Is it Thanksgiving break already?

Hi Kindergarten and First Grade Families, we have been having a wonderful time in the GLOBE Art Studio this fall.  The students are excited and eager to share their work with you, so I am sending home several things today and tomorrow.

Kindergarten students will be bringing home Robot Collages, 3D Lines Sculptures, and Paper Weaving projects this week.  Each of the projects helped us try out new techniques and learn new art vocabulary.
If you get a chance, please peek in the main hallway, the kindergarten Molas are displayed and they are beautiful. A mola is a sewn panel made by the Kuna people of Panama. It typically features local wildlife and elaborate designs. We had fun looking at the bright colors and designs of the handcrafted mola and making our replicas colorful and exciting.

weaving 

sea turtles and other ocean animals were common in molas

First Graders have been hard at work practicing their embroidered Tapestries these past few weeks.  I can't begin to tell you how much I have loved this project and how proud I am of them.  (Just stop me in the hall and ask me.  I think I have mentioned it too many times to some of my colleagues.)  They learned to thread needles and create simple stitches.  Many of the students put a handle on their sewn tapestries for display purposes. They each got to make choices about color and design for their tapestries.  It was creativity in action!  It was hard to stop at the end of each class, and there is nothing better to hear than, "but I want to keep working on it!"   I really can't stress enough that seeing them go from struggling to thread a needle, to stitching their own initial or design was a joy.

Students will also be bringing home some Emotional Self-portraits that portray themselves expressing 2 different emotions.  Not only did we have to examine what our eyebrows really look like when we are surprised, but we chose colors to help express our emotions.

In the main hallway, I have hung the Amate Bark drawings that first grade completed for Hispanic Heritage month.  The ancient people of northern Puebla and Veracruz used the local amate bark as paper, and their shamans created magical paintings that were to bring prosperity to the villages.  The original paintings are fantastical and colorful.  The students used markers and oil pastels to emulate the paintings.
* I have  had a little trouble getting things to stick to the hallway walls, so bear with me while I figure it out.

As always, please contact me with any questions or just to tell how much your child liked art!
Ms. Cottrell    

focused on stitches

Amate Bark coloring

Project Updates: 2nd-5th Grade

2nd-5th grade artists have been working on some exciting new projects since the lantern parade! Here is what we are doing in each grade:

2nd graders have started a self portrait unit. We started by looking at different examples of self portraits, and we discussed their similarities and differences. We also talked about how the artists' representations of themselves revealed their personalities as well as their physical characteristics.





The students have also been exploring how to draw self portraits in their sketchbooks using a mirror. This week we looked more deeply at Frida Kahlo's self portraits and discussed her use of symbolism and imaginative imagery, and now the students are adding symbols to their self portraits and experimenting with different ways of representing themselves!

3rd graders have been learning about Alebrijes (spirit animal sculptures from Mexico). They were invented in 1936 by the artist Pedro Linares, who had fallen ill and had vivid dreams of colorful mythical creatures.  When he recovered, Linares began to make papier mache versions of these creatures and held workshops so other artists could make them as well. They are now a significant part of the arts in Mexico, primarily the Oaxaca region.

The 3rd graders have been designing their own Alebrijes by combining the physical characteristics of animals that represent different parts of their personality. We are now starting our sculptures of these Alebrijes using newspaper, aluminum foil, and masking tape. Next week we will use Art Paste (gluten-free and nontoxic) to attach strips of newspaper to the surface for a paper mache effect. They are looking great so far!

4th and 5th graders have started projects inspired by contemporary Native American artists, and I'm so excited to see what they come up with!

In 4th grade, we watched a video about a group of contemporary Native American artists whose work, while inspired by their heritage, seeks to move beyond the stereotypical view of Native American art and culture. We had really great discussions of what we assume about Native American art versus the kinds of art we saw in the video. We also talked about ways in which contemporary artists can be inspired by their cultural heritage in different ways, utilizing different media, techniques, and subject matter.

The students have begun researching their own cultural heritage (including but not limited to: ancestors, religion, family or cultural history, forms of art made by traditional or contemporary artists from their culture, current events from their countries of origin, symbolism, etc.) and will create a work of art inspired by what they discover. This is a very open-ended project, so you may get (or may have already gotten) seemingly random questions about your family's heritage or history! The students will be creating an artwork or series of artworks based on what they are most passionate about in terms of their heritage, so I am really looking forward to seeing them come together soon!

5th graders looked at two images portraying Native Americans and discussed the idea of power as it related to each of the images. We had a really rich conversation about how prevalent certain stereotypes are and how they are still present in popular culture and the media (represented in the first image). The students discussed how the second image felt less stereotypical and represented a  Native American subject in a more powerful light.


Jolene Yazzie is the artist who created the second image, which is actually a comic character inspired by her mother, who fought for women's rights. We talked about how we can create our own comic book characters inspired by everyday or unlikely heroes, and the students are working on designing and developing their characters. They are looking great so far!

