

Ghoulish Grin by Karlan D

Dragon by Christine G

Bubble by Sara G

 

 

Muerto Azul by Kate H

Orange Stare by Catherine R

21st Century America by Ben C

Drink Me by Emma T

Kiss by Emma T

Lips by Emma T

I am so excited and proud to announce that three of these students had their work officially selected by the Scholastic competition to receive awards!

Karlan D. received Honorable Mention in the Printmaking Category for "Ghoulish Grin"

Ben C. received a Gold Key Award (the highest honor) in Sculpture for "21st Century America"

Emma T. received three awards in drawing, a Silver Key for "Kiss", a Gold Key for "Lips" and a Gold Key for "Drink Me"

Congratulations!!

Visual Journal Assigment #7

Due: Monday, February 3rd

You have been invited to a masquerade ball. A masquerade ball is an event which the participants attend in costume wearing a mask.

For this visual journal assignment, you will be designing the mask that you would wear to this ball. You cannot design just any mask. This particular ball that you have been invited to has a nature theme, so your mask must reflect some aspect of nature.

Your mask could be inspired by flowers or plants found in nature or by the animals that roam our planet.

The masks traditionally worn at masquerade balls are very decorate and ornate. They have open areas for the eyes. They usually have ribbons on the side, so the wearer can tie the mask around their head or a handle attached to one side for the wearer to hold. Please set up your masks in this way.

For your paragraph, you will describe how you came up with the concept for your mask and why you feel like it reflects the “nature” theme well.

Please use the photo examples in this blog post

to help inspire you for your mask design.

Visual Journal Assignment #6

Due: Monday, January 27th

Kristin Tersek is an artist and illustrator that has a knack for creating cute and yet somewhat odd characters out of everyday objects, like food.

For this visual journal assignment, you are going to create your own “food character” in the style of Kristin Tersek. Kristin often uses her food of choice as the head of the character and then creates a simplified body under it. The eyes are reflective circles, with one larger than the other.

Use the photos of Kristin’s work to help you create your character. Even though you’re creating a drawing inspired by her work, you don’t want to copy any of her images exactly.

For your paragraph, you will write about how you came up with your character design and a little bit about who you envision your character to be. What is your character’s name? What are their likes and dislikes?

You can check out more of Kristin’s work at:

www.cuddlyrigormortis.com

Painting by Kristin Tersek

Painting by Kristin Tersek

Mrs. Walker's character "Mugsy" inspired by the art of Kristin Tersek

8th grade Pop Art!

My 8th grade students just wrapped up a unit on the Pop Art movement. The students looked at the artwork of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. For their projects, the students had to take a famous piece of artwork and transform it into Pop Art.

Check out the awesome results below! Can you guess what famous works of art they're based on?

Visual Journal Assignment #5

Due: Tuesday, January 21st 

Doodle drawing by Kerby Rosanes

A doodle is an unfocused or unconscious drawing made while a person's attention is otherwise occupied. Doodles are simple drawings that can have concrete representational meaning or may just be abstract shapes.

According to a study published in the scientific journal Applied Cognitive Psychology, doodling can aid a person's memory by expending just enough energy to keep one from daydreaming, which demands a lot of the brain's processing power, as well as from not paying attention

Some artists have even made doodling their style of choice. Artists like Kerby Rosanes have created incredible pieces of artwork in the “doodle” style.

For this visual journal assignment, you will be creating an 8 inch by 8 inch square in your sketchbooks (or on a sheet of drawing) paper. You will fill this entire square in with doodles. Your doodle should take up the entire square, with the images overlapping one another to leave very little empty space.

Your doodle can be drawings of actual things or more abstract. It can be made up entirely of images, or incorporate text as well.

For your paragraph, you will write about the experience you had creating your doodle. Did you find the process enjoyable or difficult? What were you doing while you were doodling? What were you thinking about while you were creating this doodling?

Make sure all of your doodles (images or text) are school appropriate.

The World's Most Realistic Finger Painting

One of my favorite things about the internet is how easy it makes finding really talented artists. In my free time, I love surfing around Instagram and YouTube in search of inspirational artwork.

One of my recent looks around YouTube lead me to the channel of remarkable artist, Kyle Lambert. I was blown away by Kyle's digital "finger painting" of actor Morgan Freeman. The digital painting was done with the iPad app Procreate (which is available for download in iTunes for $5.99).

Check out Kyle's amazing video below.

Visual Journal Assignment #4

Due: Monday, January 13th 
 

An idiom is a combination of words that has a figurative meaning due to its common usage. An idiom's figurative meaning is separate from the actual meaning or definition of the words of which it is made of.

The idiom "a horse of a different color" has nothing to do with an actual horse. Instead it refers to a situation or a subject that is different from what you had first thought it was. 

Another common idiom is "it's raining like cats and dogs". The saying refers to a very loud and noisy rainstorm.

For this visual journal assignment, you are gong to be creating an illustration of an idiom of you choice. For example, if you chose "it's raining like cats and dogs" you would draw a picture of cats and dogs raining down from the sky.

For your written element, you will write down what idiom you chose and then describe what the figurative meaning of it is. For example, if you chose "a piece of cake" as your idiom, you would draw an actual piece of cake, but then describe to me in your writing that the term is used to describe something that is overly simple or easy. Like, "That test was a piece of cake".

Check out the site www.idiomsite.com if you need help thinking of an idiom to use.

Mrs. Walker's idiom illustration of "The Last Straw". The idiom refers to something that finally brought someone to the point of losing their temper.