SCHS Art Dept. Nutcracker Christmas Tree!!

Each year, the Fly Arts Center here in Shelbyville hosts its annual Festival of Trees holiday bazaar. The theme for the trees this year was “Stories of Christmas.” Many community organizations enter, including the local high schools. We at SCHS chose to decorate using elements from E. T. A. Hoffman’s 1816 story The Nutcracker. Students did a great job, and the results were absolutely stunning.

The judges thought so too — we won three awards this year!

1st place – Most Beautiful

1st place – Most Creative

3rd place-Best of Show

I will include some general ornament how-to’s in a post to follow, for now, here are pictures…enjoy!! 🙂

 

*For my students* — incidentally guys, for a quick synopsis of the real story of the Nutcracker (which might be a little different from what I remembered ;)) look on wikipedia under “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King.” Has to be under that or you’ll get the ballet. When I read it, it all came back. . . .

Stippling Pumpkins…they’re a smash! ;D

Advanced Drawing students have created some really nice fallish compositions using mini pumpkins. After studying shading techniques, we focused on stippling for this project, emphasizing the importance of observation. These were rendered in Black ink and colored pencil, chalk pastel in a couple of cases.

We focused on visual rhythm or repetition, creating a strong line of movement; also we stressed variety, balance, and overlapping. Students were given creative license to color or embellish their pumpkins as they wished.

Here are some of the lovely results, and a big thanks! to Katie Struk for the great lesson idea. A Power Point on this lesson is on the Art Resources page.

And, as a point of interest, our mini pumpkins were doing rather poorly a week and a half or so into our assignment….I don’t think anyone had to actually touch  mold…just some semi-spongy unhappy squashes. 🙂

Art students complete banner for Board of Education

Once again this year SCHS art students had the opportunity to create a banner for the Bedford County Board of Education to take to its annual convention to represent our school system. The theme this year was “Everyone in for Education,” Although we were working on an extremely tight deadline the kids pulled through and did a remarkable job on this eight foot banner! Art students who took part in its creation include Katee Cargill, Amber Knapp, Chelsey Avina, Jon Lee, Michelle Cooper, and Francisco Carillo. Great job, guys!! 🙂

Painting banner

 

Almost finished!