I'm back! ...Sort of.

I thought I'd stop by here in case anyone happened across the blog, or subscribes to the blog, to mention that I'm a presenter at this year's IAEA Conference on Friday, November 6th, 2015 in Lisle, IL. Mr. Leban and I will be giving a presentation called "Harnessing the Power of Social Media for Art Teachers" - which is super cool, as it ties in both my art expertise and my current technology position beautifully!

So, I wanted to see if anyone out here had any specific questions or topics that you would like to see covered in our presentation? Feel free to leave a comment here, or contact me directly via e-mail. My husband and I will do our best to address concerns, questions, and topics from all of you as part of our presentation!

For more information visit the website for the conference here. Hope to see you there!

- Mrs. L.

The Last Blog Post!

It's the last blog post of the year, and the last blog post for Mrs. Leban's Art Blog, as I'll be moving on to a new adventure in the computer room for next year. Physically, I'll be down the hallway just around the corner, but on the web, you'll be able to find me at the Leban Tech Blog - very soon!

6th Grade Art:


Sixth grade students are closing out the school year with our melted plastic Chihuly-inspired project! This time around, I found a really cool short video about Chihuly Garden and Glass in Seattle. It looks amazing, so if you're headed that way this summer and get the chance to check it out, I totally would!

We've spent this week painting our plastic, and we'll start melting them on Monday.

7th Grade Art:


This week, seventh grade students finished up their monochromatic self-portraits (view them all on Artsonia here). Students who finished their painting early were able to do some free/exploratory painting with watercolors: we used oil pastel resists, rubbing alcohol, salt, and even did some "blow" painting with straws to create some fun abstract compositions!

You can design your own coffee cup and view it in 3-D using the Quiver App!

Today, students had the option to play around with the Quiver augmented reality app (formerly known as ColAr) on the iPads. Students chose a pre-printed picture to color in and/or design (such as a bird, or a Starbucks coffee cup, shown above), and then use the app to view a 3-D version of their design!

8th Grade Art:

Check out this cool blinking red light on the scoreboard!

This week, eighth grade students finished up their paper circuit collages! These might just be some of the best artworks I've seen all year, and a great way to close out eighth grade! Our Artsonia gallery with all of our collages can be found here.


In other art news...



Congrats to Sam, our winner of the promotion program cover contest! You'll be seeing her work next week at the promotion ceremony! You might even be able to convince her to give you an autograph! :)

I feel the need to say some final words here, as I finish 13 years of teaching art. It's been awesome, but I'm also super excited for a new challenge teaching computers. I know that Sandburg will be in good hands, as Mr. Walker from Emerson Elementary School will be coming up to the middle school level to take over the art department here. But I'm not going far - remember, I'll be just around the corner!

Thanks for another great YEAR! - and have a great summer, too!
- Mrs. L.

This Week in Art: 5/18 - 5/22

6th Grade Art:


This week, 6th grade students photographed their letter sculptures for Artsonia, wrote an artist statement about their work, and took their sculptures home! Be on the lookout, or view them all on our gallery here.

We also started our final fun project on Dale Chihuly, where we paint on plastic sheets and melt them into bowl-like/flower-like forms. Today we watched an awesome video about the Dale Chihuly Garden and Glass, and started sketching out designs.

7th Grade Art:


Seventh grade students have been working hard all week to finish up their monochromatic self-portrait paintings. So hard, in fact, that I wasn't going to interrupt anyone to write a bog post this week! We're on a deadline, after all!

We hope to have these finished and graded at the beginning of next week. After that, we'll be losing out the year with some experimental watercolor painting, just for fun!

8th Grade Art:

Mac's awesome ceramic box project!

"On Monday we worked on our collage for a project where you make an awesome collage and put a light somewhere on it. I chose to make it for my grandma who loves golfing so I made a person golfing and the ball is the light. when I finished that later in the week I worked on my pixel portrait. Also we took pictures of our ceramic projects and posted them to Artsonia. And we get to bring them home on Friday."

- Mac B, Period 2

In other art news...

So, you many have heard the news already, but I am in my last couple of weeks as an art teacher. I have accepted a position to teach Computer Literacy next year (still here at Sandburg). Sure, it'll be weird to not be in the art room (I've been doing this for 13 years!), but I am excited about a new challenge. This blog will no longer be update after next week. You can still find me online via Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube... and there will be a new blog up and running soon, but you won't find me here. It's been a great ride, and I hope you've had as much fun as I have. :)

Thanks for another great week! One (and a half) more to go!
- Mrs. L.

