It continues to be a busy time in the Workshop. We can wind things up for the year and keep working on projects.To wind things up, finishing touches are made to work as we prepare the portfolios to go home. This includes mounting small pieces, and collecting all share/ planning papers in folders. Once in a while an artist will decide to work more on a piece.

To generate continued learning, third, fourth and fifth grades are adding some geometric designs to their portfolios. Someone asks,”What is a design?”. According to my American Heritage dictionary, meaning 4 under noun is “A visual composition or pattern”. We used the geometry templates for the shapes for the “disposition of forms…” Individual conversations and questions arise during this exercise. Considerable thought went into tracing the shapes then adding to them to hold the plan together visually, with more shapes, or color. 

Considerable enthusiasm arises as the kindies and first graders meet George Rodrigue’s Blue Dog, and find out why he’s blue. When he’s not blue what are some colors he can be; salmon proved to be popular.  Each interprets the dog in his or her own way.https://georgerodrigue.com/
 

Winding down means the gears in the hall will be coming down over the next weeks, so the  individual gears  can go home in portfolios. Third, fourth and fifth graders went into the hall, chose a “machine” and completed a reflection paper for the Gears. How to scale down a large work in a small space was the challenge. These pages  also will be included in the folders coming home in June.

One of the final decisions for K- 4 th graders will be  selecting  a piece of work from the portfolios to leave at school. These will be mounted and displayed In the halls in fall of 2016. The selections  from 2015 will be in portfolios in June.

It’s been another great year in the ARTISTS WORKSHOP. We bring 2015-16 to a close and we look to next year. Kindies through fourth graders will be planning their portfolios for 2016-17.