Finishing at Forest Hills Middle School May 2012

I finish my residency here at Forest Hills Middle School in just a few days.  As you can see we have been quite busy with watercolors, tempera paints, oil pastels and even acyrlics!  Having worked with 7th-9th grade and over 180 students in 20 intense days has given me a greater appreication of Patience with students.  It is almost the end of the year so Spring Fever is very evident.

My real core group of the 9th graders worked as teams to create 6 large murals that will hang in the cafeteria.  I also worked very briefly with them on a clay sculpture, the work of wich is literally firing in the kiln.  I probably enjoyed the 7th graders just as much and their work in watercolor, oil pastels and tempera painting was very successful.  A small sampling of their work is evident below.  I was even able to sneak in a piece that Mrs. Honkus accomplished....accidentally posted twice so we get to see it two times!

After this, we are working on finishing my studio space, flying to Vegas for a wholesale show and keeping up with our orders.....FUN and EXCITING!

More of Forest Hills Middle School

Forest Hills Middle School Residency

Here I am at Forest Hills Middle School.  I will post more photos of the finished watercolors later this week.  Right now I am working with Art Teacher Lucille Honkus for 20 days with grades 7-9.  This is Lucille's retirement year and we will all really miss her!

The 7th and 8th graders are finishing their watercolors based on animal, plant and bird imagery.  I borrow the meanings from Ted Andrew's book Animal Speak as well as my own research based on Victorian Times and the language of flowers.  Each student selects 5 adjectives to describe themselves and then renders a drawing based on these images.

The 9th grade project involves us in teams working on large scale canvas paintings that will hand proudly in the cafeteria.  Of course Lucille and I had to do one that talks about the arts!  More photos and jargon to come.

More Valley School Photos

Although my residency at Valley School is finished, I really hope to see more photos of the finished clay works as they come out of the kiln.  In our whole process, the firing of greenware to bisque and then to a glaze fire is really a tremendous amount of time.  We did however get our mosaic pieces finshed and hopefully some finish photos of those on our site would be great.  With these photos, it is easy to see the happiness and anticipation of both student and teacher.  Most of the time in a residency I get to feel like both of those roles!

A great way to end the day

What a beautiful day it was today!  We worked until about 2 pm and then headed to the barn to brush the horses.  On our way back we picked up the dog crew and went up to the farm for a stroll.  The dogs had a blast in the dandelions and alfalfa.  It was also nice to have a rest and enjoy the afternoon sun.

Imagine their surprise

Imagine the faces of fourth graders when I asked them to face the chalk board today in art class and I told them we would be writing poetry.  They were crushed for a moment.  Then we did two poems together and they got to create their own.  Poetry is not so bad after all!  It is also an Art Form and in this case a nice reminder of some grammar skills too......sssshhhhh.....that is not something most of us like to talk about but it happened successfully today with the Fourth graders.