2011 garden arts fest at venice united church of christ

Our efforts to make the VUCOC/Garden Elementary Arts Fest "bigger and better" than last year came to fruition last Thursday night! This year we had the YOUNG AMERICANS (our chorus) and the Gator Band play for all of the parents. Art awards were handed out, refreshments were had, and the VUCOC was a great venue for all!

The church did a wonderful job setting up the artwork, adjudicating the artwork, and promoting the show! We couldn't have asked for a better turnout!

I put about 1/2 of the glass sculptures in the show. The rest will reside at the South County art show in a couple of weeks.

It was quite a colorful show!

The students were very proud of their work!

Everyone received a ribbon...award of Merit, award of Excellence, or Emerging Artist. While the award itself means nothing to the students, the ribbon means everything!

I think the smiles on their faces tell the whole story!

On behalf of all our Garden Gators, we thank the VUCOC for their warm hospitality in hosting our Arts Fest. See you next year!

bunny sculpture tutorial

This is a quick "tutorial" on how to make the bunny sculptures I had in this post. They were quite the rage and I had kids in tears who missed art that week, so I had a few extra visitors here and there so they could make their bunnies!

A 9"x9" sheet of green. Fold the sides in and have the kids cut fringe to make it look like grass!

Roll two pieces of 3"x9" strips of white and glue them together to make the bunny's body.

Glue on ears, nose, feet, etc. I LOOOOOOOOOVE sticker eyes from Sax Arts. They are cheaper than the "googly" eyes and don't slide down from too much glue...just stick it and forget it!

Add a cotton-ball tail...

We added a little Easter grass for pizzazz...

...and called it a day!

happy spring!

I just love these Kindergarten Gardens at night!

my little chickadees

This is a great springtime project I learned about on The Chocolate Muffin Tree. We used cardboard scraps to stamp out the tree branches, potatoes to stamp the chickadees' bodies (you could use ANY color of paint and call them ANY sort of bird!). We used very skinny pieces of cardboard to twist the tails and heads. Afterward, I gave them some Easter grass (LOVE that stuff!) and let them tear it up and make some "leaves" on their trees with it. Of course this could also be used as a nest as she does on the link above. I will post some more student examples once I have my camera back in working order!

bunny sculptures

These are great centerpieces, egg-hiding-places, and just all-around wonderful paper sculptures of bunnies! I make these with my Kindergarten and First Graders each year and they love them every single time! Materials you will need: 1 9x9 sheet green paper (for "grass") 2 9x3 pieces of white paper (for the bunnies' bodies) -- you could sub toilet paper tubes for these 1 4 1/2x6 piece of white paper for the ears and feet 1 small piece pink paper (for nose and ears) 1 small piece blue paper (for eyes) wiggle eyes (I use the sticker eyes from SAX Arts) 1 cottonball some crinkly easter grass (just for fun!) I will post a step-by-step tomorrow. My camera is M.I.A and I had to take these from my cell phone!

build-a-burger!

I saw these super-cute colossal burgers on Artolazzi's blog, and I just HAD to do them with my fifth graders! This spurred a whole class discussion (for the duration of our project, which was 2.5 classes) about the food challenges on Man v. Food. It was so much fun!

Each student got a sheet of black that was 24x12. They started with the "placemat" and then the bun. For the bun, they ripped some corrugated cardboard to expose the bumps and filled up their burger from there!

I love the different textures and elements the kids managed to fit into the burger. This was a great lesson to teach the kids how to fill and entire composition, too!

voice your view: art in our community

Back in February I wrote this post about our fabulous visitors from FireBug Studios. Because time got away from me (I hate it when that happens!!!) I neglected to put up any pictures of the finished products!

This project was a grant submitted by me as a Building Blocks PLUS grant to the Education Foundation of Sarasota County, Inc. The grant was about students participating in the entire artistic process, from idea-generating to production to galleries. This was the second part of the grant: making glass sculptures. Each student was supplied with a round piece of glass and had MANY different sizes and shaped pieces with which to work from there. The artists from FireBug taught the kids how to cut the glass and we had very FEW injuries!

I purchased the wooden stands from FireBug for $2 each (the entire glass project cost about $20/student) and they currently reside in our display case at school!

This is, of course, agonizing for the kids as they want to take their work home SOOOOO badly! I am transporting every single one of them to our Art Show next week at the VUCOC, so they have to endure a wait just a little bit longer!

I thank the Education Foundation from the bottom of my heart for granting us the money to do this project. I know it is something the kids will remember (and cherish!) forever!