ThankYouX Collaborative Mural

Back to School was the second week of school- SO EARLY! Even though I was excited about BTS, my room felt bare so I was in search of something BOLD to get the kids excited about collaboration. I stumbled across a ThankYouX mural project that my Teacher friend, Leanne Glace, was having her middle school kids create and just HAD to try it. Click this link for details- it's a stunner! Check out how our mural turned out!

Sketchbooks For All!

I am SO excited to have launched a new sketchbook routine in the 7th and 8th grade classes! How? By providing materials for every student to make their own sketchbook on the first day of school. After reading various Art Teacher Blogs about making sketchbooks, I was sold! On our first day of school each student assembled their own 36 page sketchbook which included the following details:

• Cover/Back Card stock Page
• Sketchbook Procedure Page
• Sketchbook Rubric Page
• 30 Day Drawing Prompt Page
• 30 sketching pages
• 1 ATC plastic sleeve

The students used brads to secure their pages and then picked out designed duct tape to reinforce the brads. The sketchbooks cost less that 80 cents per student. I love our new daily warm up and cool down sketching routine and have already written a grant for next years sketchbook materials!

August Charter Chat

August Expressions Charter Chat from Jenell Novello

7th Scratch Art Unit

The Scratch Art Unit was fast and furious! Students had so much fun creating their Keep Calm Parody and that practice really helped them build skills for their final portraits. I can't wait to work with these students next year!

8th Grade Pen and Ink Unit

Our final unit of the year was fun but bittersweet. I feel like students put a lot of heart into their work and I love looking at their final pieces on Artsonia. I am really gonna miss this class! Here are some of my faves.

7th Grade Hand Sewn Pet Beds!

The 7th grade class wrapped up the sewing unit by sewing pillows that could be used for pet beds. To my surprise, many students decided to donate their pillow as opposed to keeping their hard work for themselves. I donated 22 student pillows to the Yolo County SPCA this past Friday. A great amount of effort was put into the sewing unit and I am proud of all my students!

8th Grade Historic Skit Masks

The 8th grade class is performing a variety of historical skits for their Social Studies final. The students used Expressions class time to create their character masks for their performances. Creating masks was a fun activity that livened up the week of SBAC testing!

8th Grade Breaks In Silk Screens!

I have been wanting to try screen printing for a couple of years and have written a series of grants that have never come to fruition- until NOW! Just recently, LEAP funded a Donors Choose Grant on a money matching day. That meant that HALF of the grant contribution would be matched! That meant that we acquired around $600.00 worth of silkscreen merchandise for just $300.00. Cartwheels!

I introduced the 8th grade class to a silkscreen street artist named Shepard Fairey. Shepard not only created the iconic Obama Hope campaign image from the 2008 election, but is also one of the founders for the website amplifier.org. I challenged the class to create an original stencil to communicate a social issue that was important to them. Now understand that we are in the last month of school, so though I challenged the students I was a little uncertain how many would take on a heavy topic as opposed to creating something light and fun.

The outcome? As always, my students blew me away with their original creations and their deep connection to our culture and the world we live in. I am also uber impressed with their level of engagement with the overall process of screen printing!

May Charter Chat

Expressions Charter Chat: May 2017 from Jenell Novello

8th grade Banksy Style War and Peace Stencil Skateboard Deck

My 8th grade students are LOVING the Street Art Unit. This most recent project involved learning about the street artist named Banksy. Banksy's work tends to reflect his anti-establishment views which appeal to my middle school students. They were tasked to create an original design that reflects their views on war or peace. Once their stencil was completed they cut out a skateboard deck out of foam board. I required some type of striping or color blocked element that was painted first with acrylic before their stencil was applied with spray paint. Man, these turned out SO GOOD!

7th grade Bradshaw Shelter Animal Collages

WOW! I could tell that as soon as my students viewed the list of animals at the Bradshaw Shelter website they were totally invested in the project inspired by artist Deborah Shapiro. Students chose an animal from the shelter website to draw and collage using thumbnail sized magazine papers. They turned out amazing, so much heart was put into these collages!

8th Grade Graffiti Art

Our Street Art Unit kicked off the day before we departed on our 3-day Ashland trip. And from my experience, trying to teach middle school students the day before an overnight field trip is like herding cats. UNLESS you are teaching students about Graffiti.
This project started off with viewing many forms of Graffiti in the US from tags, stencil murals, and spray painted messages. Then we viewed Graffiti in Argentina where store owners welcome this art form and contract artists to graffiti their storefronts to attract customers.  After viewing these contrasting intentions, the students discussed their views on the many forms of graffiti, the impact on graffiti and whether or not graffiti is vandalism.
Then the students were tasked with choosing and inspiring word to paint in the style of Graffiti.
It has been one week since we returned from Ashland AND Spring Break- with 7 more weeks of school and based on the level of engagement, effort and creativity it seems like we just started the school year! Check these out!