ACPS Visual Arts Festival 2014

Here's a video made by our lovely fine art's coordinator, Cyndi, as we set up this year's
show at Fashion Square Mall!



Have you gone? If so, what did you notice, what did you see?

EXHIBITIONS!

An important part of making art is looking at art. This time of year, Murray's students, staff, and families are invited to look carefully at a sample of artwork from around the county, during our 21st Annual Fine Arts Festival. This sprawling event takes place in the public spaces of Fashion Square Mall, from March 2 through 16th this year. Come stroll and enjoy student creations!

A second, more intimate exhibit will take place at CitySpace, on our downtown pedestrian mall,  featuring 2-4 works from each Albemarle school. This display will be up from March 5 - 25, with an  opening reception on the evening of March 7th. You can find directions and out more about CitySpace here.

In addition, Mrs. Corradino (VLM's music teacher) and I are co-planning a Final 5th grade Art Exhibit & Performance to take place at VLM the evening of Thursday April 24th, at 630 pm. We look forward to hosting Murray families and teachers with a reception and celebration of student art-making!

*Finally, a special congratulations to Trevor D. whose work was chosen to display in Richmond at Representative Landes' office,  hopefully a reminder to our legislators that Art matters in Virginia.

What art exhibits have you seen that you remember?

Images top to bottom: A past Fine Arts Festival, 4th grader Cole L working, My son and I at a past 5th grade final exhibit, and Shell painting by Trevor D.

EXPLORATIONS IN COLOR

Murray Students of all ages are exploring color, this basic element of art---mixing, contrasting, even glazing paints basic in exercises and projects.

Kinders painted without brushes in the tradition of American Artist Jackson Pollack, creating patterns, textures, or pictures with forks, q-tips, and popsicle sticks.

First graders mixed primary colors to make secondary colors in their sketchbooks, then used remaining time to 'free paint' or print their painting palettes.

Fourth Graders painted in pairs and teams to create clever color wheels, making 12 colors from three, and learning about the idea of a Color Sphere!

What is your favorite color, and why?

Work shown top to bottom: by Kinders: Mary, Emily, Claire; First Grader Katerina; 4th graders
Koa & Spencer,  work by Christopher, Will, and Sam, AJ working

LOOK UP: MURRAY'S NEW MURAL!

Special thanks to our preschool teacher (aka resident muralist) Chelsea Morris for painting our small school flanked in the panoramic rolling hills of Albemarle, on our foyer ceiling area!

We hope to highlight this area even more, but in the mean time look up and see if you can spot :

• Our name sake, Virginia L. Murray herself
• Crozet Pizza
• The Paramount Theatre
• Flick on the Field...

What striking details have you noticed in Murray's New Mural?

FOCUSED FOURTH GRADE

VLM students continue to floor me with their skill, enthusiasm, and willingness to tackle difficult tasks, as with these 4th grade Vincent VanGogh inspired self portraits.

Students looked a series of Van Gogh's artwork--- portraits and then landscapes---then put the two elements together (as VanGogh never did, that I know of) in their own original work.

Students strived to draw a face IN PROPORTION, and also to create a believable Virginia landscape that showed one of a specific regions with the right geographical characteristics.

One challenge (and source of excitement) was to work to master the use of dry pastels: rubbing, smearing, smoothing, mixing and controlling color.

VLM graders continue to study the big design idea of how artist consider PROPORTION, which begun with our dream house facade collages below.

More stunning  self portraits will soon be on display at our school. Congratulations to  ALL fourth graders, for this gorgeous body of work.

**There is currently a Van Gogh exhibit in DC through January. For more info look here.

(Virginia Self-portrait/landscapes top to bottom by Junxhi, Kirsten, Taquaria, Francis, & Cole; Untrimmed Dream House Collograph-Prints by Matthew, Olivia)

TAKING TIME: Aaron Douglas inspired Shells by 5th graders

One of my goals in teaching art is to encourage students to take time.  Especially my oldest students. This often includes a step by step approach, asking students to focus on one task per day and interact with artwork over 3 or more class periods. Students often look forward to next steps and see their work differently after a break from it.

These 5th grade 'Stand-out Shells' are no exception. Students spent upwards of 5 classes: first sketching, then outlining and planning, and finally painting in tints and shades, in the loose style of African American artist Aaron Douglass (1899-1979). The big idea was for  students to purposefully use a strong design + color to create a point of EMPHASIS---a place where the viewer's eye goes first.

Douglas is a great artist with which to begin 5th grade because he created multiple points of EMPHASIS in his most famous works, by purposefully organizing lines, shapes, colors, textures, and/or forms. Creating emphasis is one way artists make work look good, and this is the unifying design theme for fifth graders at VLM.

Image by Aaron Douglas

(Student Images top to bottom: Catherine, Rowan, Gigi, Karen, Ashontii)

CAN YOU FIND THE POINTS OF EMPHASIS IN EACH STUDENT'S WORK?

Note to VLM 5th grade families: I keep work for the first half of year  for fifth graders in preparation for out Final fifth grade art-show in the spring. Students will eventually bring all work home!

O'KEEFFE INSPIRED LEAVES, by 3rd graders

 Third graders looked at the up close and personal painting of American Artist Georgia O'keeffe as  inspiration for their Fall leaf project.


                                         

In addition to practicing contour drawing from observation, and using watercolors effectively, the BIG IDEA was how do artist create UNITY between an object in an artwork and the background?

O'keeffe sometimes used similar colors and or similar lines to make connections between these two different parts of her images. And so did VLM students.

A collection of student work is one display in our Library. 

stop in and enjoy!