This Week in Art: May 11-15, 2015

Sorry about last week's absence... I was out of the building, so our update just didn't happen. But we're back this week with more student bloggers reporting for our last few weeks of the school year! Can you believe we're almost finished with another year?

6th Grade Art:


"On Thursday, we worked on our letter sculptures. We made our ombre colors look very cool by adding designs such as dots or zig zags. They seem to be going great!"

- Olivia R, Period 8

7th Grade Art:

"This week we have been studying the monochromatic art style inspired by Andy Warhol's work. We all took pictures and then edited them on Photoshop to show only four shade of the same color. We transferred the outlines to paper using the transfer graphite paper and then started painting them with a color of our choice."

- Ari D, Period 4

8th Grade Art:

"Well this week everybody got done with their clay projects which was AWESOME. We had to finish painting 1 to 3 coats on it, and then we had to glaze it which didn't take too long. Then we spent about a couple days on our self portrait. Today we are doing our Paper circuits project."

- Billy O, Period 1

In other art news...

Did you know that you can order phone cases on Artsonia with your artwork on it? I tried it, and it's pretty awesome! Here's my LEGO minifig self-portrait on a phone case. How cool!

Thanks for another great week!

- Mrs. L.

This Week in Art! April 27 - May 1st, 2015

Due to PARCC testing this week, there were no art classes today (Friday), and therefore no student bloggers. :( We did have art class for three out of the five days this week though, so I'll fill you in on all of the happenings! - Mrs. L

6th Grade Art:


On Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, sixth grade artists completed their cardboard block letter structures so that next week, we can cover them in a layer of paper mache. On Thursday, students began a mini drawing unit where they are drawing themselves as a LEGO minifig! The drawing above is mine from a few years back. Ms. Skinner, Churchville art teacher, sent me this actual LEGO minifig dressed all in black because it looks just like me! How funny!

7th Grade Art:


Many seventh graders are finishing up their soda can "evolution" drawings this week. We'll have one more work day next week to get that all completed, and then we'll be moving on to painting! Students will be creating large monochromatic self-portraits and practicing mixing a variety of values of paint in order to create their finished image. They'll look awesome!

8th Grade Art:


Eighth grade students are working on a variation of the pixel portrait project that was done by the first three quarters of art classes this year. This time they're smaller, and more closely cropped, so as to retain more detail in the final image. It will be cool to compare the results of this version to the last time around!

All ceramic pieces have been successfully bisque fired (no exploded projects, woo hoo!) and are awaiting glaze, which will be our mission to complete next week.

In other art news...

• Eighth grade students! You still have time to turn in a design for the promotion ceremony program cover! All designs are due by next Wednesday, May 6th. Details above.
• Today after school at the Elmhurst Art Museum is the reception for our K-8 student art exhibition from 3:30 to 5:00. You can preview all of our student work in this Artsonia gallery. Congrats to all of our Sandburg student participants:
  6th Grade: Nathan G, Brigid O, Patrick S, Gabi W.
  7th Grade: Nida A, Sophia D, Rylan J, Maggie M, Claudia S, Alex S.
  8th Grade: Massimo C, Joe D, Caroline F, Stefy G, Marianna G, Zane H, Collin M, Haley P, Sam P, Gracie W.

• This weekend is Art in the Park in Wilder Park! Hopefully this awesome weather holds up and we can enjoy some time outdoors browsing for art!

Thanks for another great week!
- Mrs. L.

This Week in Art! April 20-24, 2015

6th Grade Art:

Lukas is making a letter "L" sculpture!

"This week we worked on block letters, or 3D letters. We first started out by doing a little practicing with drawing them. We worked on using a vanishing point, and also learned a little bit of shading of 3D objects. Then we made our work come to life, and make our written pieces into awesome cardboard letters."

- Lukas H, Period 9

7th Grade Art:

Gabrielle's soda can drawing, pre-crushed state!

"This week, we started our still life project. We've been working on drawing our soda can while incorporating shadows and highlights. Wednesday, we sketched our can very carefully. On Thursday and Friday, we continued that and added some color. Soon, we will move on to our half-crushed drawing."

- Gabrielle B, Period 4

8th Grade Art:

Kaitlin's bisque-fired ceramic mug, awaiting glaze.

Kaitlin's pixel portrait, in the early stages.

"On Monday, we finished creating our clay projects. On Tuesday, we started learning about our next project the pixel portrait. The pixel portrait is a drawing that we create by coloring in squares on a grid to make it look like a picture of ourselves. For the rest of the week we began coloring in the final draft of our pixel portrait."

