It was a pleasure to see old faces, and meet new prospective students and parents this past Sunday in the STEAM Arts & Technology room!
In the next couple of weeks, I will be letting the students take work home and hopefully they will get home in one piece! It is difficult to believe that we are quickly approaching our last 6 weeks of the 2018-19 school year. Students will be working on drawing personal "Mandala's."
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The students have been working with software like Paint3D and Tablet Apps like Art Rage, and Sketchbook that give the students the opportunity to create drawings and paintings "digitally." Some have said that they find this harder than the use of pencil, paint and pad.
Each student is also working on designing a Website with the use of Graphic Art sites like Weebly.com or Emaze.com. They were able to choose what their website concentration will be. If they like food, pets, fashion, sports or cars, they get to develop the website with that focus. I have explained that this is an iterative process (one that is ever changing). Student websites will be available to view during our Open House, April 15th. We will have visitors from Fuzi School in China on campus, Monday, February 4th and Tuesday 5th. Two banners were made, one for the front entry foyer that says in Mandarin: "PTAA welcomes Fuzi School Qufu City."
After a quick Chinese color significance research, it was decided that the second banner, a 5 foot canvas would be painted with shades of yellow, orange and red. These colors represent warmth, clarity, good faith, change, adaptability, expansion, enthusiasm and good luck. The students were then asked to trace their hands and color them with bright inviting colors. They were positioned on the banner to form a warm, life giving sun. Student, Abigail Scott carefully painted the Chinese characters for the following quote by Confucius: "Education breeds confidence. Confidence breeds hope. Hope breeds peace." Alexus Gaines used watercolor to complete the quote background in shades of orange. Magaly Aguirre and Leo Avila used their steady hands to paint the words on the canvas. The piece was finished with Mod Podge adhering the welcoming hands and 4 foot fabric fringe hanging to the floor. Amazingly, the fringe was left long without cutting and when it was hung in the conference room, it was a perfect fit. Once again, the Design Process was used to develop a plan for a need and successfully complete the project. Great work PTAA students. I know our guests will feel welcomed with your hard work! Our third large scale art project was installed before students left for the Winter Break. Again, the Design Process was followed to guide the project from concept, through research, logistical planning and display. As you walk into the front entrance of PTAA/Mesquite, we have created our very own student Museum. Creativity and team work can certainly be seen in each project. We will now be putting our brainstorming and efforts into STEM Fair projects which will be completed and shared in February 2018! We are looking forward to seeing and sharing our PTAA students innovation.
Students used the Engineering Design Process to guide this large scale Art Installation. We began with a "problem." Mr. Pandey had asked the STEAM Art classes to work on a few community art projects that we could use the hallways in the new building. We brainstormed ideas and one idea was to make a large paper mache Chinese Dragon as we have connection with our Chinese sister schools. We researched this idea and sketched our design. Our build consisted of paper mache head and body, and tye dye sheets for the body. We discussed the elements of art including color, line, and shape.
Please check out the video that shows our large scale paper mache STEAM art community project. Here is the video. Here are the "Bones" of our large scale project for the middle entrance hallway. All 6-8 grade STEAM Art classes are working to design and construct an approximately 20' Chinese Dragon that will be suspended from the ceiling. Students are using paper mache, painting but most importantly critical thinking skills to make this vision become a reality. I am confident that we will have a beautiful art piece to share with our school community and our Chinese sister schools!
6-8 Grade Teams will all begin working on yet another large scale school project which will soon adorn our school entrance halls. As we work on this project, students will each be designing and creating their own mask to eventually bring home. They will need to bring a clean plastic gallon size (milk or water) jug that will be used as the form for their mask. We begin work this week so don't forget! (If you do not have this type of milk or water container available, they may also bring foil. I have explained how much and how we will use it). Looking forward to sharing pictures of all our creations!
Middle School Students have all been busy creatively working on their part in a very large scale art project that will be permanently displayed in the school. I call this work our "Puzzle Piece Paintings" project. When we are finished and ready for installation, I will post the symbolism and the process the students worked through.
The students have used the Design Process to tackle this large project and I am very excited about the progress. Stay tuned for more... |