What’s Happening in Art!?

Google has started an annual contest for k-12 students across the United States. Students are to design their own “Google” in response to a question and the over-all winner of the contest will get their design posted on their website for a whole day! Other prizes include 40 trips to the New York City Google studios, apple laptop computers and t-shirts with their logos printed on them. The artist who designs the Google symbol for special dates is Dennis Hwang and you can see some of his designs at http://www.google.com/doodle4google/doodler.html

This years’ question was “What would you wish for the world?” Here are a few of the entries from Hall-Dale Middle School:

Opal H. "I wish the world was as simple as a pattern."

Greta T. "I wish for the world to be safe, clean and environmentally sound so that animals can life in their natural habitats."

Ayden Y. "All of the above" - Happiness, Pease, Human Rights, Shelter, Freedom, No Violence

Steven L. "I wish that people would appreciate the bauty of the natural world around us, rather than paying attention to material wealth..."

Ashley B. "Go Green"

Emma W. "Health Care for Everyone"

Alley B. "My theme is just that no body will be afraid to be different."

Erin G. "Calm"

Maura S. "What I wish for the world is a bright sunny day."

As a starting project for the 8th grade elective students, they designed their own imaginary bug and made it to look like stained glass with different colors of tissue paper in the holes.  They looked at making them symmetrical and using different colors with thin lines between the spaces.  They have been decorating our entry way since the beginning of the year.

Marcus M.

Emily B.

Michelle P.

Serena P.

Shelby M.

Laura M.

Laura A.

Austin G.

Eighth grade elective students worked with making words into a design using radial symmetry. See if you can figure out the word that is repeated eight times before you read the title.

Hannah P. - "Awkward"

Sarah K. - "Sarah K"

Carly B. - "Sheep"

Alley B. - "Tittle"

Ru A. - "Freedom"

Marcus M. - "Fang"

The whole seventh grade had the opportunity to go on a field trip to Colby. All students were able to see the traveling exhibit of Asian brush paintings and more artworks inside the museum; including sculpture, large scale paintings, photography etc. Students also went on a campus tour that was lead by current college students. This opportunity was provided by Colby through a bus reimbursement grant.

Alexander Kats painting with students acting like the ones in the painting.

American Impressionist Gallery

Listening to story in Asian Brush Painting exhibit

Terrance O. refelcts on a brush painting.

Discussing legend behind sculpture.

Acting like woman in an Alexander Katz painting

6th grade students learned about the vanishing point and showed their names coming out at the viewer by showing all the lines converging at the vanishing point. They were to show patterns or designs, as well as gradation (the gradual transition between dark and light).

Abiero Horta was able to visit us through Margaritas Education Outreach Program.  He is from a town in Michoacán, Mexico; where they are famous for making wooden mask and painting them.  He spent a day at Hall-Dale and demonstrated how he carves a mask out of a section of log.  He used hand made tools and started with a bark covered log and transformed it into an owl by the end of the day.  Foreign Language students and High School students were able to come and watch the demonstration.

During the sixth grade field trip to the Vaughn Homestead, students had the opportunity to
make their own Andy Goldsworthy inspired sculpture. Goldsworthy is an artist who has been working with objects found in nature. He doesn’t use any glue or man-made objects. Students worked with the colors around them, used the fresh rain to help make things stick, and found a wide variety of things to use from the woods. These pictures are all that’s left of their beautiful sculptures, which is the same way Goldsworthy does it with his sculptures. To see some of his sculptures: http://www.goldsworthy.cc.gla.ac.uk/

Seventh graders have been studying art around the world and started the year off by looking at Ancient Egyptian art and how they painted people. They designed their own necklace/collar, in which the Egyptians wore to signify that they worshiped the sun. We traced each student’s profile onto a sheet of paper and they also designed their own headdress. The cartouch that is in front of their profile is essentially their name tag and shows their name in hieroglyphs.

Anna D., Erin G., and Kirsten P.

Taylor L., Adam S., Katie C.Haley M.

Alex M.

Misha W.

Haley M.

Eighth graders first practiced many continuous line drawings.  This taught them to slow down their brains and to draw what they saw instead of what they know.  They had to show interior details with this one continuous line, which was sometimes the hardest part.   They then chose their favorite drawing and made it into a wire sculpture using just one long piece of aluminum wire.  The sculptures were mounted on blocks of cherry wood with the artist signature.    Here are a few examples:

Laura M.

Carly Beaudoin

Courtney P.

Amanda P.

Aaron T.

Anise T.

Natasha S.

Jimmi A.