What’s the Buzz?

I apologize to all my loyal studiomaury readers out there. There have just been so many exciting happenings at Maury that I can’t seem to upload pictures fast enough! Because the blog will likely take a rest this summer with less artists to document around school, I didn’t want to leave you all hanging quite so soon. Enjoy a brief and random recap of some of the latest and greatest work from Maury artists during the Spring of 2012!

Banyan Trees!

Kindergarten explores positive and negative space through their study of root and branch heavy Banyan Trees found in many parts of Asia

Third grade gets introduced to illusion artist, MC Escher,

students demonstrate the proper technique,

and before you know it, there are 22 illusionists creating deceptive 2D drawings that appear to be popping off the page!

Second grade has been hard at work designing and constructing vessels from everyday objects after studying the Zulu people of South Africa and their inventive new way of making baskets from recycled telephone wire.

Our vessels involved less weaving and tons more glue, tape, and paper mache!

4th and 5th grade are in the thick of their art history puppets thanks to many of your wonderful donations.

After weeks of construction and paper mache, I can’t wait to reveal the finished products soon!

Preschool and PreK have become experts on the moon as part of their rock study. We have mastered the lunar phases, created visual textures to mimic the rough terrain of our moon’s surface, and even carved the moon’s phases out of Oreos!

Fifth grade takes a field trip to pull screen prints at Lou Stovall’s home studio and visits his amazing printmaking exhibition at American University’s Katzen center

Lou reads his poetry before we tour the gallery

More to come soon on all art fronts. Stay tuned!

Be Water Wise DC Rain Barrel Decorating Contest

Three dedicated Maury student artists were selected to participate in a District wide rain barrel art contest through Be Water Wise DC. Under the supervision of Ms. Bomba and Mr. Rogers, these students developed an environmentally conscious deign for our rain barrel with unique images that convey the importance of water conservation and other pertinent local water issues. From April 27-May 18, all submissions will be on display at the District Department of the Environment located at 1200 First St. NE. Judges will be rating our finished product based on its aesthetic appeal, creativity, and most importantly, the educational value our barrel provides the viewer. The winners will be announced at a culminating Be Water Wise celebration.

Maury’s striking design was based on the elaborate silhouette work of contemporary artist, Kara Walker. Walker is an African American artist who explores powerful subject matter in her work. By displaying solid black cut outs on a stark white wall, she forces viewers to take a closer look at what the simple shapes are actually trying to communicate. Walker’s clean lines, stark contrast, and bold imagery served as inspiration for Maury’s rain barrel design. Students incorporated abstract symbols to represent permeable pavement, underground clean water storage tanks and elaborate pipe systems for filtering storm water runoff. Figures move across the monument laden city via green modes of transportation like skateboards and roller blades. Our cylindrical canvas demonstrates even the simplest duty–picking up after our pets to prevent waste from entering our watershed!

Our elaborate process of sanding, cleaning, priming, spray painting, designing and cutting handmade stencils, taping, spray painting again and peeling off our stencils to reveal designs in negative space was an authentic way for students to develop an idea and execute a concept from start to finish. Be sure to visit all rain barrel submissions starting April 27, at the DDOE!

Check out our step by step process below!

Step 1: Get inspired!

Step 2: Sketch BIG and sketch lots!

Step 3: Neatly cut your detailed designs into stencils

Step 4: Measure diameter of rain barrel and arrange homemade stencils accordingly

Step 5: Over the weekend, scrub that sucker on your back porch in the sun with water and denatured alcohol

Step 6: Invite a friend over to pass the time as you prime, let dry, then spray paint the rain barrel!

Step 7: Add a few coats of paint and make it shine!

Step 8: Bring rain barrel back to school and apply stencils with lots of painters tape

Step 9: Practice spraying your top coat and peeling away the stencils to be sure the negative of the image below is crisp and clear

Step 10: Head outside to spray paint every inch of the rain barrel black

Step 11: Peel away stencils–quick like  a band-aid

Step 12: Cross your fingers and thank your fabulous team for producing an educational and eye catching product from start to finish!

