“School and Community Pride”

Mural Design Competition

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Sponsored by the Central Texas Rail History Center

About this Art Contest: The Central Texas Rail History Center (CTRHC) is sponsoring the School Pride Mural Design Competition. This competition has been created to encourage Flatonia Independent School District (FISD) students to use their creativity to create a two-dimensional design that displays pride in our Flatonia schools and in the Flatonia community. This contest is open to any enrolled FISD student grades pre-kindergarten - 12th grade. The grand prize winner will have the chance to collaborate with the FISD Art Department and CTRHC to have their design recreated and featured as a mural piece at the CTRHC.

To Enter:

• Entrant must be an enrolled student at FISD, Pre-K through 12th grade.
• The entrant must create a design using the attached contest entry form while following the contest rules below. A student is allowed to create as many design entries as he or she sees fit.
• Besides a design, the entrant must have the remainder of the entry form filled out and signed with the approval of a parent or legal guardian. Any missing information will disqualify the entrant’s design.
• All completed entries need to be turned into either of the FISD front offices (elementary or secondary campus) before 3:35 PM on Friday, April 12th.
• Note that contest entries might not be returned to the student.

Contest Rules:

1. Using the official contest entry form, creatively design a landscape that displays FISD school pride and a love for our community of Flatonia.
2. Design must be created by hand using two-dimensional media (i.e. paint, colored pencils, crayons, pastels). Please do not submit any collage or three-dimensional work.
3. Design must fit within the rectangle on the entry sheet.
4. Content must be school appropriate.
5. Designs must be original to the student submitting. Do not trace or use another person or organization’s intellectual property, with the acception of any FISD logos, typography or FISD graphic design.

Privacy:  Entrants, parents and guardians agree that any personal data collected on the entry form may be used by FISD and CTRHC in relation to the contest and normal contest procedures.

Publicity:  Once an entry is submitted, the entrant and the parent or legal guardian agree to waive any intellectual property rights of the design and is transferred over to the property of FISD and CTRHC. FISD and CTRHC are allowed to use and display the entry design in anyway they deem fit.  

By entering the contest, entrants, parents and guardians also agree to participate in any media or promotional activities resulting from the contest, but not at the entrant’s monetary expense.

Notification of Winner:  The winner of the contest will be notified using the contact information provided on the entry form. He or she will be notified the week of April 15th, 2019.

Prize: The winner will get the chance to collaborate with the FISD Art Department and CTRHC to have their design recreated and featured as a mural piece at the CTRHC. The winner will also gain artistic recognition by having their design publicly displayed on different FISD school affiliated media sites and through local media outlets.

Click here to access the contest entry form.

Drawn to Art during the 4th Cycle

Hey there, Bulldog community! Today is a good day to look back on the amazing things our young artists did last cycle, especially because it is the beginning of Youth Art Month, aka YAM. When reflecting, I noticed an overall theme developing in our art. It seems that in all things we did, our art always tied back to generating a deeper understanding of the world around us. Young artists have been observing and creating from what they see around our world, both in nature and within our communities. They also have been taking a closer look at some of the other cultures that are found on the globe and how they compare to our own. Last, students have been developing art in a way that leaves little waste in the wake, if any, while thinking about how their art could make our world a healthier and more beautiful place. Below is a recap on most of these projects that students, Pre-K through 12th, participated in.

I would say that our biggest success last cycle was the 5th grade art field trip, and the fact that fifth grade work is being exhibited at the esteemed Texas Quilt Museum of La Grange, TX. Thank you to all involved in helping create this opportunity. I wrote about the event a few weeks back. You are more than welcome to search it out on the blog.

Our other great success was the fact that the art department had Science-based art to feature at this year’s Science Night. I thank all the students who were involved in the creation of these pieces, installations and break downs. Featured art were as follows:

Pre-K Collage: Pre-K collaborated to create a collage of Staghorn Coral, a species that is on the top ten endangered species list for North America. To use little resources, the piece was created by reusing old paper, and then painting it and collaging it in a way to show an image of coral. You can see more of our elementary students' collages at the digital gallery Artsonia.

Third Grade Cells Inside Cells Installation: For this work of art, third graders drew and painted images that were taken from inside a transmission electron microscope. To see individual work visit this link. Later, these works of art were cut and folded into the shape of another type of cell - the hexagonal cell of a honeybee comb. Once the hexagonal cells were completed we were able to install them into a pattern of a tessellation.

