Celebrating Art Together

Student-designed art show programs (I have one or two left if you'd like a copy)

Thank you for attending our annual Del Mar Heights Art Show! The media and innovations center was transformed with vibrant, thoughtful work representing every child in the school on exhibit. Thank you for supporting the creative work of our students and taking your time to enjoy the evening with me.

Come one, come all to enjoy the fantastic creativity and ingenious ingenuity of our super students! 

From 6-7:15 on Thursday, April 2nd, the Library Innovation Center will be transformed with art from all grade levels on display! 

Escher would be proud...

As a continuation of our studies of emerging from our Master Artist Exhibit of a few weeks ago, our students have been enjoying the perplexing, challenging, and gratifying arts in the area of optical illusion and effects. Both the second and fifth grades have taken on new projects in this vein with other grades to follow. The math and logic thinking that goes into this type of art is a perfect connection to classroom experience and helps put a very practical spin on subjects that can seem to be devoid of creative spark. On the contrary, as we have seen with Escher, math and engineering are linked inextricably to the creative process. As we first dream, we can then do- and to articulate the whole of the process is the goal.

An ArtPartners visit from Professional photographer and graphic designer Garrett Highhouse

Sixth Grade students are living in a vast landscape of digital imagery. More than any generation before, these students will live with an intuitive visual vocabulary created by bearing witness to thousands and thousands of images, made available through internet culture.

But there is an art to creating images, and masters of the craft are able to understand their choices and create images to fulfill a goal. Garrett Highhouse, a local sports, surf, lifestyle, and fashion photographer graced us with a visit to share about a wide range of topics. We looked at lighting, composition, equipment, and motivation. We talked about the business of photography and the necessity to create a visual "brand". Needless to say, the sixth-graders were mesmerized.

Missions complete!

If you were to survey fourth-grade teachers to determine what single topic they most enjoy teaching the results would show a strong love of teaching about California history and the Missions. These iconic California structures have remarkable resonance with kids as they are both aesthetically interesting and culturally fascinating. Students learn about the differing perspectives of the Native Peoples, Spanish Missionaries, and political and military interests as they research the Missions. 

For fourth-grade students in art class, there is an opportunity to use art ideas such as layered depth, contrast, color relationship, and medium technique as they create interpreted renderings of a chosen Mission. 

We begin by researching and taking on the perspective of various participants in the Mission stories. Then we take a look at the architectural elements and design characteristics of the buildings themselves. Students are then required to make a series of sketches of missions, determining a favorite from which to draw their final piece. Finally, chalk pastel is used to create the high-contrast, high-interest pieces with bold black outlines to set off the color zones. The results are quite stunning. I think these will likely be hanging in our art show in the spring.