 

Georgia on my mind…

All of Maury, from preschool to 5th grade, tried our hand at some Georgia O’Keeffe inspired art. We looked deeply at the beautiful and abstract ways that nature unfolds in Georgia’s work. Weird details, vivid colors, and smooth textures ruled both Georgia and Maury’s creative process. Take a look at the collaborative patchwork of organic flowers that students came up with. Every time I walk by, I find a new favorite and notice something I didn’t quite see the time before.

Welcome to Ms. Bomba’s Ice Cream Shop!

Since completing our in-depth study of foreground, middle ground, and background in unison with landscapes, seascapes and cityscapes (as seen above), second grade has been getting their hands dirty, LITERALLY, building their whimsical pop art sundae sculptures in the style of artist Claes Oldenburg.

Oldenburg is a Swedish American artist who creates works of art that blend reality and fantasy. Oldenburg adds humor to his work and asks viewers to think about everyday objects in new and different ways.  He takes familiar objects such as typewriters, clothespins, and food and lifts them out of their usual environments. He places them in public parks or museums and asks viewers to interact with them freely. He makes things soft when they should be hard or large when they should be small.  Here are a few of the works we discussed as a class:

Spoon Bridge and Cherry in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden

Safety Pin, De Young Museum, San Fransisco

Dropped Cone

Sticking with Oldenburg’s style of thinking a bit abstractly about everyday objects, our students have designed fanciful ice cream sundaes from common household items such as cotton balls, beads, yarn, pebbles, and a whole lot of paint.

Students began with a menu order form and were asked to select the ingredients they were hankering for—but it wasn’t that easy! Before students could begin assembling their concoctions, they had to add the price of their ingredients accurately using decimal notation. I was so proud to see how comfortable the majority of students felt about confidently tackling their math assignment. Good work second grade teachers! It’s nice to see children feeling successful in math. Check out a sample menu order form here:

Menu Form Example

We donned our rubber gloves and lathered the strawberry, chocolate, and vanilla flavored paint to our cotton ball scoops. We showered plastic beads on top for sprinkles, made wispy pillow batting whipped cream towers, adorned cute pom pom cherries, and pebbled for nuts. The chocolate and caramel sauces were squeezed from paint tubes. Students from other classes have been coming in to class with ice cream on the brain. A bit of our pop art sculpture process is documented below.

Students sorting their scoops by incorporating division into their designs. If we have 21 cotton balls each, how many go into each scoop if we want to make 3 even scoops ? 7!

Blending white and red paint in ratio to get pink for strawberry!

Three scoops will cost you $2.00.

Good enough to eat…but please don’t.

This guy brought up some extremely thoughtful questions when considering the work of Claes Oldenburg. He wanted to know if Oldenburg needed to get the permission of the city (police officers, residents, the mayor) to place his sculptures in the public parks. He also pointed out that Oldenburg wanted his artwork to be free for all, which is why he put most of them outside, and not inside an expensive museum with closing hours. I love thoughtful conversations like these!

More images of our finished sundaes coming soon. Luckily they won’t melt in the mean time.

Wine bottles and tin foil needed in the art studio ASAP

Hello fellow wine drinkers (I know you’re out there!),

I need to collect ~40 wine bottles, or any glass bottle for that matter, ASAP to serve as holders for the upcoming 4th and 5th grade puppet making project. The bottles will serve as sturdy, non-tipping holders for our wooden dowels once our sculptural heads are attached. Plastic will be too light and lead to heavy puppet heads falling to their deaths from any out-of-reach resting place I can find for our creations among the studio.