- Kaitlin T, Period 1

In other art news...

• Our Annual K-8 District 205 Student Art Exhibition will be on display from April 28th to May 3rd! There is a special reception for students and their families on Friday, May 1st from 3:30 to 5:30 pm. You can view the Sandburg participating student artists' work on our special Artsonia exhibit found here. For museum hours and other info, check out the EAM webpage here.
• Next week is PARCC testing; we will not have art classes on Monday or Friday next week. :(
• Eighth grade students should submit their drawings for the promotion ceremony program cover contest by Wednesday, May 6th. The winning design gets used for the actual program cover! Students should see me if they have any questions.

Thanks for another great week!
- Mrs. L.

This Week in Art! April 13 - 17

6th Grade Art:

Chihuly-inspired abstract sculptures by Patrick and Charlie

"Hi my name is Charlie and I'm writing this blog post with Patrick. Today we made plastic Dale Chihuly inspired flowers, we melted the plastic to make a flower shape. They looked great with all the colors, the day before we made a pattern on the plastic, then we painted it. We both had lots of fun making these super cool Dale Chihuly inspired flowers, and we recommend it to anyone. Later we will hang them on the ceiling of the lunchroom."

- Charlie T & Patrick S, Period 9

7th Grade Art:

Carissa's "Soda Can Evolution" drawing

"This week in art we worked on drawing still life. We drew soda in different stages. The project is called soda can evolution. When it is normal, next half crush, and then crushed all the way. We learned how to shade shadows, mid tones, and highlights."

- Carissa R, Period 4

8th Grade Art:


Eighth grade students are working hard on their clay choice projects. We're still going to work on building with clay for one more day next week, and then we'll be setting our clay out to dry and prepare for firing. Students who finish building early have the opportunity to make a bonus "free clay" item!

In other art news...

• Today is the last day of "E" term art for 6th and 7th grade art classes - it's hard to believe how fast the school year has flown by! On Monday, the last groups of 6th and 7th graders will begin art class. 
• Friday, May 1st will be the reception for our annual K-8 art exhibition at the Elmhurst Art Museum. Sandburg contributing artists will be announced soon!
• There is a contest going on right now for all 8th grade students to design the cover of our promotion ceremony program - all entries are due to me by Wednesday, May 6th!

Thanks for another great week!
- Mrs. L.

This Week in Art: April 6 - 10

There is a short schedule today due to the variety show; therefore we didn't get the chance to have student bloggers. We'll try again next week!

6th Grade Art:

(Identities protected for the internet.)

This week, 6th grade students worked on a project inspired by the work of contemporary artist Kehinde Wiley. We took photos of the 6th graders in classical poses from famous paintings, and then students added elaborate ("fancy") patterns to fill in the background and overlap the figure.

We hope to finish these drawings by Monday, and then sneak in one final fun project before the end of the term!

7th Grade Art:


Seventh grade students completed an experimental painting unit with watercolor this week. They used a technique where watercolor paint is applied to the paper, and then blown onto using a straw to create interesting effects. This technique was used to create any composition of the students' own choosing.

Next week (for the last week of art!) we'll do an observational drawing of a soda can, so students need to bring one in for class on Monday, when they will be allowed to drink it in class! Woo hoo!

8th Grade Art:


This week, 8th graders began their clay choice project, They get to decide what their finished product will be: a mug, a planter/pot, a box, or a figurative sculpture. No matter what project you choose, the core concepts learned (slab building, rolling a slab, basic clay construction, applied and incised designs) are all the same. Next week we hope to finish these up and have them out to dry.

In other art news...

• Today is the variety show! I'm part of a special secret surprise teacher band that will be performing this year! Our first performance is during the school day for students, and we'll have another performance after school.

• The agenda cover design contest ended today. Designs that were submitted will now be narrowed down to "finalists," from which the winner will be chosen via a committee of teachers. 

• Starting Monday, 4/13, eighth grade students have the opportunity to participate in a contest to design the cover of the promotion ceremony program for this year! Designs must be in black and white, and drawn on 8 1/2 by 11 "copier" paper, folded in half. (If you fold your paper like a card, you'll get the idea of the cover size.) You can design your program to "wrap around" to the back, if you choose. Finished drawings should be submitted to Mrs. Leban.

Thanks for another great week!
- Mrs. L.