4th and 5th Grade Assemblage: For this project students used found objects and recyclables to build and dream big. The sculptures themselves were intended to be robots, computers and machines. If these objects were to actually function, they would have different jobs that help keep the world a healthy and beautiful place. Artists who inspired the students were sculptors Louise Nevelson and Angela Hazeltine Pozzi. Before students take these sculptures home, we would also like to exhibit them a little longer at school. More information on that will be coming soon.

Secondary Artist Books: Secondary art students also had a hand in Science Night. Last semester they spent time drawing from observation to create scientific studies like naturalist John James Audubon. Later they created prints that were mounted into three large, handmade books, mimicking the Birds of America a magnificent compendium created by Audubon and the science community in the early 1800’s. To check out students’ preliminary studies, visit this page at Artsonia.

Moving back to three-dimensional form, secondary art students took a stab at sculpting with papier mache during the fourth cycle. It was a messy project (a BIG THANK YOU to our custodian Zenaida Castillo!!!) but the end results were amazing. If you have not visited the secondary library, I encourage you to go check it out. On display are the sculptures of personified food made by 8th - 12th graders. It is evident that these young people have a lot of creativity to work with.

As for contest art, 8th-12th grade also participated in the 2019 Doodle 4 Google contest. A lot of thought and work went into these creative drawings of the Google logo, designed around the theme “When I grow up, I hope…” You can see some designs below. Again - beautiful minds.

Students also observed and drew around local traditions within our community. For example, we always have fun walking out to the Auction Barn  during the annual Livestock Show to take a closer look at the animals and their owners as they put them on display for competition. Students used their well-practiced drawing skills and created visual representations of the going-ons of the show. Below are some of the beautiful pencil drawings created that day.

Third graders also got a chance to draw from observation. Students tried to artistically document the QU Wedding, a Pre-K community tradition that creatively explores relationships within phonics. Below are images of students creating during and after the event. They will be finishing these works this week with splashes of watercolor.

Last we ventured away from our own culture to take a look at another across our globe: that of Australia and the Australian Aborigine. Kids especially had fun learning about the animals of Australia and comparing them to the animals we have here in Texas. We observed how Australian animals are artistically represented in Australia, and then we tried our own hand at the Western Desert Aboriginal style but with Texas state mammals. The end results were lovely, and each child’s art has been photo-documented and added to our page on the Artsonia digital art gallery (click to see 1st/2nd grade armadillos here and kinder bats here).

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Expanding beyond the Island Shore:

This year a big goal of mine was to reach out to parents and the community. We need to increase the visibility of the art created by students at the FISD Art Department, plus we need to create more opportunities where students and the community can artistically work together. The gallery at Artsonia, social media (aka the Twitter feed) and this blog are great tools to reach this goal. Let’s face it, physically hanging artwork on walls around the campus takes time and resources, access for viewing is extremely limited and, honestly, Ms. Demel only has 24 hours in a day.

If you would like to keep up with what your child is creating in the art room, you can do any of these three things: 

• Follow our Twitter feed: CaitlinE.Demel@DemelFineArt
• Follow this blog :)
• Activate your child's account at Artsonia. You can email me if you lost the parent code that was sent home for your child. My email is cdemel@flatonia.txed.net

Currently we only have 21% of our students’ artwork viewable on Artsonia due to low parent permission rates. Help us raise this rate. Let’s get to 100%. Every child deserves to have their artwork seen. What they create in the art room is extraordinary. Also, fun fact: the gallery will keep documentation of your child’s art pieces during all of their years at FISD, so you will be able see their artistic development take place, all in one place, under one click in the years to come.

In closing, I wish you a wonderful March - the month when we celebrate the art created by our youth! Happy YAM!

Stories of West Africa Field Trip and Exhibit

The Art Department has hit a small milestone! We had our very first field trip! Last week 5th graders had the opportunity to view their coloring pages on display at the Texas Quilt Museum in La Grange, TX.

You may ask, how did these kiddos get their art up at the museum? Madison Vrazel, a Texas Quilt Museum coordinator, sent a friendly email back in December asking if the students would be interested in coloring some images to supplement an upcoming exhibition, Stories of West Africa, by Hollis Chatelain. Of course, the students and I jumped at the opportunity.

During the creating process, I introduced the students to the quilted work of Hollis Chatelain through use of her website and resources on the Texas Quilt Museum website. According to the sites, Chatelain had lived in West Africa for 12 years, and was later inspired to create drawings and eventually quilts from her time spent there. These quilts are currently on display at the museum, each one telling a story of her experience and sharing a glimpse of the culture within West Africa. The students filled coloring pages of these scenes from the quilts. The coloring books themselves were generously donated to each fifth grade student by the Texas Quilt Museum and the coloring book publishing company.

