When Cymya ask me for the spray paint after this portrait was done I was a little concerned. However, she did a great job masking off the painting with tape and paper.

When Zach (who sat in on class) asked for a drawing lesson, M2 showed him how she goes about drawing portraits. It's great when the student become the teacher. Especially to a kid who isn't even in art class ;)

When Dion first created a stencil, it was a single image. After he made the first one, he played with the stencil, creating this multi imaged work. Play is an important part of the art making process.

When a student asks for a needle and thread...

When a student asks if she can bring her skateboard to school so she can paint it. 

When a student totally redesigns a pair of shoes including painting them black.

When you have some newspaper, cardboard and paper mache' on the table.

Congratulations to Maxwell for winning the Brunswick County Superintendent's Winter Card Contest!

For this week's unit, we talked about zines. what's a zine you ask? well, its a self published, subversive body of work, created by art students. Anyone wishing to take part simply had to enter a work, be it drawing, collage, or poetry. 

Our fist Zine, Volume 1, Issue 1, is titled 280. Now, that is subversive. A few of the pages are posted below but you can pick up a copy around the school. People are already gearing up to enter work in issue 2. See you next month!

Each week, we present a Table project. these temporary centers are up for a week. Student's have the option to participate or not. However, this week's Table, ugly dolls, has been exceptionally well received. Even though many didn't know how to sew, everyone was excited about giving it a go.  We are only on day one so check back soon for some of the final pieces.

This week, we challenged students with upping their skills with the Apple Challenge. It was rather simple as the student only had to draw three apples. Here's how it works..

Last weekend I took a flight out to New Mexico where I had the opportunity to present at the NMAEA Conference. The topic was Everything My Students Taught Me About Art Education. As teachers, we teach students every day but at the same time, our students teach us as well. A few examples, art brings people together, don't underestimate students, and never have a hot pepper challenge.

 It was a fun trip, beautiful country side (see photo above of view from the hotel) but a lot of travel for such a short period of time. I also had the chance to meet with some people i don't get to see every day. Like Nancy Walkup the editor of SchoolArts Magazine.

While I was gone, the students at South B kept making art... Here's a look at some of the happenings this week.

Happy November! Above, a work done by Audrey. She is exploring inserting her own characters into photographs that she takes.

Last week we did a unit on Photography. One of the daily challenges was based on the work of Shamekh Bluwi. The challenge was to cut out parts of an image and photograph the image with different background. For this work, we printed out the image of Ariel from the Little Mermaid.

Ellea has been exploring oil paint. This week she ran a few tutorials to improve her skills.

Brooke just got a iPad and an Apple Pen. This piece is still a work in progress so ignore the feet ;)

Noah purchased his own spray paint to create this multi part stencil. Also  a  WIP.

Ilaina doesn't think she can paint but I think it's coming along swimmingly. 

Jeana was interested in painting a landscape. So, we sat down and went over some basic tippy tappy tree techniques. She created her first one below in acrylic. Then we were like, "You should try oil paints." And she was like, "What's that?" And so we gave her some oil paints and she did the one above. Growth in the forest.

I'm not much into decorating the bulletin board. I posted a fresh sheet of white paper, put orange border around it and walked away. I figured I do something soon, just didn't know what.

One of the students decided, without asking, to hot glue a pack of sticky notes to the board. Other students starting drawing on the sticky notes and putting them in random spots on the previously empty board. Soon, we had a fair amount of sticky notes. 

Later, in the afternoon, when most students had left, the original student started grading the sticky note art. She would also leave little comments. We teachers call that assessment. 

Now the board is getting filled. People keep making art and then checking back the next day to receive their assessment. Nobody knows who the assessor is.  

We talked about how artists incorporate scale into their art. these students decided to recreate their favorite lollipop, large scale. WIP.

These students wanted to try light painting. They found that it was trickier than they expected. This is one of their earlier pieces. We'll keep an eye on their work and see were how it progresses.

Zonkeys are easy to draw but very hard to create in 3D. This student designed this Zonkey on the 3D printer.

Click here to Watch the video, What If... TAB?

One day last week Aidan brought in a tshirt, white pants, and sneakers. He asked everyone to write or draw on these clothing items so everyone did. Later in the week, Aidan wore the outfit to school. So, that's what's happening with that. 

Speaking of Aidan... he's been working on a series of small drawings and then combining the images into one large image. each squre is 7" x 7" so the finished work is rather large. The images used represent things from his life he deems important or not important. Its sort of like a self portrait.

Meanwhile, Gavin brought in a canvas and has been experimenting with paint pouring. He's been interested in the cells that one might find in a more traditional paint pour but is also interested in the drip style produced by having the canvas on the easel as opposed to having it flat on the table.

Kimber finished her sword that she had been working on. It was constructed out of cardboard and foam, then wrapped in plaster gauze to give it support. Painting added the finishing touches.

This set of photos is from a rare occurrence that only happens on special occasions. Everyone in the room was working! Lol! OK I'm half kidding but sometimes teaching art is more like herding cats. Having those rare days when all the cats are focused deserves its own post ;) 

Then this happened.

Though many artists begin the art making process with a subject, some begin by gathering materials. They may find these materials on the side of the street, at a local market, or while taking a walk in the woods. 

For this unit, Artists Collect & Synthesize, we asked students to collect objects and then synthesize them into something new. First, we looked at artists who collect things to make art. Artists included Lenka Clayton. One example of her work is titled 43 Wishes which is a collection of 43 coins retrieved from a fountain. Another example is a piece titled 63 Objects Taken from my Son's Mouth which, as the title infers, is a collection of items Lenka Clayton removed from her son’s mouth when he was between the ages of 8 and 15 months old.  

We also looked at artists who synthesize their collections such as Angela Haseltine Pozzi. She is the founder of Washed Ashore, an organization that creates giant sculptures of sea creatures using only the plastic found on the beach. The mission of Washed Ashore is to bring awareness to the world's growing plastic pollution problem through their art. 

After the one day challenge, students were given the week's concept objective. Create a work of art by collecting and synthesizing stuff. Here are some of the results.