New Art Room!

New Year, New Art Room!  This is our 3rd year here at St. Mary School with an Art Program and our 3rd Art Room.  This year's Art Room is upstairs and we have a sink!  Yeah!!  It is always a challenge moving all our wonderful supplies to a new home but very much worth the effort.  See for yourselves!

Before

After

Before

After

All room decor is created by our students!

We Love Color!

Welcome Back!

Welcome back to a new school year!  I am excited to be back with the students creating new masterpieces! Last year I concentrated my effects on posting all the student's artwork on Artsonia, an online school museum, which was very successful.  This year I am going to try to keep up both the Art Room blog and our gallery on Artsonia.  Wish me luck!

Above is our Back to School Mural hanging upstairs next to the Art Room.  Our amazing students created these flowers during the last classes of Art last Spring.  We recycled our table covers by painting on them and using up any left over paint from the school year!  The results are beautiful!  Thank you to PaintedPaper for the idea!

St. Mary's Art & Music Show!

On April 10th 2014, St Mary's hosted it's Annual Art & Music Show!  This year the students transformed the upstairs hallway into a tropical rainforest.  I must admit, I think we surprised ourselves, take a look!

5th Grade Toucans

View of Hallway

1st Grade Painted Paper Butterflies

2nd Grade Painted Paper Spiders

One of the many Mini-Murals created by our 4th & 5th grade artists

Snakes were a favorite!

Students created foliage and animals of the Rainforest

Some of our fabulous 6th graders showing off their beautiful Chameleons

6th Grade Colorful Chameleons!

4th Grade Kings of the Jungle! (Lions don't actually live in the rainforest, but they were fun to draw!)

7th Grade created these amazing chalk pastel Tree Frogs

8th Graders were given the challenge of basing their compositions off a Henri Rouseau painting.
The results were stunning!

Another 4th grade Mini-Mural

All of the Art on these walls were created in groups.

Breathtaking Waterfall painted by our 8th Graders!

Thank you to all the students for their hard work and our faculty for their patience as we took over the walls of St. Mary School! My main objective in creating this themed Art Show was to give the students the opportunity create something bigger than themselves they could be proud of.  Every student created an individual piece of art as well as worked in groups to draw & paint the amazing tropical rainforest leaves, flowers and animals that make the jungle come to life! Our students came together as a community to create a truly beautiful work of art. So Proud!

St. Mary's Art and Music Show!

It's that time of year again and this year is going to have more artwork than ever!  The students here at St. Mary School have been hard at work for the last few weeks painting up a storm!  This year student's artwork will be hung art gallery style in the downstairs hallway of the school.  But, come to the upstairs hallway to be transported to a Tropical Rainforest!  Experience the animals as well as the surroundings of this very special place on our Sacred Earth.

In July 2013, at the World Youth Day event in Brazil, Pope Francis made a plea to the the world for the amazon region and it's people.  He calls for "respect and and protection of the entire creation which God has entrusted to man." This creation, he said, should not be "indiscriminately exploited, but rather made into a garden."

Students not only have been learning about artistically creating the plants and animals of the rainforest, but biodiversity and conservation of the region as well. A donation bin will be available at the show to raise enough money to symbolically adopt one of the endangered species of the rainforest.  Come and See Us!

Students working together to create the rainforest

3rd Grade The Cat in the Hat!

March is Dr. Suess Month! Our 3rd graders did an amazing job of drawing their version of Dr. Suess' beloved, Cat in the Hat. The students were shown how to approach the drawing using directed line and then added their own flair to it.  We kept the painting simple, just the red stripes & bow tie, and lastly created bold backgrounds with chalk pastel on colored paper.  These drawings bring a smile to everyone who views them!  Great job third grade!

Lesson Inspired by Deep Space Sparkle

1st Grade Dr.Suess Fish

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish!

The 1st graders were busy getting ready to celebrate Dr. Suess' Birthday by drawing these whimsical cartoon fish.  We first looked at Dr. Suess' drawings in the book, One Fish, Two Fish and talked about the animated features, the big eyes and fanciful curling tales of his fish.
The students were asked to choose one color for their fish, just like in the book, and then drew them on large paper in chalk pastel.  The final step was to outline in black oil pastel.  They certainly had fun drawing these!

Lesson inspired by Deep Space Sparkle

6th Grade Holy Spirit Mosaics

Mosaics are one of the oldest and most beautiful art forms known to civilizations.  Dating back over 4000 years to ancient Greece, they are basically the art of creating patterns with glass, tile, stones and other similar items.  The 6th grade looked at and discussed various types of mosaics before we began our project.  As the 6th graders prepare this year for the sacrament of Confirmation, we thought it would be fitting to create their own mosaic, depicting the Holy Spirit.

These mosaics were created by colorful cut paper on black backgrounds.  The results were spectacular!