Some of the quilts were especially intriguing to the students, as they revealed images of other arts and crafts traditionally used in parts of West Africa, arts and crafts that we also studied in art class, such as pottery-making and weaving of textiles. The images of Chatelain’s quilts were beautiful on the projector, but nothing compared to seeing them in person. The students were genuinely in awe.  

I have to send out a HUGE THANK YOU to Mrs. Lesikar, Mrs. Harris, Mrs. Kutac, Madison Vrazel, The Texas Quilt Museum, the coloring book publishers and any other people involved with making this exhibit and field trip a success. It is an experience that will last in the students’ memories for a very long time. And with that being said, I would also like to thank the students who participated. You guys sure do make me proud!

Third Cycle Monotypes

Does anyone remember the crazy business of last cycle? If you recall, it was the holiday season, and the art department was also bustling with activity. Because things were so nutty, I never got a chance to share with the community all the creative things our most amazing young artists made. Thankfully, things have simmered down, and I have quite a few pics taking up space on my phone, so I am ready to start sharing!

 

To start, last cycle third grade students created an essential prop for the holiday program using the art of printmaking. The prop that was made can be seen below: if you remember from the program, it was the giant present that the jack-in-the-box popped out of, surprising us all! The third grade class created the circles that decorated the box.

To create this festive design, students used a printmaking method to smear ink (in our case tempera paint) onto plexiglass plates. Then they created a design by making a variety of marks onto the “ink”. Last, students carefully pressed clean, circular paper onto the wet “ink” and peeled it off to reveal a mirror image of their design. Here are some images of this process.

Overall, this was a quick and messy project, but, as usual, the students and I had fun, and we were delighted with many of our prints. And the end result? It really did look remarkable. This last picture is a close up of one side of the box. Thanks, third grade!

Afternote: Because students enjoyed the monoprinting technique so much, I was able to work actual printmaking ink into our next order of art supplies. The tempera paint was so "slippery" and "slidey" but the ink will have more viscosity. Huzzah, Huzzah!

Also, more photos and information from the third and fourth cycle will be coming soon. Click on the side bar to follow our blog and support your young artists.

3rd Grade Art - Cells inside Cells

Like 4th and 5th grade, Flatonia ISD third graders have also been working diligently on a project to display at the 2019 Science Night. If you take a look at the picture below, you can see the cool hexagonal tessellation these kiddos are creating with their individual paintings and drawings of various cells seen under electron microscopes. During this project we: 

• talked about and observed the hexagon shape of a bee cell inside a honeycomb.
• observed and drew from colored, three-dimensional images of cells, taken by electron microscopes.
• discussed that our tessellation is a pattern that could go on forever.
• worked with out-of-the-ordinary media, such as oil and soft pastels, water colors, and fancy artist markers.
• transformed a two-dimensional object into a three-dimensional object through cutting, folding and pasting. 

We look forward to sharing our final piece with you at Science Night!

 

Found Object Sculptures: 
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Hey there, folks! 4th and 5th grade students have been having tons of fun creating found object sculptures to exhibit at the 2019 Science Night. After taking a look at art by Louise Nevelson and contemporary artist Angela Pozzi, students were then prompted to team up and create their own found object sculptures. But that was not it - they faced a challenge. Not only were we to use recyclables and repurpose what would otherwise be garbage, we decided to give our sculptures a job that could help to make the world a better place. Transform the size of food to help appease world hunger? Robotic filters that balance out water ecosystems? The sky is the limit! This week our mission was to PAINT our objects. The mess was worth it, because, 1.) We have been  learning a lot about teamwork and problem-solving and 2.) The way the sculptures look are going to rock y'all's world!

Here are some sneak peeks: 

Vote for Artist of the Week!

Fun stuff! Click on the link below to vote for one of our very own Bulldogs, Braidy Fike, Competitor for Artist of the Week! Artsonia, our online art gallery, has selected one of her paintings to be in this weeks competition. Way to go, Braidy! Vote for Braidy15

Art Newsletter: Second Cycle 2018-2019

Wow! A second cycle of art is already behind us. My amazing young artists at FISD have been very busy, as usual, keeping the beauty of art-making alive. The amount of photos we have on the Artsonia digital art gallery proves how productive students have been. Click on the following link to see the plethora of individual student artwork from our school.

Flatonia Digital Gallery Space at Artsonia

Following are images and brief descriptions of some projects students have participated in. Some projects have come to successful ends, whereas others are still in progress. Either way, the students are learning many new techniques and skills to incorporate into future art to develop confidence and success.

