The Dusty Art Room

Although I have many amazing students in art right now, these two students have earned the Art Student of the Month award! Both boys are 8th grade students who have taken on the challenge of creating extremely difficult projects.  October Art Student of the Month Award goes to Paul P & Gerardo P! Paul spent several days lost and unsure what to create out of clay this year.  The assignment was to make a clay container - "something that holds something."  Projects in the class range from boxes to bowls to vases to creatures!  After much deliberation, Paul decided to create a dragon!  ' Paul is not yet finished building this amazing project, but it's just stunning!  In fact, it is so big that it no longer fits on any of the storage shelves, so the dragon is living on my desk.  I can't wait to share this project when it is complete!  Congratulations Paul!   Gerardo has spent the last two weeks creating his screen print t-shirt...

We've crossed the midterm mark and now it's time to show off some of the work we've been doing! Screenprint T-shirts 8th grade students have started to print their class t-shirts.  Each student creates their own design for the back of the shirt and then transfers the design to a screen. Steps:  Create the design on a sheet of paper Wash and prep the screen for printing Trace the design onto the screen with pencil Paint drawing fluid on the screen where ever you want the ink to print in the final design Let dry Flood the screen with block out fluid Let dry Wash out the drawing fluid with COLD water Let dry Print the design Create the trial proofs on newsprint paper If the screen printed how you wanted, continue to the next printing step Print the design on the heavy drawing paper (if you want a print to hang on your wall) Print the design on the back of the t-shirt If the screen did NOT print how you wanted, wash the ink out of the screen wit...

It's already that time again!  Tomorrow students will come back to the art room and prepare for another year of making art.  The classroom is clean, organized and ready to welcome it's new students!  Before welcoming in the new year, I want to take a moment to celebrate some of the work made at the end of last year.  8th grade students screenprint their own t-shirt that commemorates their time at Hester.  The process is complex, involves many steps and takes much consideration when deciding on a final image. Here's a sampling of some of the t-shirt designs: Don't forget to check out all the artwork from last year in our Artsonia Online Gallery!  Hester Artsonia Gallery

Before break, I challenged a couple students who were done with their projects to make a video of the screen print process we were using to create our fabulous t-shirts in 8th grade.  I handed off the iPads, encouraged them to experiment with the iMovie app and let them go crazy! I gave no other instructions. I was watching the videos later and was completely amazed at the amount of work that was happening all in the span of one class period.  As the teacher, I am down in the trenches with the students, so I rarely get to see the "outside" perspective of my classroom. Here is Emerson's amazing video: Screenprinting! from Carissa Zill on Vimeo .