The Museum of Photographic Arts in Balboa Park has a Call for Entries for their 8th Annual juried Youth Exhibition. This year’s theme deals with community in My City, Your City. They are now accepting submissions from San Diego students K-12 who have used photography or video to document their community, neighborhood, or home from a personal or cultural point of view.
What does it mean to call a place home?
What story would you tell about your community?
Where do you come from and what do you call home?
My City, Your City will showcase the creative and artistic voices of San Diego’s youth while offering visitors the opportunity to view the world through their eyes. Encourage your students to submit their artwork today! Open to all of San Diego County K-12 students!
The deadline is June 15, 2013.
Visit http://www.mopa.org/yx13 for more information or to download a submission packet. You can also watch their call for entries video here.
Here is a quick Matisse-inspired lesson suitable for grades K-1. All you need is copy paper and markers. It is just right for a substitute teacher, or anytime you need a low-mess 40-minute project.
We began by looking at this painting by Matisse.
Matisse ‘Purple Robe and Anemones’ 1937. Source: wikipaintings.org
We identified patterns in the artwork: I said, “thumbs up if you can see an orange striped wall…a vase with wavy stripes…a floor with black diamonds” etc. We noticed Matisse used a lot of colors as well. Next students folded the copy paper into quarters. I modeled how to draw of a vase of flowers on a pedestal in the very center of the paper.
Then the children drew a different colored pattern in each quadrant of the paper. They added a pattern to the pedestal and base as well. Some even added fruit to the pedestal, just like Matisse.
We had enough time to watch this cute video of When Pigasso Met Mootisse by Nina Laden (via Storylineonline.net).
Our students are so lucky! Why? We have dedicated parent volunteers in our art program. One very special volunteer is Devan, chair of the annual art show.
I wanted to share a few of Devan’s ideas for displaying a lot of student art, both 2D and 3D, using just three 6-foot tables.
Here’s how Devan does it:
arrange the tables in a ‘T’
skirt all the tables with student art
place narrow risers in the center of the tables
Table Skirt Display
We created table skirts from bulletin board paper, and stapled the art to them using a long reach stapler.
Risers:
We use long, narrow ‘beams’ of styrofoam as risers for the table. They are twelve inches tall, six feet long, and about six inches wide. We we able to pin third grade self-portraits to both sides of the styrofoam.
Result: we had space to show ceramics on top of the table and the risers:
The space-saving display.
Door Display
Do you like the cut out I made for the handle?
Do you like my door display? I used the time-saving ‘Deep Space Sparkle’ method to hang these: mount the art on construction paper, then staple the art to bulletin board paper using a long reach stapler. I urge you to read this post – it contains so many practical, time-saving tips.
Whew! We had a fabulous art show last week. Everyone – students, parents and staff – loved the show! Here are some ideas from our show.
Pick a Theme
She’s back! “Crazy Quilt” is our creation for Cow Parade La Jolla.
All of our art shows have a theme, and we keep it secret until the show. This year it’s Cow Parade. Our school created this cow, “Crazy Quilt” back in 2009 for Cow Parade La Jolla. It is inspired by a 3rd grader’s design. The cow made a visit to our school for maintenance and ended up being the star of the art show.
Create an Interactive Event
Cow Parade coloring contest
Our art shows always have an interactive event. This year it is a Cow Parade coloring contest. In past years we had a QR code scavenger hunt, and a stamping station with eraser stamps made by our sixth graders.
Music and Video
We always have music and video during the art show. This year I made a slide show of all the cows in Cow Parade La Jolla, followed by a slide show of all our iPad art projects. This would be a great time to show student-made movies.
How to label all those clay self portraits? Cover the table with paper and write the students’ names in Sharpie. Better than all those labels! The clay looks great leaned up against colorfully wrapped cardboard boxes.
Doll house filled with clay pots.
We use this doll house for clay display. It has nice, open walls and saves a lot of space.
Thanks to…
Our entire art program is made possible by the parents at our school. A big thank you to the art room and art show volunteers for all their hard work during the year and for three CRAZY days hanging the show. The gorgeous room layout and decorations are the vision of our amazing art show chair, Devan, a professional party planner. We are so lucky to have Devan on board.
100% of our art program is funded by our school PTO. Thank you.
One more thank you – to my husband.
My husband had flowers delivered to me at the art show. WOW!
Enjoy!
p.s. More art show display ideas in the next post!