ImPRESSive Art! Donors Choose!

Please check out our Donors Choose listing to see how you can help us get a printmaking press for our academy! Giving is simple and you can give a little or a lot, but if you feel called to donate, Donors Choose will MATCH your donation until May 14th when you use the code "INSPIRE" at checkout!

Just copy and paste the link to your browser or go to Donorschoose.org and search "Impressive Art" for donating or more details.

http://www.donorschoose.org/project/impressive-art/997967/

Back to Basics Bootcamp!

It's our first annual "Back To Basics Bootcamp"

No worries.

No one is screaming or demanding push ups :)

After many months of creating, conceptualizing and competing it's time to pull the reigns in and focus on the basic skills needed to be successful artists. The Academy students are refreshing their abilities through demonstration and practice by drawing self-portraits by looking in a mirror, drawing simple items like pencils, to more complicated items like silverware and glass utilizing no color, pencil only. We will spend a major part of the remaining weeks of school working on these basic but essential skills. So far these "simple" drawings are looking lovely and could easily be developed into something different. Stay tuned!

Artist in Bloom Results

Last week Academy and non-Academy artists participated in the district Artist in Bloom showcase & competition  The best of the best is presented from each campus in the district and three awards are given at each level (elementary, middle and high school) These pieces also become part of the permanent collection at our Education Center. Out of the three pieces recognized our academy students Rosa B. & Claire S. were honored. The RMSFAA sister school/program GPHS/GPHSFAA took all three honors at the high school level. Congrats to everyone who participated and represented their school.

Some of the featured winners

Rosa B. colored pencil drawing representing Peace

Claire S. Alice in Wonderland inspired teapot

Two of the three winning pieces representing GPHS and GPFAA

Teapots COMPLETE

I can't begin to describe how AWESOME I think these turned out! I think this was for many of the students, the most difficult project of the year. Hand building spouts, handles and lids and attaching them while sticking to a theme like "Alice in Wonderland" proved to be a challenge but the end result was a great success.

Devon (backleft) Claire (back right), Anna (middle left Noah (middle right) Salma (front)

Paola's teapot somehow missed the "group shot" so here it is :)

Mark (back left) Alli (back right) Paislee (front left) Alexandria (front right)

Some of the pots had different designs on each side, side one.

Side two

Junior VASE

Here are just a few pics from the Junior VASE event in Coppell April 20th. I regret not taking more but somehow handling/distributing the artworks on a tight jury timeframe kept me distracted from the photo ops. We received numerous compliments and praise not only for the quality of the work but their preparedness for the event. Overall we received 45 medals including 2 silver medals which represent the top 7% of all of the pieces entered (close to 900)

Thanks again to Mr. Lewis (GPHS), Ms. Hendricks (RMS), Ms. Montoya (RMS) and Mrs. Kent (LBJ) for all of their help. Another big thanks to Rosa, Paislee, Salma, Devon, Mark, Sarah, and friend for their help preparing the over 70 pieces of art on our "work night" We were able to have the majority of all of the work competition ready 4 days before the event which is huge! We are a great team!

Noah and Lexus with their silver medal pieces

When We're NOT in the Classroom....

We play outside...

 Sometimes outside we can't stay away from the art...

and we clean up real good to enjoy a matinee of Wicked!

7th/8th grade academy artists

6th grade academy artists

Linocuts and Collographs.

I love printmaking. The end.

Not really, but I do absolutely love it and the special textures you can only achieve with printmaking. Over the past few weeks we have experimented with linoleum cuts and collographs. Collographs are so easily done with just simple cardboard and scrap mat board. 

My students cut scrap mat board to create their words & designs and glued them to cardboard. Words and letters had to be glued in reverse in order for the print to come out correct.

Once the design is cut and glued, students then had to gesso the plates in order for it to retain it's shape and not absorb too much when inked and printed.

Once the gesso dried, students used brayers to roll out ink onto the plate for printing.

