As spring draws near, the art room is busy preparing work for the annual St. Albert Spring Art Show.  We will return to the Town & Country Fine Art Gallery in May.  Last year's show at the gallery in Town & Country Shopping Center was very well received and I was excited to have the opportunity to return there to showcase our students' talent.

I will hang the show on May 12.  An opening reception is scheduled for Wednesday, May 13, from 6-8 p.m, with refreshments.  This is a great time for our artists and their families to view our students' creativity and talent.  I hope to see you there!  If you can't make it for the reception, the art will be on view from May 13 through May 29.  It is located in the gallery's Art in Motion space next to BW3 restaurant.  Be sure to take a look when you're in the mall.

Meanwhile, the yearbook is nearly wrapped up.  It goes to the printer in March and will be distributed to the students on their last day of school.

As for news in the classroom, the 8th graders recently finished beautiful drawings of the Sistine Chapel done by learning grid drawing.  Their work was finished in pastels.  They are now learning new color pencil techniques with their subject being a car.  Their talent is impressive.

The 7th Grade continues to work on their paper mache fish, which are nearly finished.  It's been a long process, but their results are creative and colorful.  Next up: perspective drawing.

In the 6th Grade, students learned about the colorful mola designs of the Cuna Indians.  They came up with some marvelous paper mola designs of their own and are now moving onto figure drawing, which is always a challenge.

The 5th Grade recently completed a study on expressionism and is now working with radial design.  They're an imaginative group and always put a different twist on their work.  It's fun to see them create.

In 4th Grade, the students are making angels to stuff and hang from the ceiling.  They're come up with some colorful angels, and colorful ideas of what an angel may look like!

The 3rd graders learned about the art of batik.  Rather than using hot wax and inks, I introduced the idea to them with a more age-appropriate method of heavy crayon and tempera paint.  They had fun "ruining" their work by crumpling up their paper, covering it with paint, and then washing it off to reveal their drawings.

In the 2nd Grade, the students learned about the colors of the color wheel and how the secondary colors are made from the primary colors.  They had a fun day of creating these colors on their own and are now working on a bird project that incorporates all the colors of the color wheel.

The 1st Grade has been studying the work of Eric Carle and his books, such as The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  They are working on creating their own painted papers, which will be used later to create their own butterflies, caterpillars, and other creatures.

Finally, in Kindergarten, the young students have been learning about different kinds of lines, neutral colors, and using all kinds of art materials.  Their work goes into a Kindergarten Art Book.  They are nearly done with all the pages and will soon be starting the cover.  Look for it sometime in the 4th Quarter.

Here's to a colorful Spring!

Mrs. Lisa Becker