Color Grids with freshman art class

Cake Sculptures!

My amazing Creative Art students got into small groups and designed and created these cake sculptures out of recycled materials and paint. Each group had to come up with a theme and figure out how to work together as a team to see their designs realized. Needless to say, this involved a lot of problem solving and creative thinking.

Word Sculpture

The Intro to Creative Art class at SLHS created these Ed Ruscha inspired sculptures. They were asked to think of words that described their identity then turn their letters from 2D to 3D using paper strips. Advanced students familiar with shading techniques could draw these sculptures from life, turning them back into two-dimensional works of art.

Notan designs at San Leandro High

Beautiful notan design done by one of my students earlier this semester (Intro to Creative Art). Notan is a Japanese concept of balance between dark and light. These designs were created with cut paper.

Word collage

Collage and poetry made by my students at Girls Inc this summer.

Drawing from Girls Inc

I saw this drawing at the family day exhibit, done by one of the younger kids. Although this was not done in my class, I appreciated the simple prompt of asking the girls to think of something they liked about their community and something they'd like to change.
It serves as a reminder of what some of the children of this city experience in their daily lives.

Ellen Gallagher lesson

A fellow teacher told me about this amazing lesson about the artist Ellen Gallagher, a contemporary artist that deals with issues of identity and nostalgia. A video about the artist can be viewed on the Art21 website: http://www.pbs.org/art21/watch-now/segment-ellen-gallagher-in-play.

There are many ways the lesson could be implemented, depending on what you would want to focus on, such as advertising, narrative, sequencing, or stereotyping in our culture. Students can select ads to manipulate and alter using a variety of materials.

The lesson itself can be found here: http://www.pbs.org/art21/files/uploads/pdf/art21_s3guide_gallagher.pdf.