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!

Art at Home: Spring at the High Museum

Today is the first day of Spring, and the High Museum posted some of their spring-themed art. Which is your favorite? I like Mattie Lou O'Kelley's still life - the colors and patterns are exciting and I love Georgia folk art! Maybe you can collect some springtime artifacts and make your own still life at home - look for a variety of colors, shapes, sizes, and textures. Taking your sketchbook or paper outside to draw is always fun and inspiring too! Post your pieces to Artsonia using the tab above or tag me on Instagram or Twitter, even email works. :) Save for your portfolios. Happy spring!!!

Murals and shacks

Can you tell I'm trying to catch up on my sadly neglected blog? Doubling up on the content for each post :).

Fourth graders learned about community murals and their purposes - beautification, advertising, sharing a message. We drew plans on printed images and  used a planning sheet for working out/explaining what the intention of our mural was.

First graders looked at the art of Beverly Buchanan and created 3-D shacks from recycled materials we saved in the art room. Folk artists often use what they have or find rather than buying specific art materials.

My trip to see Infinity Mirrors by Yayoi Kusama

On the first day of Christmas break, my family visited the High Museum of Art in Atlanta to see the amazing Yayoi Kusama exhibit Infinity Mirrors. It was a beautiful show and we took lots of great pics - the only room where photography wasn’t allowed was the pumpkin room, where the the room was filled with the warm light of glowing glass pumpkin sculptures. We also got to see some old favorites by Anish Kapoor and Kehinde Wiley - take a look! I hope everyone is enjoying their time at home... see you soon!

  

 

 


 

  


 

Pumpkin paintings in 5th grade

We are getting excited in our community about an upcoming art show at the High Museum in Atlanta - the Infinity Rooms show by Yayoi Kusama! My fifth graders and learning about her style, like her love of dots, her clothes that match her works, and her love of pumpkins.

We made our pumpkin paintings by first observing some natural pumpkin forms and drawing the contours. Next, we selected a color scheme of analogous or complementary colors and set to painting. Last, we cut out our pumpkins and made a background. 

Free admission to the High Museum tomorrow, June 28!

Dolvin families - there are some fantastic exhibits to see right now at our very own High Museum of Art, and you can see them free tomorrow! http://www.high.org/Programs/Programs/Events/2015-Events/Special-Events/Michael-Shapiro-Community-Day-062815.aspx

Here are some of the exhibits you can see - I grabbed these pics from the website, so the buttons don't work but just click the link above instead of on the pics.