I believe the art room is a great place to inspire other people. For the past two years on our end of the year activity day I have invited students to come to the art room and paint pieces that will be installed around our school. This past spring I decided to paint core subject artworks for their individual wings at our school. At the end of the 2011-2012 school year the administration decided to change the 6th, 7th, and 8th grade wings or hallways of our school into Language Arts, Math, and Social Studies, with Science having a lab located midway down each wing. This involved massive moving of many teachers' classrooms. The plan was to allow core teachers to work with each other to plan curriculum across grade levels to teach the common core. When we first got back to school a fellow teacher and friend asked me if I could have my students paint paintings to designate each new wing. I was extremely busy and just didn't have the time to do it but it stayed in my head, like most things do, festering, until I decided I would indeed do something about it. I had some of my advanced students work on these at the end of the school year. They came in for a couple of weekends before the end of the school year and some came in on the activity day. In addition to this, I decided I couldn't leave out the exploratory teachers. We worked on a piece for the music wing and just before school started, I called a few of my students and they came in and worked on a piece for the art, technology, wood, and metal wing. I probably should create two more paintings to make everyone happy, but I am out of time. They would be for physical education and one for the home economics and life skills teacher. I need to let them know that I haven't forgotten about them. They are included on a special piece which I will share at the end of this post. Here is the result of our effort.
My students were so proud of their artwork. We went online and got inspiration from images we saw and combined those with other ideas we had. Then the students painted these on their own asking for advice as needed. I think my students are awesome. These were 7th and 8th grade students. They painted on large 24 inch by 30 inch stretched canvas with acrylic paint.
During the school year, teachers have PLC (Professional Learning Community) meetings every Thursday morning from 7:00 until 8:30. Students have a delayed start at this time. During my meeting time one morning, I had a great idea and so I sketched out a plan for my students to make a large painting at the end of the school year to motivate our school. We are the "Trojans". I took our Trojan symbol and put it with puzzle pieces. Into the puzzle pieces are all of our classes and sports. I decided to ask everyone who looks at it a question? How do you show your Trojan Pride? Of course this is symbolic and we are all part of the puzzle that makes up our wonderful school. My students made all color decisions with help from me to make sure the colors were balanced and on the activity day many students came in to paint. After the activity day, my advanced students that had been working on the painting, took ownership and fixed anything they didn't like, and added all of the lettering. I think this turned out fantastic and I know they are so proud of it. This was made up of four stretched canvas paintings that are 20 inches by 30 inches. We also painted with acrylic paint. Check it out and I hope it inspires everyone that sees it! This was put at the top of the stairs and I have received wonderful comments from people that have seen it.
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