I will be collecting bottles starting Monday. Please have your child, or yourself, bring them up to the studio. Any fun puppet-esque additions you have lying around are always welcome. These puppets will be inspired by characters students select from famous works of art so the possibilities are really endless. Feathers, buttons, yarn, fur, fake flowers, etc. Tin foil is also a precious commodity while we sculpt our facial features. Thanks in advance and bottoms up!

Ms. Bomba

Examples of a few of my favorite “art characters” of all time

Either specimen from, Homesickness, by Rene Magritte

Face Jugs!–as a collector of these traditional face jugs, I am a huge fan of the cultural and folk art significance of these grotesque functional wares

Who can resist a face like that? Salvador Dali

My girl, Frida’s, constant accessory, her pet spider monkey Fulang Chang, a gift from her husband, Diego Rivera

Chancellor Henderson tells Maury students “We Got This!” and We Do!

I think every man, woman, child, ant, speck of dust–you name it–that graced the halls of Maury Elementary school on Friday afternoon are pumped and ready to take the DC CAS on Tuesday morning whether they have to or not! I know I am!

On Friday, after much planning by the DC CAS Pep Rally Committee, especially Ms. George, our students left for the long weekend feeling A bit less intimidated or dreadful about the high-steaks test that awaits them.

Guest speakers, such as the inspiring and student oriented Chancellor of DC Public Schools, Kaya Henderson and the Washington Wizard’s mascot, G-Man, helped our kids understand that the CAS is a way for students to prove how prepared and knowledgeable they are–not a time for self-doubt, insecurities, or fear. Like well trained singers or athletes, the CAS is a chance for them to strut their stuff and show what their teachers have worked hard to teach them; a chance to flex that brain muscle!

Kaya Henderson led students in a unified “we’ve got this!” chant and boosted their self -esteem by calling Maury Elementary students the brightest in all the District. As a former cheerleader, I couldn’t help but cheer along, clap and stomp, and feel proud to be a part of a school community that cares so much about the success of its students. Our kids are ready!

The winning Maury cheerleaders led us in a sassy routine, and can we talk about G-Man and Agent W  for a second? WoW! What a treat. Their sports are like school metaphor was powerful for our students to hear. Homework is our practice, school is our court, and the CAS is our championship. It takes effort to get the results we want. We don’t wake up one day doing 360 degree dunks and we don’t wake up one day acing tests without effort. Let us hope that our students carry the message that hard work pays off throughout life.

WE GOT THIS!

The mysterious G-Man getting the crowd pumped up!

High flying acrobatics by G-Man and Agent W–the beauty of team work!

Mrs. Battle setting up for the alley-oop!

Ramel and Agent W share a heart to heart and some positive words of encouragement before the CAS

Taking time out for the kids. Thanks Wizards, Chancellor Henderson, and all involved. Go Cougars!

Student Art Night a la Mode!

What else can be said that hasn’t already been stated about the fabulous student art night that took place throughout the halls of Maury Elementary School a few short weeks ago? The culminating event with our fantastic partners at the National Gallery of Art only proved further why collaboration among schools and institutions such as the National Gallery are so important. The ladies of the gallery have showered our students with the most quality, rigorous and entertaining art education imaginable. As an art educator myself, I can vouch for how lucky and unique an opportunity our students get to be able to experience a world class art education with one of the most esteemed art museums in the world.

Jeff Hopkins, a visiting artist from New York, put on a wildly entertaining and interactive performance summing up our student’s knowledge of the many artists and art styles introduced throughout our tenure with the Gallery.

My favorite part of the evening, apart from the dessert buffet and model magic, was watching parents learn from their children. Students have become so fluent in the ways of the museum that their knowledge far surpasses that of the average person. Families were so eager to soak up the stories and facts our students had to share. The level of engagement from everyone involved was at an all time high.

I loved seeing the faces of our third graders, knowing that next year, the beautiful gallery of work that hung before them would be theirs to share with the rest of the school.

Until next year, keep visiting the enlightening museums that DC has to offer and check out many of the free education programs out there.