Thursday - Spring Arts Showcase

Love this image from Kansas City Young Audiences

Today's art feature for the Spring Arts Showcase is community service! Artists help their communities by sharing messages and solving problems in interesting and creative ways.

We like to tie in a service project to our Fine Arts Night celebration - in recent years it has been #petpARTners and #FreeArtFriday. Today, you can think of a way to brighten the day of someone in your community through art. If you have a favorite community service activity, how can you add your artistry to that? I will give you a few suggestions below, but make sure you choose something that is meaningful to you - it does not have to be from my list. Make sure you share your creation with me and on social media with your parents' help. Ideas:

#petpARTners - a community service art program we created at Dolvin to raise awareness of the homeless pet population

Make some art about a shelter pet and share it online, along with the shelter information. At Dolvin, we use the FurKids Atlanta website - there are several other local shelters if you have a favorite. Search my blog for tons of ideas about #petpARTners.

#FreeArtFriday - a feel good art movement where artists share their art in the community for free, often in a scavenger hunt format using social media

Make a small work of art with a positive message, and leave it to be found - maybe on a neighbor's doorstep.  Search my blog for Free Art Friday ideas.

ATC's - Artist Trading Cards are small 2.5 x 3.5” works of art that are traded and collected

ATC's are perfect for spreading a positive message or idea, and for Free Art Friday as well. Draw a positive message and share with someone - mail is a great way to share an ATC. Search my blog for ATC ideas.

Next topic - Fan Letter! I hope you guys are logging on to our school's Artsonia gallery and leaving comments (Fan Mail) for students - see this post for more info on how to do that. Today's fan letter from our Artsonia gallery ...

Dear Leah from 2nd grade, 

Your clay pet portrait of a dog from FurKids is an excellent example of creating a 3-D form from clay. You modeled the ears just so and joined pieces of clay to make the face and snout, and you painted it to look realistic. Thank you for sharing this so that people in our community will get to know the pets in our local shelter and hopefully adopt these pets and make donations for their care. It makes me smile! 

Your fan, Mrs. Knight

Finally, here are some pics from the community service events we have done in the past at our Fine Arts Night - I hope they inspire you!

Tuesday- Spring Arts Showcase

Today I am sharing a video with you that will help you upload your art to Artsonia. In our art room, grades 2-5 have been uploading their art themselves. Parents will need to assist the K-1 kiddos.

I would also like to share two Fan Letters I wrote from our Artsonia gallery. I hope you will write some as well - see Monday’s post if you need the info on that.

Dear Carolyn and Adam (4th graders), 
I love your truck designs! Both of you came up with really clever ideas for your truck, and in your own unique ways. Adam's design is really detailed and complex, and he put a lot of thought into the features of the truck. Carolyn's bright and beachy ice cream truck looks right at home with the sand and surf. I would love to visit both of those trucks in real life - thanks for doing your best with this project. 
Your fan, Mrs. Knight

Welcome to the Spring Arts Showcase!

Hi Dolvin families and Smartest Artists! Although it is disappointing that we aren’t assembling for Fine Arts Night for the first time in decades, we are happy to present a celebration of art and music at Dolvin right in the comfort of your own homes! Here is the schedule for the week - everything will be posted here on my blog:

Monday - Welcome video, Fan Letters & Mystery Drawing

Tuesday - Artsonia from home how-to, Fan Letter

Wednesday - Share your home gallery, Fan Letter

Thursday - Art activity, Fan Letter

Friday - Wrap-up, sharing, and Fan Letter

It's MONDAY! Please watch this welcome video and then follow these easy steps to access our digital art show and portfolio review:

1. Go to our school's online art gallery here:
https://www.artsonia.com/schools/school.asp?id=31372
2. Type in your student's first name and select their portfolio.
3. Enjoy exploring the artwork you have collected over the years at Dolvin - notice how much you have grown as an artist! Talk about the different materials, techniques, and inspirations found in all the different works. What are you most proud of? What changes would you make?
4. Select "Comment" at the top of the gallery page to leave a comment on your student's work.
5. Share the love! Search for a friend's gallery (or browse the whole Dolvin gallery) and leave a comment on their work - it's always a thrill to read a compliment about your art. Parents, you will need to assist your child when posting comments for friends because you must be of a certain age - please enter the parent's birth year. Also, all comments require parental approval before they are posted. In addition, let distant family members know about this opportunity - I get so much amazing feedback from grandparents and family members who LOVE seeing their loved ones' art on Artsonia and leaving some Fan Mail!

If you'd like to write an actual paper Fan Letter like we have at Fine Arts Night, you can print one at home by clicking this link: https://drive.google.com/openid=1mGjsts83x1BzodtpjaFLfW3n5QRHnPuV

Remember that you can upload the art you are creating at home to your digital portfolio - just click on the "Artsonia" tab at the top of the page for the how-to's. All of the original pieces of art are safely stored at school in their student portfolios and will be returned to students when we are able to go back. Although our traditional frames are not available this year, Artsonia does offer art prints and many other products with your student's art on them.

Below, I am posting some behind the scenes pics from this year of our artists hard at work. They really warm my heart and make me feel so accomplished! Thank you, thank you for joining us and  celebrating the arts in our school! #DolvinGoesDigital #FCSrising 

Mystery Drawing Monday - click here! https://dolvinartknight.blogspot.com/2020/04/mystery-drawing-monday-april-20-2020.html?m=1

Dolvin Spring Arts Showcase!

Check in next week for our Spring Arts Showcase, where we will celebrate art and music at Dolvin Elementary! We can't assemble for Fine Arts Night this year for the first time in decades, but that won't stop us from shining a spotlight on our creative achievements for this year. Be prepared to enjoy from the comfort of your own homes. See you then!

    

Fine Arts Night 2019

We had another amazing turn out at our annual art show and chorus concert this year. Thank you so much to all the families and volunteers for making it possible. Nothing makes me happier than celebrating our work every spring! 

Art show/FurKids fundraiser

We had another big turnout for our annual Fine Arts Night art show and chorus concert - this year we also raised money for our local animal shelter FurKids. We have been promoting them and raising awareness all year by including the homeless pets in our artwork and sharing around the community and online. The kids have really embraced this community service project. #petpARTners

Artome set us up with a nice presentation of the student artwork the day before the event so that the students could get a sneak peek the day of the event, and get their families excited to attend that evening. It is so nice to get to see families talking about art, and many wrote FAN letters to their students. I also made the letters available to the students during the sneak peek if they wanted to compliment another student.

During the year, when we had extra time, we collected our crayon stubs and melted them into new paw print shaped crayons using a silicone mold. We also used leftover clay after clay lessons to make clay paw charms. We set these out at a FurKids information table and asked for a minimum $1 donation, with all the money donated to the shelter. It was a fantastic night and I have to say a big thank you to all the teacher volunteers, my assistants Samantha and Daniela from 4th grade, and all the students and families! I can't wait to announce our donation very soon... :)