Art Teacher Staff Day (this past Friday) with Bruce Taylor

The Regional Art Teachers came together, this past Friday, to work on making sense of Common Core in the art room. We worked with Bruce Taylor, author of and expert in, “Common Sense Arts Standards, How the Arts Can Thrive in an Era of Common Core.” For more information visit http://brucedtaylor.com/

We spent the morning listening to ways in which we can incorporate the common core into our already existing lessons. It was refreshing to hear that we are already including common core, we just need to include the correct vocabulary to document what we are doing. The afternoon was spent in a breakout session with Bruce, using his method and vocabulary to take already existing ideas/ lessons and make them Common Core approved.

Everyone left with a copy of Bruce’s book and a feeling of relief, that not only is there a place for us in this world of Common Core, but we are excelling at it and is one of the subjects that has the ability/ flexibility to really make kids THINK.

Thank you to SLU, the TLC, SLL BOCES, and FRAM for making this professional development day possible.

Frederic Remington Arts Festival Student Competition

Congratulations to our students that received awards in the Frederic Remington Arts Festival Student Competition. We received a special award for helping out with the show and bringing our easels for display. Potsdam High School submitted 11 works of art from 11 students.

**Special shout out to all of my students that were chosen to participate in this show. The theme was ‘from observation.’

Brook Stevenson, Hunter Wilson, Shelby Kelley, Gaetan Foisy, Maddie Thompson, Emily Theobald, Isabelle Foisy, Jillian Todd, Heidi Visser, Lilly Kenyon, and Gabby Sutliff.

The awards are as follows:

Press Release:

The Student Art Competition and Exhibit of the Remington Arts Festival was held on Saturday, October 3, 2015 at TAUNY, Main Street,  Canton, New York. Best In Show was awarded to Jaylin Miller from Clifton Fine for her “Baby Elephant” sculpture. The art work,  was exceptional and we encourage everyone to drop by to view the exhibit between 10am-5pm at TAUNY until closing on Monday, October 12, 2015. Participants from 20 schools in 14 different villages were from Canton, Potsdam, Parishville-Hopkinton, Clifton-Fine, Hermon-Dekalb, Heuvelton, , Massena, Morristown, Norwood-Norfolk, and Salmon River Central Schools as well as  St. Teresa Academy in Nicholville, Trinity Catholic,  Holy Name of Jesus Academy of Massena, and St. Mary’s of Canton.  Eric Tracher and Marion Bradish,  representatives from the St. Lawrence County Art Council and Ann Spies, representative of the Remington Museum completed the judging along with the assistance of Baltimore artist and former Canton resident, Tracy Jacobs. Chosen were 1^st Place and Honorable Mention for both middle and high schools in the following categories: Painting, Sculpture, Drawing, Photography, Multi Student Work and Miscellaneous. Members of the SAC&E Committee, Sigie Barr Saap, Audrey Tobin, Denice Button, Sheila Harrington, Janet Favro, Gail Abplanalp, Kate Newell, Linda Fay, Linda Trill and Camilla Ammirati also chose several committee awards. Special Friend Certificates were awarded to Jason Hubbard, art teacher from Norwood-Norfolk, and Ashley Eipp, art teacher from Potsdam for their continuing support of the student competition and exhibit. Prizes were awarded to the following students:

High School

Best In Show: Jaylin Miller, Clifton-Fine

Photography: Isobel Sweeney, 1^st Place, Skylar Fetter, Honorable Mention both from Norwood-Norfolk

Drawing: Vanessa Perry, Norwood -Norfolk, 1^st Place, Alexandra Conn, Massena, Alyssa Sloan, Parishville, Brianna Larraby, Canton, all Honorable Mention

Miscellaneous: Brook Stevenson, Potsdam, 1^st Place, Alana Granger, Heuvelton, Honorable Mention

Sculpture: Sydney Hitchman, Clifton Fine, 1^st Place, Gaetan Foisy, Potsdam, Honorable Mention

Painting: Abigail Tessier, Norwood-Norfolk, 1^st Place, Sage Richards. Colton – Pierrepont, Honorable Mention

Collage: Adriane Reardon, Salmon River, 1^st Place, Sara Granger, Massena, Schizophrenia, Honorable Mention

Shared Award: Jacobs, Lanford, Morgan, Drumm, Thomas, Massena, 1^st Place

Middle School

Drawing: Indigo Pease, Parishville-Hopkinton, 1^st Place, Kole Peterson, Parishville-Hopkinton, Honorable Mention