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Project: Assemblage

Below are examples of our students' initial sculptural work with assemblage. Assemblages are created from found objects. Children took a look at the assemblages by artist Louise Nevelson and then contemporary artist and activist Angela Pozzi. The students discussed how we can use materials for our art to make a healthier earth. We also discussed how art can be used as a vehicle to make people more aware of problems in our world. For example, artist Angela Pozzi does just that: she shows people that their pollution strips away at animals' natural habitats, especially in the ocean (see more about Pozzi and her artwork here). The older elementary students will continue with this project to create robotic and mechanical assemblages that have specific jobs to keep our earth healthy. We plan on exhibiting these group projects at Science Night in January.

Project: Collages Showing Depth Using the Rule of Thirds

Secondary students had a crash course on how to use a trick that goes back to Renaissance times - the Rule of Thirds. This technique is now commonly used to create well-balanced photography and cinematography. For their collages, students were encouraged to create a background, middleground and foreground to show depth within their picture plane. They also took a look at the work of Romare Bearden, a prolific artist and collagist from Harlem, who was greatly influenced by the generation before him, the men and women who helped shape the Harlem Renaissance.

Project: Learning from the Masters

One thing that the secondary students do regularly is to create artwork inside visual journals. These notebooks are like sketchbooks, but students are encouraged to do more than simply draw. They are prompted to color, sew, and add paint to their visual journals. They are encouraged to write and take notes and harness ideas that inspire them. The visual journal is an art piece unto itself. Below are some images that were created in two students visual journals last semester. You can see more images at the FISD Digital Art Gallery on Artsonia. Here is a direct link for this particular project:

Visual Journal - Art Cards and Drawing from Observation

Projects: Drawing from Observation and Printmaking

For these activities older students created art in the spirit of painter, printmaker, entrepreneur and naturalist John James Audubon. We drew and drew, and then we drew some more. As a class, we traipsed outside to draw within the field. We also drew from life, observing specimen on loan by the Science Department (thanks, Science friends!). Finally, students took their drawing skills to the next level: they were taught a printmaking technique to create prints from their original studies and then drew into those. It was a great learning experience, and most of us enjoyed being outdoors instead of cooped up inside a classroom. If you come to Science Night in January, you will be able to peruse a small compendium (a bound artist book) of beautiful prints that were created by these students. Later, the artist book of prints will be available for viewing through the Flatonia Secondary Library. 

Project: Sculpture - Manipulating Paper to Create Form

Secondary students practiced folding, bending and connecting paper to create an intriguing three-dimensional form. They were allowed only paper, scissors and their set of hands for tools.  As they experimented to create their forms, they were encouraged to create an intriguing relationship between the object's positive and negative space. Their paper sculptures are proudly displayed on the bulletin near the counselor's office in building A.

Project: Weaving Paper and Fibers

During this project, students were taught the age-old skill of weaving while using paper. Some students enjoyed the activity, finding it to be relaxing. As a result, we dug out some cardboard looms and started practicing weaving with yarn and fabric scrap as well. Because students enjoyed weaving so much, I anticipate that there will be more images of woven art for you to check out in the future.

Project: Creating Painted Paper

For this activity, younger elementary students were shown how to paint old paper for reuse. Before the paint dried, they were shown how to add different textures and patterns with forks, sculpting tools and bubble wrap. While they did this activity, students learned about the collage work of author and illustrator Eric Carle. The students' faces lit up when they realized they were already familiar with Carle's illustrations from books like The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? They were told that their painted paper was going to be cut into organic and geometric shapes and then collaged together to create images of animals, just like in Carle's books.

Project: Organic Shape, Pattern and WILD THINGS!

The most recent project that the younger elementary students worked on was to create WILD THINGS, inspired by Maurice Sendak's book Where the Wild Things Are. Children did this by tracing an organic shape for the body, and then adding monster essentials (the parts of the body a living creature needs to survive and live a happy, healthy wild-thing life). Later, students added pattern to the the wild thing's body, and if time permitted, they were encouraged to give their wild thing a special habitat. The children were so proud of their wild things that we marched around the room holding our artwork up high in the air, creating a wild thing parade. It was a wild experience and monster-loads of fun!

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Thank you for reading the FISD Art Newsletter. We look forward to sharing more of our art at the end of next cycle.  Until then, you are always welcome to check out individual student art work at 

Flatonia Digital Gallery Space at Artsonia. 

Work is added to the secondary gallery regularly.

Thank you for supporting the FISD Art Department, 

our creative young artists, 

and have a holiday!