Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Exeter-Milligan Update: Art Musings






Art Musings by Lisa Kanode, Exeter-Milligan Art Instructor

The Exeter-Milligan Art room has been the place for exploring different mediums and techniques as well as discovering our creative intelligence.  Creativity is something we are born with and somewhere along the way we dismiss it or decide our creative ideas are not cool anymore.  The truth is, we are all creative and when we choose to let our creativity flow and decide we are not afraid to show it, we might actually impress ourselves and others!  This has been the case for the Art I/II students at E-M this year.  First quarter we spent time learning the skill of drawing; 3-d drawing, contour line drawing, drawing from a still life and even repeating our pattern to make a radial design.  2nd quarter however has been all about the creative process.  The students were asked to create a mixed-media collage.  They were asked to pick their subject, style, size and medium.  Pictured below, Marietta used real feathers and glitter, as well as acrylic paint and sharpie marker.  I love her choice of word art as she is an exchange student from Switzerland and she truly is creative, adventurous and “on her way!”  When asking Marietta about her art classes in Switzerland, she says, “I could never do whatever I wanted, I always had to learn something.”  Her response to what she likes about her art class this year, “We get to do some stuff that other art teachers’ never did.”  When asked if Art and creativity will help you be successful in life, Marietta says, yes, because art is a way to express yourself!

Pictured are two amazing freshman girls who are always eager and excited to show their creative side.  The artwork they are holding are beautiful glass mosaics of a subject of their choice.  Above, Claire Mounce, pictured on the left, is holding her mosaic of a falling snowflake, while Kelsey Bigelow, pictured on the right, chose to make three evergreen trees on a cold winter day.  The mosaic process was new to these Art I students as they had to cut the glass to the desired shape and rearrange the glass in a pattern that fit best on their boards.  They also had to mix and smear grout into the cracks and then buff up the glass again. 

When asking Claire what the most challenging part about art class is, she will tell you “coming up with something different from everyone else.”  One thing Claire likes about art class is all the new techniques she has learned.  Kelsey says her favorite thing about art this year is getting to explore new things and have lots of fun while learning.  “The most challenging thing is to come up with things to draw, the creativity part is the toughest for me.” says Kelsey. 

We are finishing up the semester with Artist presentations and reproductions of our chosen artist’s work.  Everyone picked an artist from a list and has researched them and will be presenting them to the class.  They have also chosen a piece of work by their artist and they are trying to make a replica of it.  I am very proud of the work they have done so far and am looking forward to submitting artwork to various art shows in the new year as well as displaying them in the school and community.


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