Wood Burning Ornaments

I'll have to say, I was super excited to try this little project. I'll also say that I was a little nervous about giving my students tools that reach up to 750 degrees in temperature, but all in all, our first experience at wood burning was pretty successful. 

I had spent the better part of the previous evening, looking up ornaments that people had used a wood burner on, on Pinterest to find examples. I gave my students a page full of pictures of ornaments they could make, did an overview on wood burning and talked safety, safety, safety! My first hour is full of Junior & Senior boys so I can always use them as guinea pigs or crash test dummies lol....I know they can handle it and they're super artistic so they can generally give me a good idea if this project will be a good project to continue with the rest of the day with my other classes. They can also give me feedback on what adjustments I need to make to make the project go more smoothly. So I'm pretty grateful for my first hour. They're a great class to have my first year of teaching!

The snowflakes seemed to have been the easiest to get done and they are beautiful. A few of the students used a light coat of paint to add some color. 

Leathercraft

The leather stamping project has probably been my kid's favorite art project this year so far! Thanks to community member John Caudill for making it happen! Before I knew what happened, he had bought enough wristbands, key fobs & bookmarks for 125 students, a starter kit for the art room, took off work an entire day and showed up in my room to book the day to spend with my art students and this was one of those few projects that everyone, from my 4th grade girls to my senior boys enjoyed, so it was definitely a win. 

Mr. Caudill wheeled in several suitcases of things and began setting up as we waited anxiously to see what kind of goodies he had. I knew leather stamping was a hobby of his, but I really didn't expect him to have quite so many things. He set up several leather projects he had made that filled up a whole corner of the art room...a patriotic picture of 1776, quiver for arrows with an impressive basketweave pattern, bible cover, portfolio cover, leather vase with leather roses and a whole lot more for use to look at and see the possibilities!

After sharing just a little bit about the basics of leatherstamping, he jumped right in, gave us a quick demo and let the kids get to it! Students got to choose from a large variety of stamping tools, alphabet stamps and 3D stamps with things like skull & crossbones, a cross, deer, indian feathers, etc. It was pretty interesting to see the designs that the kids came up with. Some made things for themselves and some made things for their parents or their girlfriends. 

Here are just a few pictures I got that day...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Red Ribbon Week Collages

RED RIBBON WEEK 2017
October 23-31, 2017

So it's Red Ribbon Week at Cyril Schools this week. I remember having lots of activities that week when I was a student...especially I remember them always giving us a red ribbon to wear on the first day. 

The festivities continue and they have lots of things going on to educate and raise awareness at both the grade school and high school.  

I thought I would get my art students involved in some way, so we have been working on collages this week. I asked each student to make a collage that was Red Ribbon themed. My desks are piled high with magazines, scissors, glue & paint and the kids have done a good job. Some of them have incorporated "drugs, alcohol & cigarettes", which are surprisingly easy to find in magazines. It's no wonder we have a problem. There are so many ads for tobacco, pharmacy & liquor! Others tried to find as much red as possible and went with the "red" theme. I also told students they could find photos depicting things like freedom, travel, family or other great things in life that a life of addiction can cost you. 

This collage features headlines such as 'burning bad taste" &
'taste of poison' to get the message across.

I always look forward to seeing the work that Christian produces. Such
a creative & artistic person!

Simple, yet effective

The price of addiction

Artist Andy Warhol

This week we learned about artist Andy Warhol who was in the center of the Pop Art craze during the 50's & 60's. 

His work was controversial, since up until this point, art was created with the purpose of capturing people & events of historical or religious significance and this fine art was made to display on a museum wall. Andy Warhol began finding work in everyday things such as Campbells soup can or shoe advertisements and of famous people in pop culture such as Marilyn Monroe & Elvis Presley.

