EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY

We can't agree who is a better artist, Picasso or Da Vinci.  Trying to rank student art when they are doing their best is, in my opinion, equally useless at best and potentially stifling.  We are all individuals, with individual preferences and different things we need to say.   My primary job as an art teacher is to try to understand what the students want to achieve, and help motivate and empower them to be able to do it without giving up or taking the easy way out.

INSTRUCTION

This year, we’ll continue in-depth explorations of the middle school art standards (and beyond) through drawing, acrylic/tempera/watercolor/ink painting, printmaking, and sculpture.  We will begin the year with fun explorations of the basics--  the Elements of Art and the Principles of Design.  Many of the year’s exercises will emphasize graphic imagery and representations of motion, but we will also continue to expand shading and portraiture skills.  Big areas of emphasis this year include fabric arts (tie dye, silkscreen, and more), ceramics (multiple units throughout the year), and Photoshop.  All digital artworks will be based on the students’ own photographs and artworks in other media. 

GRADING POLICY

The class grade is participation-based.  Successful completion of assignments, hard work, careful clean-up, and good citizenship all help to raise the grade.  Tardiness, lack of effort, and lack of care for school supplies, property, and peers all lower it.

FIELD TRIP

This year's art field trip will be to the Exploratorium in San Francisco (creativity, after all, ties all disciplines together....).  The tour will be followed by another round of furious out door painting.  Details coming soon.

ART SHOW

Once again, each middle school art student will be hanging his/her favorite art piece in a two-month show at Frankey's ice Cream/Pizza Parlour in downtown Mendocino from mid-April to just before school ends.  More details about this fifth-annual show will come later. 

DONATIONS

K-8 ART FUND:  Fundraising for art supplies and field trips is separate from MUSE.  This year, we are asking for a $20 donation to cove supplies for each student in the art program grades 1-8.  Checks made out to "K-8 Art Fund" or cash can be given to Tracy or Jeanne at the front desks of the K-8 campus.

MUSE:   MUSE pays for the K-8 art teacher position, just as it once paid for the chorus teacher position when that popular program was getting off the ground. Without your donations to MUSE, these and many other enrichment activities and programs for Mendocino Unified schools could not exist.  For more information, go to muse.mcn.org.

STUFF:  If you have any unused/unwanted art-making materials laying around ad would like to loan or donate them, chances are we could put them to use.  The following items are specific ones we could use.  Thanks!

 Last Updated:  9/4/11

CERAMICS
Clay Extruder
Throwing Wheel(s)
Trimming wheels
Throwing tools
Glazes (low fire or high fire)

MISCELLANY:
Digital cameras (preferably with SD cards)
Nice new white t-shirts (for tie-dying)
Good quality fabric dye
Linoleum printing blocks
Fabric silkscreen ink
Clear plexiglass sheets
Random art supplies you have laying around
Realistic busts (heads) or figurines for figure drawing exercises
Human Skeleton (plastic of course)
Art posters
Foam Butcher Trays (for relief prints)
Dremels
Safety Glasses
Foam eggcrate bed pad pieces (to hold drying ceramics pieces)
Old puzzle pieces (for assemblage/collage art)
Electric turkey knife (for cutting styrofoam)