This time it's all about Them....

...my students, that is!

This time of the school year, can you say "Burn Out"? So many things can get under our skin and get us discouraged. We can easily forget so much of the "big picture" and positive things all around us. I am certainly no exception. If anything, I get more discouraged than I should, being an emotional art freak, mom, teacher, wife and that whole ball of wax. I often talk about not being able to find the hidden "chill-out" switch. It would be great if I could figure out where it is and how to work it. Plus, it doesn't help getting my yearly throat/achy thing that causes me to lose my voice. Usually it happens like clockwork around Christmas, but this time it waited until April. I probably shouldn't have gone to work last week (at least not all 5 days) because 2 or those 5 days I had no voice at all. But call me a stubborn over-achiever. Plus, I worry about what's going on in the artroom when I'm not there and what WWIII I have to clean up when I get back. I finally took a day off this week. It seems the place didn't explode while I was gone. It also helped that I had a good sub. That's something you cannot always count on.

Anyway...here is a small synopsis of work from some of my BASIC and ADVANCED art students. The little I'm posting certainly doesn't do it all justice, but this entry can't last forever. The first artwork is a chalk pastel done by one of the Advanced students, who is a senior so we'll be losing her soon (cry).

CHANGE is good...Metamorphosis Pieces
The beginning of 2nd Semester, we explored M.C. Escher and did a few various projects. These are a couple from our Metamorphosis focus:










































My advanced students had some specific projects as well as Independent Projects. I was blown away at the results.

Congressional Competition
These were put in the "Artistic Discovery" Congressional Art Competition. The second one is titled "Sacred Traditions". I really think the competition should have had photography and other artwork broken up into separate categories. Of the three winners, the first two were photography pieces.




















The one on the left was inspired by Aztec designs. Excuse the weird angle the picture is captured from. I kept getting strange glares trying to take the photo from straight on. Click on it to see it with more detail.

This one was also put in the Congressional competition. He and his family even came up to Downtown Mesa to attend the reception! He's looking forward to being an Advanced student next year:

A Tessellation from one of my Basic students that was also put in the Competition. Excuse the glare:


The Monochromatic dog was done by a Basic student that was also put in the competition. He's an exchange student from Japan. I'll miss him. He'll have to wait for me to mail the dog painting to him when he's back in Japan, because I want to put it in the State Fair in October.

Another Basic student's Monochromatic work that was put in the competition. Her skills are very impressive. I hope she does Advanced next year:


This one is amazing from a truly talented student. She's already a senior, or else I would have her do Advanced next year. I love the Watercolor effect she was able to achieve with the Tempera paints. This one was also put in the competition:

Blackbird Entries
The following artworks are going to be in the Blackbird competition coming up real soon. Also, the charcoal rendition at the very top of this entry is as well:

Beautiful butterfly tessellation. This is the same artist who did the Metamorphosis above with the fairy and butterfly:

This one is one is by one of my Advanced Students that is going in Blackbird:

Unfortunately, none of these competitions are accepting sculpture. That is a shame, because there is something really impressive that another Advanced student did. Thankfully the State Fair accepts sculpture and that's where this is going in October.




























I wish I could put more, but that's all time allow for now. I have a lot of Monochromatic pieces I still want to show, as well as more Tessellations. My Facebook has a photo album with more examples. Otherwise, I'm following up this post with those other pieces to show off!