Contest Winners

We've had several Bolivia Artists win contests recently and I just wanted to spotlight some of their success! First off, congratulations to the winners of the Bolivia T-shirt design contest - 1st Place: Shanaedoah S. and Sabrina F., 2nd: Meredith W., 3rd: Garret E., Honorable Mention: Ahoyoka S., Hailey C., Madison W., and Onzel B. Way to go everyone!!

Congratulations also goes out, once again, to Sabrina F., who created the winning entry to Brunswick County's annual poster contest. The theme this year was "The Power of Play." Check out Sabrina's amazing work!!

Flip Books

After being introduced to animation through Keith Haring's flip books and Walt Disney animation studios, third graders then created their own flip book animations. I think the results are aaaamazing! :) Check out what Mrs. Floyd's class came up with.

Adinkra Prints

Second graders studied the Adinkra printmaking process of the Ashanti in Ghana, Africa. We learned about the symbolism and  function of Adinkra cloth, and then created our own symbols / stamps for the prints. We also got to explore a giant traveling map of Africa on loan from National Geographic at the end of the lesson.

Students' stamps with Adinkra symbols

The Story of Love and Peace - Priscilla

The Sun Shine - Daniel

The Life of Print - Kamryn

Story Quilts

After reading Tar Beach by Faith Ringgold, first graders created their own story quilts about an experience they had (either real or imagined). At first, students created a small watercolor painting and used patterned paper to collage their borders. As the project continued, a student asked if they could make an actual uilt. I thought why not, and decided to use burlap for students to transfer their images onto. First graders seemed to really enjoy this project. They had some lively sewing circles going on and they did a really great job of helping each other out with the sewing. At the very least, they got a lot of practice tying knots!

My House by Alexis

My House. My house is a rainbow. The tree is brown and green. I love my house because I like my tree. I played when I was little.

The Taj Mahal by Serena

This is me and the Taj Mahal. It's beautiful here! The Taj Mahal is white. I used to go there when I was little. The Taj Mahal was built long, long ago. The Taj Mahal is the tallest building in India.

Paul's awesome presentation of Leaving the Atmosphere. Too cute.

Some Updates and Some Mexican Suns

Really looking forward to getting back on track with posting much more frequently now that the yearbook is finally finished and submitted!! Here's a few cool things coming up: I'm very excited to be attending the NAEA National Convention in Baltimore in a few weeks... I expect to have lots of great stuff to report back from that. After we get back from break, 5th grade is going to be starting a collaborative project with students at a school in Oaxaca, Mexico where a friend of mine is currently teaching art. We'll be setting up ongoing skype video chats for our classes as the project continues. Stay tuned...








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In the meantime, check out these AWESOME Mexican suns by 3rd graders! While working on this project, we learned about soo many art ideas: contrast, variety, mixing warm and cool colors (just to name a few). We had a lot of fun making these suns and I was especially impressed with how much personality students put into them. Enjoy!

*Credit: lesson was adapted from this one by paintedpaper.

Ode to Food

This post is a bit late as this lesson is from a few months back when all the Thanksgiving / holiday cooking was going on. Second graders were introduced to Pop art, looking specifically at Andy Warhol and Wayne Thiebaud. They learned that art could be about everyday objects like food. They then chose their own favorite foods and drew them using oil pastels to blend and mix their colors. Students finished the lesson by writing an ode to celebrate their food and then read their poems aloud to the class. We had a lot of fun with this one and it certainly made us all very hungry! Enjoy!

Listen to Amber's poem: Chocolate Cake

Dustin's Cake and Ice Cream

Conley's Pizza

Listen to Bryce's poem: The Tall Cake



Listen to Madeline's poem: Turkey!



Listen to Hannah's poem: Apples

Aztec Mosaics

Third graders learned about Aztec culture by examining their art and architecture. After viewing many different types of mosaics, students selected an aztec symbol and started planning out their own mosaic. They had to select their color palette, make choices about how to fill their symbols, and design patterns for their backgrounds. After much hard work their finished mosaics look great!!!