Artist Of The Week 1/24/2018

This week’s artist of the week is very kind, super helpful, and always makes quality artwork. I have seen her grow over the years and I am always impressed by how she reaches out to students who might be having trouble in the art room. Last week I suffered a mild concussion from an ice skating accident. (Make sure you wear your helmets folks!) When I got back to school Wednesday morning I was very curious to see the notes that the substitute teacher had left for me. Fifth Grade classes were asked to work on a project that they had started previously. We are learning about Geometric Shapes, or “shapes that have rules.” We reviewed some of the Abstract Portraits painted by Pablo Picasso, and then 5th Grade students were asked to create a portrait using only Geometric Shapes! Now, this student didn’t exactly follow the instructions, because her picture isn’t actually a portrait, but that’s ok sometimes in Art Class. She did do a careful job tracing her shapes, coloring them in, and using the whole page. She also made me chuckle by creating an expression of surprise on her Geometric Figure at the center of her composition. Nice work Madison B. in 5 Hoskins!

2nd Artist of the Week 1/12/18

We are going to do things a little differently this week and recognize a student artist this Friday, 1/12/18. I want you all to be aware that we are losing to really awesome young women artists because they are moving to Montana. Riley St. Pierre has been recognized twice for her artworks, a flying fox princess, and a flying paper dragon sculpture. I want to take a moment to recognize her little sister Morgan, known as “Mo” in the art room. Mo has serious drawing skills. She has been working on an ambitious painting in Enrichment Art. The concept, or idea, of her painting is very cool! Mo carefully studied Leonardo D’Vinci’s famous portrait, “The Mona Lisa”. She then used her imagination to put Princess Peach, from the Super Mario Bros. video game, into a similar pose and placed the princess in an environment that includes other characters from the game. She just finished her painting yesterday and I want you to all take a moment to look at it. I put it up across from the entrance to the cafeteria. Awesome job Mo! and best of luck to both sisters on there journey to there new home in beautiful and exciting Montana!

Artist Of The Week 1/10/18

Today I am choosing to recognize a student in Ms. Newkirk’s 3rd Grade class. I noticed her interest in art almost immediately when she entered my classroom. This student is an accomplished artist and has already developed her own style. She shares a fondness for foxes with many of our students, and these furry animals find their way into many of her drawings. She has also started a paper mache fox in Enrichment Art and created this Flying Arctic Fox   in our make up “Free Day” for students who missed out before our Holiday Break due to the early release. Her classroom teacher even told me that this student plans to give an art lesson to her 3rd grade class in future weeks. Amazing! Nice work Ada B!

Artist of the Week 1/3/2018

It has been a tradition in the FMS Art Room to have a day of free exploration of various crafts on the week before the holiday break since the days when I shared my responsibilities at FMS with WCS teacher Laura Devin. This allows students to create gifts and cards for their family and/or create art in a less structured way, and in interest areas of their choice. It is a fun and sometimes hectic day, and each student must do their part to exercise patience, share resources, and advocate for their needs, both for materials and my assistance. There truly were so many awesome art works created this week. Please see examples here. I may have said to more than one student that I was so impressed that they may be the new years first Artist of the Week. When the dust settled and the art room was put back together I looked through the photos I took of students work. I thought about originality, craftsmanship, the ability to work well with others, and work independently. I chose to recognize Charles T. in Ms. Phippen’s 4th Grade for his boat, complete with sail and sailor, that really floats (we tested it in the sink)! Nice work!

Artist Of The Week 12/20/2017

Fifth Grade Students have been completing a snowflake project. This is not the folding and cutting project you may be imagining, but an experiment with Masking Tape and an exercise creating Tints of a color by adding white. We started our study of snowflakes by watching a quick video that showed us some of the science about how snowflakes form. Then we switched gears and talked about how a house painter uses masking tape. We carefully created our snowflakes with tape and then covered our papers with Tints of a color of our choice. When our paintings were dry and the tape was removed our snowflakes emerged. This weeks Artist Of The Week always does a careful job. I chose her to recognize her snowflake out of so many beautiful snowflakes that 5th graders created because of how she blended the transition between the Tints that she created and the unique border that she made. Nice work Grace T. in 5 Gerrish!

To see a collection of all the 2017 Artists Of The Week please visit https://thefishermitchellartroom.blogspot.com

Artist of the Week 12/13/17

There was a clear choice for this weeks Artist of the Week. Although the 4th Grade has been making some really awesome penguin collages that we should be looking for in the hallways, and 5th Grade snowflakes should be appearing shortly, 3rd Grade just created some really amazing collages using their experiments with color mixing. At this point 3rd Graders have a good grasp of the Primary Colors, Red, Yellow and Blue, and have mixed their own Secondary Colors, Orange, Green, and Purple. We used Orange for our class pumpkin patches and now have used Green and Purple for these first snow collages. When 3rd Graders mixed their purple I encouraged them to create Tints of Purple by adding White. Ben T. in Mrs. Walsh’s 3rd Grade Class did such an amazing job with his background I contemplated giving him the honor of Artist of the Week before he put all his pieces together! All 3rd Graders really impressed me with their collages, but I picked Ben T. as Artist of the Week, not only for his background, but for the trees he cut with different Greens and his intricate snowflakes. He’s also about as nice a guy as you could ask for in Art Class. Nice Work Ben!

Artist Of The Week 12/6/2017

Right now we have a lot of projects that are halfway finished in the art room. 3rd Graders are working on mixing paint to create secondary colors and creating a collage with their work, 4th Graders are also working on a collage, and 5th graders are working on a painting. Luckily, two young women finished up large 2 part paintings in their free time. These students are super responsible, super motivated and always make quality work. Although they did their pantings independently, they shared their idea, and their process (the way they made their paintings). It was really fun to watch them working on their paintings side by side. For all these reasons it is easy for me to recognize Alexis Grendell and Julia Deitrick. Nice work you two!