Cakes for a Cause!

Operation Shower is a non-profit organization that recognizes and honors the sacrifices military families make by coordinating unit-wide baby showers for pregnant or expecting military families in a deployment or high stress situation. As part of this year's Constellation Energy Senior Players' Championship, a major of the PGA Tour, PGA players' wives and Constellation wives will be hosting a shower at Walter Reed Medical Center on Wednesday, October 6 for approximately 40 women and their families--all of whom the husbands have been badly injured in the war. Since Walter Reed is one Calvert's Outreach partners, some Calvert students (including our advisory!) helped make diaper cakes for the shower. The girls loved working on the project as you can see from the photos below. We were able to help make 9 cakes out of the 50 they need!

Critique of Portraits

Usually when one or two students claim, "I'm done" in art class, I know it's time to take a break, put all of the artwork up on the wall and talk about it. Critiques are a wonderful way to get student artists to take a step back and look at their work from a new perspective, as well as get feedback from classmates about their artwork. They often get ideas from looking at the other pieces as well as from comments made by their peers. The critique involves much more than the relatively simple act of judging--of determining whether one "likes" or "dislikes" a piece or whether it's "good" or "bad". When talking about a piece, students are encouraged to describe, analyze and interpret it... They should make comments about what they see, why it makes an impression, what it might mean or how it makes a viewer feel. Here are some shots of today's 7th grade portrait critique:

Da Vinci Lives!

Today in Art History, we read about some of Leonardo Da Vinci's most famous paintings- the Last Supper and the Mona Lisa. Did you know that Da Vinci carried the Mona Lisa with him until his death, working on it the whole time? Did you know that a single wispy brush stroke makes up her eyebrow (or lack thereof)? Did you know that the painting was stolen from the Louvre in 1911 and was missing for two years until the thief tried to sell it in Italy? After reading all about it, students stepped into the role of Mona herself, using my Halloween costume from two years ago! Check out these "enigmatic smiles":























In our study of Leonardo Da Vinci this week, we learned about how in his lifetime, Leonardo produced thousands of pages of notes, ideas and sketches of plants, animals, the human body, people, canals, contact lenses, bridges, parachutes, inventions, war machines and more. He was particularly interested in the way things worked. In class yesterday, 6th graders created sketches of 'gadgets' in the style of Da Vinci. They carefully observed how the items (a pasta maker and clay/garlic press) operate, drew them and took notes (backwards of course) about how they work, the same way Da Vinci would have:

First Hockey Game!!

Yesterday was our first field hockey game of the fall season at home against the Park School, and both the A and B teams were victorious! More importantly, we had a lot of fun! Here are some photos of the girls doing their dynamic warmup and shuttle drills before the game:

A sweaty (I mean, glowing!) A-Team and two very proud coaches after their win:

A few action shots of the B-Team game:

"Give Maintenance a Break Day"

Sixth grade girls all got together as a group recently to discuss ideas for Outreach projects we can do internally in the Middle School. The girls suggested having a monthly "Give Maintenance a Break" day, where they would spend their advisory period taking over the task of cleaning up the atrium after snack and resetting it for lunch. During this time, Mr. Artis and Mrs. Price, who usually do the cleaning, will get to put their feet up! In addition to doing the work, the girls wanted to provide treats for the whole Maintenance Department to show our appreciation for their valuable contributions to our school. Our first "Give Maintenance a Break" day was today and it was a great success!

This picture is SO posed! These two wouldn't stop working no matter what we said or did... hopefully they will take a real rest at our next day in October. They deserve it! Treats being delivered to the Maintenance office in the Lower School:

Mr. Artis and Mrs. Price enjoying treats in the MS Maintenance shop:

The girls were busy vacuuming, cleaning tables, chairs and windows, taking out trash and more:

The girls were proud of the clean Atrium!

5th Grade Printmaking in Progress

Fifth grade girls are nearing the end of their first project, which involved drawing a stylized animal or flower design, carving into a rubber printing plate with a tool called a gouge, and then printing on colored paper with printing ink. The room is always bustling during this process, as you can see below. Along the window, prints hang to dry on the laundry line: Here, students are carving more from their plates after making a "test print," which showed them where to go back and give a little more TLC:

One students applies pink ink to her plate with a special roller called a "brayer," while the other student gently rubs paper on top of the inked surface of her plate:

A print hot off the "press":

In another class this week, the girls used bleeding tissue paper and spray bottles to create warm and cool dyed paper, which we will use as a printing surface in another class. I always think it's cool when you can make not only the carved relief plate, but even the paper you print on!

Whirled Peace!

Pinwheels for Peace is an art installation project started in 2005 by two Florida art teachers as a way for students to express their feelings about what’s going on in the world and in their lives. The project was quickly embraced by their students and the entire school community and by millions of art teachers, teachers, parents, children and adults who desire peace in our world. In 2009, over 3 million pinwheels were spinning in thousands of locations around the world!

In advisory last week, all middle school students created pinwheels for the project. On one side, students wrote their thoughts about peace / tolerance/ living in harmony with others, and on the other, they drew to visually express their feelings. Today, September 21, is International Day of Peace, and our 200 pinwheels are installed outside of the MS as a public statement and art exhibit/installation about peace. The spinning of the pinwheels in the wind spreads thoughts and feelings about peace throughout the country, the world!

Projects in Progress

No projects are completed and up on the walls just yet, but here's what is happening in each of my classes right now!

Eighth graders are creating a series of small sculptures in which one object goes through a metamorphosis to become another object. The first example below is going to be Pooh turning into a honey pot:

In seventh grade, students are busy adding value to a self portrait project called "Shades of Summer":

In sixth grade art history class, students got to create a hands-on studio project by making a fresco painting on fresh plaster and making their own egg tempera paint. First, students punched holes into a "cartoon" (a sketch) and then rubbed charcoal dust through the holes onto damp plaster to get an outline of their image:

Next, students cracked egg yolks into a bowl and mixed the yolk with powdered tempera paint to create "egg tempera"- a medium common in the Renaissance. We made all of the colors below from only the primary colors!

Students used the paint to color in their image on damp plaster, making a mini fresco!

In advisory, all of the 6th grade girls teamed up to create posters promoting Race for the Cure. If you're interested in joining TEAM CALVERT for the run or walk on Sunday, October 3rd, sign up here!

In sixth grade Studio Art, students are busy painting their own unique tesselation designs, which will serve as the background for their warm/cool color portraits. Here are some photos of them tracing their shapes before mixing their paint colors.

Fifth grade post coming soon!