I also had students glue tissue paper on random parts of the paper to printed on for a pop of color which made for an even more impressive design.

The left is a print from the plate on the right. The print has pink, yellow and orange tissue paper with the printed image on top with black printing ink. The "plate" on the right has already been gessoed and inked. Collograph plates can be printed over and over which makes for a lot of opportunities to experiment.

Paper Mache

There are so many possibilities with paper mache! In the past my students have created oversized pencils, apples, and lipstick. This year we kept it simple and the Art 1 & 2 students created simple letters while Art 3 students had the choice to create a word.

Students begin by creating a 3 dimensional form of their letter/word with poster board and masking tape. 

We used a liquid starch and water mix to paper mache three layers of newspaper on the form. Students then used bleeding tissue paper as the top layer to provide color unless they created a word, then they had the option paint it.

It can make quite the mess.

Completed word by Alyssa A. She even received a medal for it at the Junior Vase Scholastic Event.

Another medal winner but by Blake B. The craftsmanship on this is impeccable, difficult to do with paper mache.

The Beauty of Fruit, Complete!

These pieces turned out STUNNING! Check the prior entry here to see the first steps of the project.

Cinco Winners

Congrats to the Academy artists on their recent wins for the district annual Cinco de Mayo Art Competition. Reagan Academy students took first, second and third place! The pieces are shown below the photo of our first place winner, 6th grader Serena!

1st Place: Serena R., 2nd Place: Rosa. B,  3rd Place: Donovan C. 

Our 18 Cinco De Mayo Entries

Currently some of the pieces are being featured at the district Education Center

Junior VASE Results

Now that Junior VASE is OVER and was a great SUCCESS I can get back to posting on a regular basis. There's A LOT to post, but for now (as promised) here are the results.

We took home a total of 43 division medals. More than half of the artwork we presented medaled. From those medaled pieces the top 10% is selected for an additional medal, a silver. The silver medal is the highest honor at Junior VASE, it's the equivalent of the gold medal at the high school VASE event where they would then advance to State. We received TWO of these medals! Noah L. received a medal for his Alice in Wonderland inspired teapot, pics to come soon. Lexus L also received a silver for her oil pastel drawing of a kiwi!

The following artists received a medal in their division. A "2" indicates they medaled for more than one piece.

Anna L (2)
Alexandria W (2)
Grace T (2)
Mariah W
Michael H
Blake R
Savannah W
Rosa B (2)
Paislee Y (2)
Paola R
Adrianna V (2)
Clarissa B
Donovan C (2)
Alyssa A
Marissa G (2)
Faith L (2)
Nancy A
Terra C (2)
Serena R
Salma O
Lexus (PLUS SILVER)
Serena M (2)
Karen H
Ashton C (2)
Mark L
Jessica N
Tyler J
Noah (2) PLUS SILVER
Ulyana V (2)
Alli O

Congrats to everyone who participated and for those that medaled! I was told our work was wonderful and that we are doing great things at Reagan! Thank you for giving up your Saturday morning to represent your school. I am proud of you! Come by before first period to get your medal(s) if you received one!

Dinosaur Tracks

And a word from our student teacher...

Our Reagan Art Students completed clay tile “Dinosaur Foot Prints”. This activity introduced the students to clay as a medium and furthered their understanding of the use of texture in art. The students were introduced to the history of ceramics in a short PowerPoint then they were given a PowerPoint and a worksheet detailing the major genera of dinosaurs. From this information, they were given the choice to choose any type of dinosaur they wished.

Using rolling pins and other supplies, they learned how to work with clay. Their task was to make slabs that they then cut into individual four inch squared tiles. The next step was to have the students create a relief sculpture that looked like a “Dinosaur foot print” and apply a glaze of their choice that mimicked stone.

The final product was a marvelous variety of work that came out quite well.

-Jon Matney, student teacher, UTA