This Week in Art! March 23-27, 2015

6th Grade Art:


"This week in art, we finished our block letters. We used acrylic paints. We blended 2 colors together, and used a design on top. My work was based off of a small indie game known as "The Legend Of Zelda. The one in a million people who've played the games will see the true beauty of this masterpiece."

- Br3ndan T, Period 9

7th Grade Art:


"This week we worked on our monochromatic painting projects. I decided to do mine in blue because I thought it looked the coolest. Also this week we did the watercolor straw project. I did mine using dark colors like blues, greens, and black. It kinda looks like a dark forest."

- Quinn E, Period 5

8th Grade Art:


This was the first week of Quarter 4! It's hard to believe that we're in the last 9 weeks of school already. Students in 8th grade art have started the planning and brainstorming process for our clay choice unit. After spring break, we'll explore the properties of clay and learn HOW to build our projects before we get started. Be thinking about your designs so you're ready to make something awesome when we get back from break!

In other art news...


Our Youth Art Month coloring contest winners were announced on Spartan TV today! Iggy made an appearance to help announce the winners:

6th Grade Winner - Brigid O.
7th Grade Winner - Kali G.
8th Grade Winner - Hannah H.

Honorable mention winners were: Maddi J, Arianna K, and Olivia B.

Grade level winners were awarded a set of 36 colored pencils and a 12 pack of metallic colored pencils. Honorable mention winners received a set of watercolor paints.

Iggy wearing my pixel glasses when he visited the art room Friday morning.

Thanks for another great week! Have an awesome SPRING BREAK!
- Mrs. L.

This Week in Art! March 16-20, 2015

6th Grade Art:


This week, we applied and FINISHED our paper mache layer on our letter sculptures! Today we started thinking about how we will add decoration on our sculptures, so we started practicing painting with acrylics and blending two colors together. Our favorite blends will be used as a background layer on our letter sculptures, and we'll add a fun all-over pattern on top of that. Hopefully we'll be able to finish the sculptures (painting and all!) by the time we leave for spring break!

7th Grade Art:


Seventh grade students are super busy right now, painting their final monochromatic self-portraits. We'll continue the intense work through next week, and hopefully complete these paintings before we leave for spring break.

8th Grade Art:

Today was our last day of art for Quarter 3. Gracie summed it up this way:

"This past week has been so hectic around here. We are trying to finish our pixel portrait, any unfinished drawings, and lastly to upload our drawings to our website. All of our pixel portraits look AMAZING!!! They look exactly like ourselves. Everyone's clay project look great and creative! I'm going to miss art so so much! I love our movie Mondays and the inspiration Mrs. Leban gives us; "You have to hate your work to make it amazing..." I'm not too sure where we really came up with that but I know everyone will remember this class as their best U.A. in their 8th grade year! "

- Gracie W, Period 1

In other art news...

In the last two weeks, eighth grader Emma (from my first period class) has been having me record her while drawing to create a time-lapse video of the creation of her pixel portrait. We were able to do this for about five class periods of about 35-40 minutes each. I strung all of the time-lapse videos together today and posted the result on our YouTube channel. It's pretty amazing to watch!

ALSO ON YOUTUBE:
It's Youth Art Month 2015! We're having a coloring contest here at Sandburg to win awesome art supply packs! Iggy has returned again this year to help me hype the event. Our latest videos can be found on our YouTube channel: here's the intro video, and here's our first update video. There will be one more video next week before the coloring contest winners are chosen!

Thanks for another great week!
- Mrs. L.

This Week in Art: March 9-13

This week (and Monday of next week) is PARCC testing. In UA classes, this means that we lose two entire class periods for the week, but are also kicked out of our classrooms with no access to our equipment or supplies during that time. Challenging, to say the least.

Therefore, art classes and music classes combined forces in the auditorium and completed a mini-unit on musical theater (our concentration was "The Lion King"). We watched the movie and completed an analysis of musical and visual art elements and qualities and how choices that the musicians and artists make can help to tell the story.

In other art news...


I found two great articles this week that are pretty useful for the free time that happens when you finish the PARCC test early... you have a sheet of scratch paper, so why not doodle?

Why You Should Doodle More

7 Ways that Doodling Will Change Your Life

Thanks for another great week!
- Mrs. L.

This Week in Art: 3.2 - 3.6.15

6th Grade Art:

Diego's drawings!

"These are two of my drawings for art. This are the Rainbow D and A self Lego Portrait. I like both of these drawing for two reason. I like the Rainbow D because of the 3D part of it. I like the Lego Portrait because it shows my type of person."

