ART Symposium 2011

Well, I made it through Symposium week...YAY!!!  For those of you who are new, our PTC puts on an educational Symposium every year for the students of our Elementary school.  It is paid for by our annual BBQ dinner fund raiser and is done completely by PARENTS, and it is alot of WORK!!  This year's theme was ART, and we had a ball!! We started the week off with a parade Monday morning, and ended it Friday with Tent Day.  Each tent was represented in the parade.  This is my friend Kathy's last year, since her daughter is in the fourth grade with my oldest and will be moving on to Middle School next year.  I allowed her to talk me into doing a tent with her, where in the past I've only worked in someone else's tent!  Our tent's theme was Art in Literature, so for the parade we dressed as book characters.

 

Sorry for the blurred faces, but check out those HUGE letters!!  I used a circular saw for the first time, and cut them out of plywood...go ME!!  I also primed them, but made someone else paint them!  I also used a miter saw for the first time cutting the PVC pipe at a 45 degree angle to prop the letters up!  I was Olivia, and the kids were the dinosaur from Chalk, Fancy Nancy, Lil Bo Peep, and Madeline.  The only sewing I've done in the past couple of weeks was to make the Madeline's cape using this awesome tutorial!

Not only did I allow Kathy to talk me into doing a tent, but she also wanted to go into EVERY class and teach an Art technique...so we did!!  Seven Kindergarten classrooms and seven first grade classrooms did Buffalo skin "paintings"!

We taught the children about how Indians used symbols to tell stories of the Tribe's year.  Each child got to use a symbol that they liked best.  The buffalo "hides" are made from thick brown craft paper that we found at Lowe's by the paint department.  The children used charcoal to make the symbols.

For the six 2nd grade classes, we split them in half and taught two different techniques used by book illustrators.  Three classes did Eric Carle's painted tissue paper collages...

 

Did you know that Eric Carle and his wife opened a Picture Book Art Museum in Amherst, MA??!!  I would LOVE to visit it!!

And three classes did Marcus Pfister's watercolor technique used in Rainbow Fish...

  

 At the end of the week, we chose two paintings from each 2nd grade class to display in our tent!

Six 3rd grade classes learned about Clemetine Hunter, and re-created one of her paintings.

 

Clemetine Hunter was the granddaughter of a slave.  Although not a slave herself, having been born after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, she worked on a plantation for very low wages and never learned to read or write.  She painted on whatever she could find, mostly paper grocery bags.  So the students used the same thick brown craft paper we used for the buffalo "hides", to represent Clementine's "canvases".

For the six 4th grade classes, we had to stick close to their curriculum.  So some classes learned about Lewis & Clark, some Pioneers, and one class learned about the first assembly line.  We taught the lessons then had the students paint or draw something they learned.  Then we put them all together for a Story Quilt!!

 

 

 

I didn't get a picture of the Assembly Line Grid, unfortunately, but it was AWESOME!!  Kathy really put alot of thought into the 4th grade lessons and art projects!!  She did a really great job, and we are very proud of what we were able to accomplish with lots of help from other Parents coming in when we needed them!!

Once all of the Classroom projects were done...we still had to get our tent together!!  Since we were in the classrooms all day, we were usually up painting storybook characters ALL NIGHT!!  Thankfully, we had other super talented moms and dads helping us out!!

Here is a walk through of our tent!   As the children walked up they were able to view the 4th grade French classes' work using Cubism.  Our French teacher uses this technique to teach shapes!  The Eiffel Tower was done by a parent last year for the Library's Literature around the World night, and has resided in the french class ever since.  It tied in very well with our Madeline.

 The front of our tent was done with our Kindergartners in mind.  We used the Nursery Rhyme characters to greet them, and of course the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom tree!!

 The mushrooms are from Alice in Wonderland...we had an Alice after this photo was taken!  The mushrooms got bigger as the children begin "shrinking" into our giant Book!

 

 The first presentation was on all the various types of ways illustrators use to tell stories.  We talked about Dr. Suess, Eric Carle, Marcus Pfister, and other illustrators' techniques.  Storybook Art is not always drawn pictures.  It is really a child's first introduction to Concept Art.

 Don't you LOVE this??  Rhonda, from You Sew Silly Mama made it.  It is stitched, painted, wired...you name it!!  She took characters out of her favorite children's book to make this masterpiece!!  She is AWESOME, and with three adorable girls running around it amazes me all she gets done...thanks girl!!!  BTW, she also did the Chicka Boom tree...that's what she gets for telling me she was done early!! teehee!

This was done by another momma!  She came to our first meeting, then we saw her at the Art Walk downtown.  We knew we wanted something special to represent Suess....she NAILED it!!  Thanks Margo!!

 One of Ms. Priss' oldest friend's mom did the Bone piece for me!!  This is what she tells me, "oh, I draw a little...I guess I can try to do something"  WHA-??  A LITTLE??  See the AMAZING talent I'm surrounded by?  My neighbor across the street did the Green Eggs & Ham character as well as Curious George and the Wild Thing with Max!!  I am soooo thankful to have such wonderful friends!!

Having all of these talented friends made me want to attempt a character without having Kathy come back and fix it like she did with many of the other characters I did....what do you think?

I drew him WITHOUT the projector and painted him freehand....of course he would have look 20 times better if Kathy had put some artsy touches to him, but I was pleasantly surprised with the little bit of skill I had!! :)  The table next to him was set up with Caldecott winners.  That was the next part of the lesson of the tent.  I went over the history of the Caldecott medal, and that they could all be found in a special section of the Public Library.  Kathy and I also "read" from our favorite Picture Books.  Hers was The Lion and the Mouse, mine was Chalk!!  Here's a quick review of the book.  I LOVE this book...you know how the Boy LOVES dinosaurs!!  We found it at the Library one day...and I've had it ever since!!!  I finally returned it yesterday, with the 30 other books I used!!!  Santa will be looking for a copy to leave under the tree this year!!

 So leaving the tent, was our display for our 2nd grade winners....

 

 And of course CHALK!!

 The kids got to use some of my magic chalk to make their own art come to life!! 

Sorry this post is sooooo picture heavy!!  I am just so proud of all the work that was put into Symposium week!!  Of course, there were OTHER tents besides ours!! HA!  Although I didn't get a chance to see them all...I gave my camera to Rhonda to get a couple of snaps....

 The Art of Motion Picture tent where the kids learned how to make drawings into moving pictures....



 And here is the Bead Art tent where the kids used LOTS of Mardi Gras beads to make Art!

 Speaking of Mardi Gras....we had a tent for that!!

The students learned about Mardi Gras inspired art and got to eat King Cake...out of season!!

 They also made Mardi Gras masks!

This was the Museum Art tent...

 The kids had a BLAST making their own ART!!

Well....this post has taken me a couple of HOURS to get out...whew!!!  I did not have any time to finish any Fall crafting I wanted to get done, so I guess the next time I post it will be all about CHRISTMAS!!!  Are you ready?  I plan on being in the stores with my belly full of TURKEY in a day or so....Black Friday shopping is FUN!!  I know I'm crazy, but it really helps to have it out of the way so I can sew and craft until Christmas without having to think about SHOPPING!!!

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!!!   Until later...