This Week in ART: October 27-31, 2014

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Sixth grade students earned the right to wear Halloween costumes today, and that made me really excited since it was the first time in my 13 years of teaching that costumes were actually ENCOURAGED (even if it was only 1/3 of the student population). Hooray for fun times!

6th Grade Art:

(identities have been protected via cute photo stickers...)

"On Monday we watched videos of Dale Chihuly's artwork. On Tuesday we started our very own Chihuly flower design. On Wednesday we finished painting our flowers, and on Thursday and Friday we melted, and took pictures of our finished flowers."

-Maddie J, Period 9

6th Grade Letter Sculptures are on Artsonia for viewing, as well as our final Chihuly Flower Sculptures!

7th Grade Art:

Lorena's pop can drawing

"Hi, in this week of art we have been finishing our epic soup cans! Then on the start of Wednesday we started making soda pop can drawing. (Which I think are incredible.) Hope you enjoy the next post! Bye!!"

-Lorena, Period 5

7th Grade Monochromatic Self-Portraits are now on Artsonia for viewing, as well as our Campbell's Soup Cans in the style of Andy Warhol.

8th Grade Art:


"This week has been the second week of art. Everyday in art we have accomplished the very best we could with the resources we had. The first thing we did everyday was the drawing challenge. This is a challenge to draw a drawing everyday for 40 days. We then started to mold are clay together. This was for the ceramics project. I am making a mug."

- Tyler and Dylan, Period 1

In other art news...

You may be wondering who I am for Halloween this year.



Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Beetlejuice!

Thanks for another great week!
- Mrs. L.

No update this week...

There won't be a blog post for this week in art, due to my flying out to New York this weekend for a friend's wedding. I'll be out of the building on Friday and unable to assemble the blog post (or bug students to write them!).

I plan on an awesome blog post next week to make up for it! See you then!

Thanks for another great week!
- Mrs. L.

This Week in Art: October 13-17

6th Grade Art:

Audrey's block letter sculpture and plan for the rest of her painting design

"Our class had fun this week because on Monday we had no school and on Tuesday and Wednesday we finished up our cereal boxes painting them, and on Thursday and Friday we worked on 3-D letters and how to draw then also we made a little version of our cereal boxes on a piece of paper and drew our design on it."

-Audrey S, Period 8

7th Grade Art:


"Tuesday, we continued to paint our self portraits. Every ones project looks great! So many different colors like: blue, pink, purple, orange, and many more. It took a lot of effort from us to create these portraits. Yesterday (Thursday), I finished my portrait, it looks really cool. For my portrait I used the color magenta."

-Gabi K, Period 5

8th Grade Art:

V.J.'s drawing challenge sketch and ceramics project

"Today is the last of art for eighth grade, and for the eighth graders, our last day in art at Sandburg. This week we worked on finishing up all of our projects. My favorite project was the paper circuit project. I used construction paper and cut out yellow stars, a moon, a dark sky, and a firefly. The firefly lit up just like you would see it on a warm, summer night. Jamie's favorite project was the ceramics project where she made a monster pot. The monster pot looks like a tiki mask and then she put gravel and dirt in the pot to grow grass. It looks very cool! Overall, we had a great time in art this year and hopefully some of us can take art in high school!"

- Jamie and V.J, Period 1

Jamie's tiki ceramics project, before and after firing!

Monster pots, planted with grass seed!

In other art news...


Our Chihuly abstract flower sculptures from Term A art classes are now hanging in the cafeteria! Special thank you to Mrs. Stezowski, PTA president, for coming in and hanging these up for us. As the school year progresses, new 6th grade classes will be adding abstract flowers of their own to this art installation. How cool!

Thanks for another great week!
- Mrs. L.

This Week in Art! October 6-10

6th Grade Art:

a sneak preview of Mia's projects!

"On Monday, we finished building our letters, by using some leftover cereal boxes. Tuesday, we started to paper mache on our letters with, paper towels and this cool/ weird gooey thing! It was fun! On Wednesday, we finished putting paper mache on our letters. On Thursday, we created our own LEGO mini figure! We had an empty LEGO person and personalized them ourselves. On Friday, we finished up our LEGO mini figure. Some people didn't finish paper mache, so they finished them up! This week was full of exciting, and fun projects."

-Mia G, Period 8

7th Grade Art:


"This week in art we did the daily art challenge for one whole day [Thursday]. They were fun, but not as fun as when we transferred our pictures [to get] ready to be painted. The colors are endless for our paintings!"

-Nikki S, Period 4

8th Grade Art:

Will's light up paper circuit artwork

"Hello fellow art people! This week in art was mainly spent building our collages for our light art! I'm making a cat that will have its nose lit up. Other students are making awesome ideas such as a light bulb light up, a motorcycle with its headlight light up, and a fairy with its magical wand light up. This our second to last week in art for this year, so we will be finishing up our art projects next week :( Hopefully the next art group will do as well as we did!"

-Willem C, Period 1

In other art news...

A caricature artist inserted images of Mr. Bean into historic art paintings, and the results are hilarious.

On Thursday, Sandburg art classes had a substitute art teacher when I volunteered as a chaperone at Mr. Leban's school for a field trip in Chicago. We went on an architectural walking tour, and then traveled to Millennium Park to check out the sculpture! It was the best weather ever for walking around in the city. Above are some photos I managed to take during the excursion. It was fun to meet a new group of students and to talk about art with them!

Thanks for another great week!

- Mrs. L.

This Week in Art: September 29 - October 3

Welcome to art! This was the first week of art for 6th and 7th grade students in term B art classes!

6th Grade Art:

Zoe assembles her letter sculpture...

"On Monday we all went to our new UA classes. On the first day of art we went over the rules and started binder covers. On Tuesday we had an all day art challenges period. On Wednesday we started cutting out our cardboard letters. On Thursday we started putting together our cardboard sculptures. On Friday we continued putting our sculptures together. I think that art is so much fun. Bye!"

- Zoe D, period 9

7th Grade Art:


"This week was our first class week in art. We learned about about our daily challenges and started our binder cover on Monday. We also started our paintings by taking our photos, putting on all of the filters, printing it out, and started transferring it over using graphite paper."

- Emma M, period 4

8th Grade Art:


We've started a brand-new art unit in class! We're making paper circuits! The tiny LED will be placed behind a construction paper collage piece of art, to strategically illuminate a part of the art (think: a candle, a laser pointer, a light bulb, a reflection... anything that could glow or light up!).

Zaara's drawings and paper circuit.

This week, I talked with Zaara, an 8th grade student in 2nd period art, to find out what she thought of class.

Zaara: "We made drawings. I made a light. I want to make hearts and flowers light up."

In other art news...
I love how social media has made talking to successful working artists today so much more accessible! Check out this interview by Ms. Beckett with artist William Wegman!

Want more? Here's Mr. E. Talks to Dale Chihuly, and Wayne Thiebaud!

Thanks for another great week!
- Mrs. L.