- Diego N, Period 8

7th Grade Art:

Joel's project is almost ready to begin the final painting stage!

"What we did in art this week was mainly around the self portrait Monday we worked on pictures to make them black and white and to give it only 4 shades. Then we worked on painting colors in a scale by adding either white or black to make or lighter or darker. Now we are finishing up transferring the picture to a white piece of paper in an outline form then next we will paint. Bye."

- Joel C, 4th Period

8th Grade Art:


This week, 8th grade students continued to make progress on their pixel portrait project, while their ceramic pieces were fired in the kiln. Students photographed their finished ceramic pieces for Artsonia when they were finished - you can check out our ceramics gallery on Artsonia here.

On Friday, we had a mini end-of-ceramics-unit celebration before taking our projects home. The cafeteria let us borrow their hot water percolator and we had some hot chocolate in our handmade mugs! Fun fact: did you know that these ceramic creations are dishwasher safe? The kiln gets to almost 2000 degrees, so your piece will surely stand up to dishwasher heat!

In other art news...


Let's connect! Are you following the Sandburg Art Room on Instagram? I post fun facts and images from student work and the classroom several times per week. This week, we experimented with a time-lapse video of an 8th grade student working on her drawing.

Today is Take Your Action Figure to Work Day! Did you celebrate? I did:



Thanks for another great week!
- Mrs. L.

Friday, Feb 27 - no blog post this week...

Sorry, there's no new blog post this week due to Friday being a teacher institute day. I'll be out at the ICE Conference in St. Charles, learning about fun new technology tools for the classroom! See you next week for the latest news from the art room!

Thanks for another great week!
- Mrs. L.

This Week in Art! February 16-20, 2015

6th Grade Art:

Scott drew some emojis as part of his drawing challenge assignment.

"It was the last week of art, which meant *gasp* GRADING TIME! It was a fun week though. We did photographing most of class Tuesday. Wednesday we colored our photo background. We worked on this for the rest of the week. We made our pictures like a Kehinde Wiley painting."

- Scott P, Period 8

Identities have been altered to protect student privacy :)

7th Grade Art:

Emily's "Evolution of a Pop Can" drawing. I love the shading on this!

Today was the last day of art for seventh grade, so we spent the time finishing up our projects as much as possible! Students turned in their completed "Evolution of a Pop Can" observational drawings, and some students even had time to do an oil pastel study of their pop can!

Our pop can drawings can be viewed here on our Artsonia gallery. Enjoy!

8th Grade Art:

Luke's text box sculpture has been glazed and is awaiting a kiln firing to make it bright and shiny!

"This week in art class we worked on glazing our clay projects. We got to choose from four projects, the monster pot,the mug, the word box, and the human figure sculpture. I chose the word box, and I had a lot of fun working on my project."

- Luke C, Period 1

In other art news...


Winter art classes at the Elmhurst Art Museum start this Monday! Check out this link for classes, more information, or to register.


Thanks for another great week!
- Mrs. L.

This Week in Art! February 9-13, 2015

6th Grade Art:

Abby's Chihuly-inspired abstract flower!

"This week was really exciting because we got to start a new Chihuly Flower project and we get to hang them from the ceiling of the cafeteria.So to make the Chihuly Flower you need to draw a design of a piece of plastic and paint it what ever color you want but make sure you can see through it. then you need a blow dryer craft thingy from the craft store and a cardboard tube and take the plastic and rubber band it around the tube and start blow drying it and then take it off and there you have it, a Chihuly flower. ;)"

- Abby H, Period 8

7th Grade Art:

Alexsija's "Evolution of a Pop Can" drawing

"This week in art class, we worked on still life drawings. We practiced still life by drawing soda cans. The first day we started by drawing the basic shape of the can, then slowly, we added more detail. We used different shades to show lighter and darker parts of the can, the highlights and the shadows. It taught me a lot about how to draw with dimension and depth."

- Alexsija I, Period 5

8th Grade Art:

Emma's work in progress...

"This week we worked on our pixel portraits, pixellated drawings of our faces. I started mine by working on the areas that were all one color, then began working in rows across the bottom. We worked on these every day this week, and so I've gotten pretty far on it."

- Emma R, Period 1

In other art news...


Happy Valentine's Day tomorrow! I hope you're doing something fun to celebrate! I'm working on this fun (and sort-of Valentine-y) painting of donuts using mostly watercolors, and some other mixed media. Notice the heart-shaped ones? Yum!

Thanks for another great week!
- Mrs. L.