TAEA 2012 - San Antonio

I hate leaving my students but a good teacher continues to learn and develop as an educator and the Texas Art Educators Association annual conference is a great opportunity to do so. This year Mary Cavazos from the Fine Arts Academy at Grand Prairie High School and I presented a workshop on the tortilla paintings of Joe Bravo. Art teachers from across Texas learned about Joe Bravo, the tortilla painting techniques, as well as created their own tortilla paintings. As an added bonus, I gave a demonstration on making homemade tortillas. Teachers not only painted, but kneaded, rolled and cooked their very own, hot and fresh tortillas. You can find the PowerPoint from the presentation on the right link that says "Project PowerPoints." You can also find it for download on SlideShare under RodriguezArt. 

Thank you to the teachers who attended and participated!

"Imagine Peace"

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the Academy received three sponsorships from the Lion's Club International for their annual "Imagine Peace" competition. Out of 15 pieces we narrowed it down to 8, then 5, then the final three which will be submitted to compete. It wasn't easy as so many of the pieces were great representations of our student talent. The criteria to make it to the final three focused on the following:

Concept
What is the message? Are the elements used relevant to the idea? Is it clear?

Skill
Did he/she utilize the medium efficiently? Were the choices for medium suited to the students skill and ability? Were the medium choices complimentary of the concept?

Craftsmanship
Was it neat and clean of random and unintentional marks? Were the pencil, pastel, etc strokes controlled?

The pieces that met all three criteria at a high level were selected, and here they are! Congrats to Alex, Rosa and Giorgi for their entry into this competition. Thank you to all of the students who worked hard to complete their pieces, there were many stellar pieces to chose from!

Veteran's Day

The academy students completed their Veteran's Day service project pieces and the response from the faculty, staff, administration and guests was overwhelming. The Veteran's who won the 7/8 Academy Studio pieces were thrilled to have a piece of art of their own. The 6th Academy linocuts are currently on display in the library.

Art is a process of sharing. As artists we have the opportunity to share our ideas, our dreams, and our talent. It can show many things. I hope this gesture shows our appreciation not only to the men and women who have given so much, but to their families who had to sacrifice as well. The token may be small, but the gratitude from each individual student who created the works was great.

Thank you to all of the Veterans and families who have, and continue to sacrifice.

Linocuts and Tortillas

On the last post I showed you a peek into what the 7/8 Academy students were creating for this years Veteran's Day Assembly and Reception and now I want to show what the 6th graders have been working on. We looked at Americana styled quilts and talked about how quilting is not only a hobby but also an art. We used some of the patterns, designs, and colors to create our own "quilt square" via linoleum cuts. The students sketched their ideas, and upon selection they then drew and cut their design out of the linoleum. Luckily the only injury from this project was my own as I was demonstrating how to carefully cut the linoleum (do as I say kids, not as I do!) I'll just let everyone believe I did it on purpose to make a point :)

Seeing how we are well adjusted into the year we thought it was time to have the students get to know the teachers from the Grand Prairie High Fine Arts Academy so Ms. Cavazos, Academy Art 1 teacher, came to give a mini workshop on tortilla painting made famous by artist Joe Bravo. Ms. Cavazos was one of the first (if not the first) art teachers to teach the same technique as the artist himself. She reached out to him years ago and he was gracious to share his tips and experience. He is even sending us high quality images of his work so we can use them for our presentation at this years TAEA conference in San Antonio. 

We invited the academy mariachi students to join us and used the opportunity to introduce Dia de Los Muertos. Many of the 6th graders have learned about it in social studies this year and it's a great way to teach them about the significance of the popular imagery we see a lot in our culture and art, especially recently. The students were free to make their paintings of anything they chose but examples of calaveras (skulls), cactus, and portraits were shown . It was great to take a break from the current projects and work with a completely different group of students. Surprisingly enough, a few of these mariachi students held their own quite well with a paintbrush. Mr. Diaz should be careful, they could make great additions to our art room. We'll see if they can do as well on the soccer field when we play them! :)

A big thank you to Ms. Cavazos, Grand Prairie High Fine Arts Academy, Mr. Diaz and the Mariachi program for your help and company! To learn more about tortilla painting and Joe Bravo, please visit his website here.

Mrs. Rodriguez

P.S. The clay pieces have been through the first round of firing, we will glaze sometime this week and should have finished projects around this time next week!