Still Slaying the Still Life!

Once again we created single object still life paintings. I swear they get more and more dynamic every year! This project comes as the final piece in our study of color theory. We do this through studying the color wheel, color terms, and finally color relationships. Right before this project each student had the opportunity to design... Continue Reading →

Facing Faces

This March we spent the entire month exploring the art of a self portrait and the value technique called grisaille. The Oxford Dictionary defines as, "Grisaille (/ɡrᵻˈzaɪ/ or /ɡrᵻˈzeɪl/; French: gris [ɡʁizaj] 'grey') is a term for a painting executed entirely in shades of grey or of another neutral greyish colour." I think we all know... Continue Reading →

Finished Recycled Projects

We finally finished our wonderful recycled art projects. This is my second year teaching this unit and it was so wonderful to see what a variety of results we got just this year alone. To learn more about this project you can take a look back at what some of my artists did last year... Continue Reading →

Figuring out the Figure

It has been an amazing journey so far this year watching my superb Studio II students develop and grow in their drawing skills, and more importantly in their drawing confidence! Here you can see some of my example drawings. This was a day of drawing the stars! Below are Adele, Kylie Jenner, and Taylor swift. Can... Continue Reading →

Many Perspectives

This Year Interior design projects have become a somewhat permanent addition to my curriculum. While I am always tweaking and changing my lesson plans each year, this one feels fully developed and I think it's here to stay. What I might change next year would be small things like what artists I introduced during this unit,... Continue Reading →

Happy Holidays Update!

On December 2nd my amazing young volunteers returned to Mary House to update their fall tree. It was repurposed a la Charlie Brown, and the rest of the room was decorated to match. It warmed my heart and was a beautiful way to begin the advent season. I hope you all have an amazing holiday... Continue Reading →

Bookmaking with Studio II

"For our last unit, Ms. Cowan introduced our Studio Art II class to the craft of bookmaking. Not only were we creating books to physically use, but our creations were something I had never associated with books before: sculptural works of art. Well-crafted books serve their practical purposes well, but in this unit, we stressed... Continue Reading →

Getting STEAMy

So, STEAM. It's my cross-curricular curriculum of choice. I’m doing it now, as we speak, I even presented with my colleague down in Richmond this summer at the NCGS convention, but I haven’t mentioned much about it this past year. It was my, or I should say our, first year last year. So, STEAM, who,... Continue Reading →

And So It Begins…

I know, I know, it's October, but September is a busy month for teachers, especially this one. I have been very busy adjusting for the exciting new changes that came with this year. To begin with, we have two new teachers in our upper school visual  art department. That makes four of us. We have... Continue Reading →

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