Week 31

EC's diversity collaboration art is complete.  Every EC student has a piece of their skin color and their personality color incorporated in this work.

LE finished out the year by creating a visual story "quilt" inspired by Faith Ringgold's book, "Tar Beach".  The students started the project  by sketching a make believe place they would fly to if they could fly. They then painted paper to cut pieces to form their make believe places.  They finished off the story by drawing with oil pastels.  Finally they took pieces of pattern paper or fabric to create a quilt like border around their artwork.

ME performed their play, "Where is the Water?".  They told the story of a village in the Azawak region of Sub-Saharan Africa which straddles the border between Mali and Niger and how their lives are enriched by an organization with the goal of making ground water available to as many people as possible in this drought-parched corner of the world.

UE performed their play, "Ding Went the Bell: Life in UE"  and finished the performance off with poetry they had written.  To hear their poetry, go to http://youtu.be/yNRc7SqgoN4.

UE also visited the Frist to see the exhibition, "Exploring Art of the Ancient Americas:  The John Bourne Collection."

MS finished their Ellsworth Kelly Collaboration piece.

MS also spent the last few weeks working really hard to create collages to represent the lessons from the Civil Rights/Heifer Ranch trip.

Week 30

EC has been working with Missy on a collaboration piece about diversity.  The students identify their unique color of skin and mix colors to match.  They also talked about what color represents them and their personality.  They painted one piece of paper to match their skin and another piece of paper to represent their personality.   Missy will take the pieces of paper from all the students and combine it into a one big face painting using the skin colors and a background using their personality colors. Be sure to check back next week to see the final piece!

LE has been discussing Earth Day and the importance of recycling.  Using recycled magazines and paper they created trees inspired by the colorful circles of Wassily Kandisky.

Tree by Lucas

ME continues their three dimensional sculptures by experimenting with cardboard.

UE has been learning about growing plants and herbs in science.  In art, they built and painted planters out of recycled palettes to put their herbs in.

Week 29

ECA has been learning about contrast and balance with abstract art.  They created black and white abstracts modeled in the manner of Cecil Touchon, an American contemporary artist.

ECB is exploring painting with the dyes of tissue paper.  They take a piece of colored tissue paper and place it on their paper.  Then they paint over the tissue paper with just water.  The water releases the dye onto their paper.  The students then take tweezers to remove the tissue paper leaving a colorful abstract painting of blended dyes.

To continue their study of Africa, ECC read the book Anansi the Spider, a tale from the Ashanti.  Influenced by this book and the African culture, they drew a picture of a spider and wove a web out of African print paper.

LE finished their Spring inspired art projects.

ME is experimenting with creating three dimensional environments or sculptures.  They started with paper strip sculptures.  What happens when you experiment with the medium, how can you make it stand by bending, twisting, folding, curling, and slotting?  They talked about scale and about what size creature would enjoy traveling inside, around and on top of their sculpture.  The students labeled their pieces after they were complete, but stayed open to possibility throughout the process.

UE visited and toured the facilities of Casa Azafrán.  They spent some time in the Global Education dance studio learning African dances.

MS continues their collaborative art piece influenced by Ellsworth Kelley.