In my art classes we watched a short video on Pop Art and Andy Warhol's influence in this visual art movement, we did a word search puzzle about Andy Warhol and students were given coloring sheets of 4 repetitive images and encouraged to color them Andy Warhol style...in bright opposing colors. They could choose from a paint can, strawberries, hamburgers, flowers, apples, soda cans, converse sneakers or ice cream cones.

Pardon the poor lighting...
I think it's time for some 
new lighting in my hall! 

Some of the students' 
coloring sheets, done 
"Andy Warhol" style

I also gave the Elementary School students the option of having their photograph taken and "Andy Warholized" with the PopArt FX app, that takes a photo and puts an Andy Warhol like colorized filter on them. I printed out copies for all of the students that they could hang up in their room.

B.J.

Braelyn

Chance

Sam & Max

Addy

Ashton

Averi

Carley

Derrick

Gavin

Hadley

Hayden

Isaiah

Josh

Kenzie

Kyle

Landon

Lanie's drawing of Addy

Manuel

Serinity

Metal Embossing

Today at the High School we are doing metal embossing and the students all seem to really enjoy this project. First, students were given a sheet of heavy duty aluminum foil and sculpting tools to practice with. They could choose from a variety of design examples that I printed off, or they had the freedom to create their own designs. After they felt comfortable with their design and techniques, they could emboss their design on a 5" x 5" sheet of 38 gauge metal. The sheets had silver on one side or copper on the other and students could choose whichever color they wanted to use! 

CHS Fight Song

Football is in the air around Cyril H.S. and this morning a student shared with me that they didn't know that Cyril had a fight song. I wanted to share this video of the Elgin HS Marching Band playing the CHS Fight Song for the younger Cyril Pirates who don't know it.  Thanks to Canden Webb for sharing this YouTube video with me & thanks to Kim Coop-Martin for arranging for Elgin to play it for us when they participated in Cyril's Homecoming parade a few years ago!

While many of the younger generation does not know the fight song (& some don't even know we have one), our older alumni still remember the song very well! A couple of years ago I told her that I didn't know the fight song and she immediately began singing it. Also, my cousin Teri (Carlson) Williams called to leave her brilliant rendition of the song on my cell phone voicemail. (It's the only message I saved & kept, so next time you see me, I'll play it for you!) Teri's mom, Cheryl Carlson, was a cheerleader at Cyril many decades ago and Teri followed in her footsteps as a cheerleader during her time at CHS. Cheryl made sure that Teri & cousin Tia also knew the fight song. Cheryl's granddaughter, Rachyl Carlson, continued the family tradition as a cheerleader, until this year so she could focus on dance. I'm sure that Teri has made sure Rachyl knows the fight song as well! I'll have to check with her when I see her in the halls! 

Here are the lyrics so we don't forget this longstanding tradition:

CHS
Fight Song

Oh CHS!
You're the one that we love best,

Our Royal Blue, Is always good and true

So fling the banners high, Victory depends on you.

In the Hall of Fame, We'll write the name

Of Royal, Royal Blue. Rah! Rah!

Color Wheel Eyes

Okay, so these first couple of weeks at school have been super busy and I'm a little behind on my blogging! At both high school and elementary we have started the year going over the basic elements of art. With this project at the Elementary with my 5th & 6th graders, we spent quite a bit of time talking about the element of color. 

My students learned about the colors of the rainbow...(remember learning ROY G BIV as a kid?) We learned that the colors of the rainbow always go in order of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet and about how they can be arranged in the color wheel in that order as well. I taught the kids the primary colors, secondary colors, complementary colors, warm & cool colors and they made these color wheel eyes!

Working at the grade school has been a bit of a learning curve for me and I've got a little way to go in learning what works! The best thing about my grade school though is how excited they are to learn...they are like little sponges just ready to learn new things. And although I feel like I have a lot to learn, these guys are so forgiving and don't even seem to notice. My 2nd or 3rd day, one student came around the corner and said, "Mrs. Gray I missed you ALL day!" They're pretty good at making you feel like a rock star lol! I think it will be pretty easy with them, to feel like I'm really making a difference.