Art

December is always a busy month. Not only is it a short month, we also juggle the winter performance rehearsals into our daily flow. That being said, we had a few art classes in the Tile room. It’s a fun classroom to be in, yet we are limited with supplies and materials to work with. Luckily, we are creative and can roll with the punches!!

We focused a few class periods creating these marvelous holiday cards/miniature paintings of Aspen trees on a crisp, winter morning. (Pictured above) This was a good lesson on value and shading. This project also offered a chance for some personal expression with the sky and earth tones.

 When we returned from holiday break, we dove right into our 2019 Vision Boards (collages with intention). We looked through many magazines and old calendars for images and words that inspired the artists for the adventurous new year ahead. I had the kids look for pictures of things they would like to try, new foods, activities as well as anything that they could relate with and feel inspired by. Another challenge was to find the numbers 2 0 1 9 and the letters of their names to add to their creations. These came out great!

Multimedia art. I’ve been wanting to do this project with the kids ever since I was gifted this fabulous art book called “Painting the Sacred Within” by Faith Evans-Sills. To create these abstract multimedia pieces, I had the kids follow prompts I created to pull out of a box to direct their free flowing expression. I would select a prompt at random and give them a good amount of time to explore each new direction.  Prompts like: draw a circle, paint cool colors with watercolors, add oil pastels, warm colors in acrylic, splatter paint, close your eyes, add lines, use your non dominant hand, etc....

The following week we were able to add more layers with stencil work, colored pencil,glitter, script, ink and marker.

 My favorite part was how uniquely awesome these came out, some looked like crazy, graffiti street art, while some were soft and fairytale like. 

I hope to revisit this project again in the spring. Everyone enjoyed the process of staying present with their art making.   The results remained a mystery halfway through and everyone remained open to the possibilities as they welcomed layers of mediums.