As always, please let me know if you have any questions about our projects! You can reach me at still@theglobeacademy.net. Keep checking this page for more updates in the coming weeks!

Welcome to Art at GLOBE! 2015-16

Hello Families!

Welcome to a brand-new year at GLOBE! Ms. Cottrell and I are so excited to begin new projects with your students, and we are off to a great start!

In 2nd and 3rd grade, we started the year off with a creativity challenge - given similar materials, students had to create an original artwork without drawing, coloring, or painting. Here are some of the results!

    4th and 5th graders worked in teams for a design challenge - using various materials, they had to create a freestanding sculpture, making it as tall as possible. After the challenge (which was much more difficult than the students expected!), we talked about what we can learn from the artistic process; specifically collaboration, teamwork, and flexibility.

Grades 2-5 have now begun making lanterns for the BeltLine Lantern Parade on September 12, and they are looking good so far! 2nd and 3rd graders have been making geometric forms using popsicle sticks, while 4th and 5th graders are constructing organic forms using wooden coffee stirrers.

More updates to come!

Free Art Week and Yarn Bombing!! Dec. 15 - 19

Hello!! I hope everyone had a wonderful and relaxing break - I know I did :)

The families who were here at GLOBE last year may remember how the students "yarn bombed" the school after learning how to finger-knit. Yarn bombing is a fun form of street art (or "guerrilla art") in which the artist covers areas of his or her community in yarn, usually by knitting/crocheting around objects, trees, etc. (The entrance to the Eastside trail of the Belt-line on Monroe Ave. was yarn-bombed recently, and I believe it's still there if you want to take a look!) We had discussed how public art like yarn bombing can impact communities by adding an element of fun (as well as beauty) to areas we typically overlook. Here are some pictures of the students learning to finger-knit, as well as a few areas of the school that we yarn bombed!

Since the students were so excited to learn this technique (and many of them went overboard - I apologize to the families who had to add yarn to their holiday shopping lists at the last minute!), I would like to invite you all to help me and the students yarn bomb the school again this year before Winter Break. And since the 3rd grade Free Art Friday went so well, we will also be creating free artworks in each grade to hide during the last week of school. From December 15 - 19, the school will be filled with small artworks and finger-knit creations from your children!

I do need your help, however: because the students are in the process of finishing up previous projects, we will probably not have enough class time to devote to finger-knitting. If your student would like to participate in the yarn bombing, I ask that they work on the finger-knitting at home. Thanks to many generous donations, I have lots of yarn to let the students take home if they agree to help with this project :) I will also be available after school from 3:00 - 4:30 on Thursday, Dec. 4th & Monday, Dec. 8th for students and families who want to learn and/or finger-knit together. Here is a link to a tutorial that should help you get started!

Ms. Elliott-Earby has requested that the yarn be picked up by the end of school on the 19th, so if any of you would like to help me take everything down from 1:30 - 2:25 on that day, I would really appreciate it!

Thanks so much, and please let me know if you have any questions!

Project Updates: 11/3 - 11/14

Happy Friday!

As always, the artists here at GLOBE are a busy group! Here is what we have been working on:

Kindergartners have been learning about how colors can express emotions. After drawing 4 self-portraits to convey different feelings, students colored and painted their self-portraits with colors that corresponded with the emotions they illustrated. Next week, they will will finish painting and compile their self-portraits to create a book of emotions!

1st graders began looking at the landscapes and still-lifes of Pablo Picasso and compared/contrasted them to those of Paul Cezanne. We discussed how Pablo Picasso sought to see objects in a different way and created paintings that were more abstract than those made by artists previously. The students chose one of their previous artworks to re-imagine (landscape or still-life) and began redesigning it in their sketchbooks by focusing on shapes and forms. What a transformation!

2nd graders have begun creating characters for a visual storytelling project we will be doing for the rest of the semester. Next week, each class will vote on a common theme for their stories, and we will look at ways in which artists tell stories using pictures.

3rd graders are beginning a Guerrilla Art project inspired by local artists Catlanta and Evereman, as well as The Guerrilla Girls, an internationally-renowned group of female artists who use posters, billboards, and print media to promote social change. We talked about the different functions of guerrilla art and also discussed how guerrilla artists create brands by using signature styles and easily recognizable symbols. Now the students are planning their own guerrilla art projects, focusing on visual branding and considering their purpose for creating and distributing art.

4th graders are continuing their preliminary drawings on the wooden boards that will soon become each class' mural. Slowly but surely we are getting there!

Finally, I have to give a HUGE thank-you to two wonderful fourth graders, Cole Church and Richard Kozkak, who volunteered to help me organize the studio during their lunch and recess times today. Together, we made a huge improvement! It's things like this that make me so appreciative to be a part of this community :)

More updates coming soon! Enjoy your weekend!