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.