Miscellaneous: Luke Greco, Trinity Catholic, 1^st Place, Jarrett St. Ann, Salmon River, Honorable Mention

Sculpture: Hamden Knauf, Heuvelton, 1^st Place, Amanda Polorolo, Trinity Catholic, Honorable Mention,

Painting: Louisa Mossbrugger, Potsdam, 1^st Place, Vanessa Dawson, Potsdam, Honorable Mention

Collage : Bryan Jones, Potsdam, 1^st Place

Committee Awards

Skylar Perrault, Clifton Fine, Sydney McGill, Heuvelton, Lea Danielewicz, Clifton Fine, Emily Theobald, Potsdam, Isabelle Foisy, Potsdam, Emma Galney, St. Mary’s, Nico Sweeney, Norwood-Norfolk, Jayden Lazore, Salmon River, Monica Trummer, Holy Name of Jesus Academy

Event sponsors were the Canton Area Zonta Club, Grasse River Heritage, TAUNY, SLC Arts Council,  the Remington Arts Festival Committee and the Haley-Nichols Fund of the Northern New York Community Foundation with assistance from the Frederick Remington Museum.

Student donations to the Art for Animals Exhibit and Art Auction

We have two students donating art to benefit the Potsdam Humane Society through the help of the Arts Council. Shelby Kelley has donated a photograph and Krystal Arquette has donated a drawing. Thank you girls for your community involvement!

Enjoying the weather while we can!

Today’s studio art class has gotten outside twice now to work on a motorcycle still life. It is so nice to not be confined to the walls of the classroom. We are working on learning how to draw from observation. The students had to pick an interesting angle of the bike. Using their built in view finders (their hands) find an interesting composition that takes up the whole page.

We always start drawing with some warm-up contour practices. The first one we did was a blind contour drawing. This means we do not pick up our pencil (everything is connected) and we cannot look down at our paper. The goal is to really study, look, and observe what you are drawing; see how the different parts interact, connect, and are layered. We worked on noticing little details that at a first glance you don’t notice. These are fun because they are not supposed to look good- it gets everyone a little more relaxed and at ease.

The second warm-up was a regular contour drawing. Here, the goal was to not pick up the pencil but you could look down if needed. More continued observation. I consider these warm-ups the ‘research’ of our ‘paper.’ When writing a paper, it is important to have a rough draft that you can learn from, edit, and re-work to make the final paper that much better. The same goes for drawing. We lightly outlined the basic shapes that we saw. We then added more descriptive lines to create 3-D shapes. Next, adding value to turn those 3-D shapes into form.

We have learned how the elements of art create our work and how to manipulate them to create art that is aesthetically pleasing. The students were also taught how to use line to create value and should be practicing different strokes and techniques taught to add value to their projects. Here are some in progress pictures from class.

 

Gorgeous Photographs from a very informative and moving TedTalk

Student work

Here is a sample of some student work that has been created in the last couple weeks.

Color PowerPoint by Sam Kardash

Mixed Media Collage by Emily Theobald

 Mixed Media Collage by Ann Beauchamp

Mixed Media Collage by Noelle Garfield

 Mixed Media Collage by Isabelle Foisy

Mixed Media Collage by Alex Jones

 Sketch by Isabelle Foisy

Artistic Congress

Artistic Congress is off to a great start this year. We have a VERY dedicated group of students that have a ton of ideas for bringing more art to the community. We had a little fun this last week with a nail art session. We talked about craftsmanship, applying the elements and principles into our designs, and trying to be influenced by an art style while we create.

What we learned: we need nail polish remover to help with our craftsmanship!

Food for thought! Ashton Kutcher gives some great insight!

WELCOME BACK!

Welcome back to school! With the 2015-2016 school year, you will see some changes in the art room. We are trying to utilize technology as much as possible to increase your art experience. Instead of finding your assignments on my blog, you will now be able to find your assignments, handouts, etc. in your very own Google Art Classroom. The first week of class, we will go over the access code and how to join the class so you can stay up-to-date on what is due.

The blog will now be used to share more student artwork, local inspirations and art shows, and anything else that I find worthy of sharing out to our art community.

Have a great year and I cannot wait to see you all! Best of luck on your first day.

Studio Art Weekly Sketch Due Thursday, March 18

For this week’s sketch, you will do two drawings. One will be to render something made of paper. The other, will be in contrast, to draw something made of metal. I want you to compare a hard surface to a soft surface. It is up to you how you show these two sketches. You can draw them individually or you can combine them to create your own interesting composition. Please define what juxtaposition is and take that word into consideration while creating. Have fun, spend the time necessary, and take pride in your work.