Barnes N Nobel Art Show

So the last couple of weeks have flown by! The elementary schools in my district just finished up our big art show/fundraiser and it has been crazy. All the elementary art teachers participate in displaying student artwork at the local Barnes N Nobel. It is a great way to connect with the school community and raise some money for the art program. Each teacher displays around 100 pieces and on award day students come with their families to be recognized for their awesome artwork and then parents get to do a little holiday shopping. Barnes N Nobel then donates a percentage of the sales from that day to the art program!

It was a fantastic day and thanks to the tremendous support of the school community our little art show raised over $10,000  in sales at Barnes N Nobel!

Hieroglyphic Name Design

Third grade recently finished these really cool Egyptian Name Designs. Students were introduced to the Ancient Egyptian language and we discussed the artistic choices the Egyptians made every time they wrote, since it was a picture based language. Once students had a handle on it they drew his/her name inside a pre-made cartouche (basically a fancy Egyptian oval). After that students were introduced to the idea of foil relief. Each student took his/her name design and traced it onto a piece of metal foil. After all the tracing and pressing to get their designs in relief they colored it with sharpie markers. Then witha little black spray paint and steel wool we have nice distressed tin name designs.

The second step of the project was creating the frame. We discussed complimentary colors (colors that across from each other on the color wheel). Each student drew a design around their frame which they painted with a pair of complimentary colors. Students were amazed at how many different colors one could get by simply mixing different amounts of their complimentary colors together.