Wyland National Art Challenge

Tomorrow is the deadline for the Wyland National Art Challenge so anyone who created individual art or photo entries be sure to upload them to the website with all the relevant information before tomorrow at midnight.  The example above is a great one from Steph in the AP Art class.

Colors of Long Island

This week we are working to create entries for the Colors of Long Island art exhibit at the Long Island Museum in Stony Brook.  We will create full color drawings and photographs featuring imagery from Long Island to display in the show which will be on view from February 24, 2017 through April 16, 2017 with the reception on Sunday, March 5.

Extra Credit: StoryCorps-The Great Thanksgiving Listen

This month's extra credit assignment for studio art classes is to participate and upload an interview for StoryCorps The Great Thanksgiving Listen.  You can listen to some of the previous #NeedlesClass Great Listen interviews to get an idea of the expectation but we'll review the specifics in class too.  Each interview should be with an elder and have at least 10 questions along with a photograph of the interviewer and interviewee along with a signed permission form if they are going to be uploaded.  Make sure you add the #needlesclass hashtag so we can easily find them online.  Below is a StoryCorps favorite animated example.

Project Gratitude

This week Smithtown High School East participated in Project Gratitude, a social emotional learning printmaking project.  Over 350 students and teachers participated in the project creating small gratitude prints to remind themselves to be thankful and to give away to family, friends, loved ones, and even troops overseas as part of a collaborative project with the diversity club.

The project was created by Mr. Needles and grew out of our schools social emotional learning program.  It was arranged with the help of a collaborative group of teachers from our high school cohort of the Smithtown's Social Emotional Learning program including: Mrs. Schmalz (Counseling), Mr. Kelly (English), Mrs.Tener (Social Studies), Ms. Locascio (Special Ed), Mrs. Brienza (Special Ed), Mrs.Scholepflin (Math), Ms.Primiceri (Spanish), along with Mr. Needles (Art).

Students from a variety of clubs such as the National Art Honor Society, The Math Honor Society, Leadership, the Diversity Club, the Media Art Honor Society and others joined with interested students and teachers from across the school for the project.  Classes also joined in with Mr. Needles art and media classes during the day to create prints during Thanksgiving week.

The after school event included a short video, a guided meditation led by Mrs. Schmalz, a reflection lessons learned about gratitude from Mrs.Tavis and Leadership based on their reading of alumni and author John Gordon's The Energy Bus, a few personal stories and reflections in words by Mrs.Scholepflin and in writing Mr. Kelly by and a concluded with the printmaking project.

The printmaking portion of the project featured students creating 3"x5" prints on paper stock using Gelli printing plates and acrylic paint along with stamps, stencils, and other creative materials.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving! Today is the last day before the holiday break for many of you and I'll be sharing a story about helping to carry Buzz, the then un-named Cheerio's Honey Nut Bee in the 1999 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Studio Art: Monoprinting

In Studio Art we will be working on the gratitude project this week Monoprinting using Gelli plates to create 3"x 5" prints to reflect what we are thankful for.

The print will be created on the front of the card and text will be added after it's dried then on the back you'll write your name and something your thankful for.  Above are some student examples.

AP Art: Shanti Peace Poster Contest Winner

Congratulations to AP art's Ilysa Sirota on winning the 2016 Shanti peace poster contest for her colorful, graphic design featured below.  She was awarded $147 (the age Ghandi would be if he were alive) by the Shanti organization and Suffolk County executive Steve Bellone at a ceremony this week and her image will be featured in their annual calendar.  This is Ilysa's second winning poster design, she also took the top prize in last year's competition.  For over 12 years, Volunteers of Shanti Fund have been actively promoting peace through education through programs like their annual peace poster competition. 

Scholastic Art& Writing Awards

The deadline for the Scholastic Art& Writing Awards is coming up, it's the first week of December so make sure you begin preparing your entries and enter online using the line above.  the categories range from Photography to Mixed Media to Comic Art so take a look and enter!

AP Art: Identity Breadth

In AP Art we have been working on our 3rd breadth piece which is focused on identity and is due in class today.  The video above from MoMA gives an insight into how Frida Kahlo and some other well known artists have dealt with identity in their art.  We will prepare some of the works for submission into the Nassau County Community College juried Art Student Exhibit.  Take a look at the image below from the NCCC college firehouse gallery exhibit from last year.

Digital Media: Drawing with Robots

In Digital Media class we are working with coding to learn how to draw with robots later in the class, we want to understand how to best control and program the drawings so we'll be working on code.org's upper level artist level to create 4 creative drawings and post them to the code art gallery.

Studio Art: Artist Trading Cards

This weekend I mailed out our Studio Art and AP Art Artist Trading Cards for the global swap so we should be receiving our cards shortly from around the world.  I mailed out over 300 ATCs this year so they will be processed and sent around the world.  Above is a look at some of the great, creative ATCs that students created in class and art honor society.

Art Honor Society: Project Gratitude

In Art Honor Society we began working on Project Gratitude this week, creating Gelli monoprints that reflect our gratitude to share with others.  We'll be rolling out the project school wide later in the month and them extending it into the community later in the year!

Studio Art: Illustration Friday

Today was my last day in @Artroom161 sad to see it go after all the work we did to make it a #creative #art #classroom! pic.twitter.com/rviEjOjiFg

— Tim Needles (@timneedles) November 8, 2016

In Studio Art class we are moving to a new classroom on the "other side" and leaving Artroom161 today.  We will begin by acquainting ourselves with our new surroundings and organize where things are in this room.

Then we will be closing out the quarter this week by completing the sketchbook drawings of our hands and creating an drawing for this week's Illustration Friday theme of STEAM like the example above from illustrator Gabi Toma.

Photography: Meta

In Photography we recently finished our artist research project and now it's time to get Meta and create an image inspired by something you learned from one of the photographers we studied.  the image can be a direct interpretation of one of their works or a work inspired by something the believe in philosophically or do technically.  The edited images are due on Wednesday.

Studio Art: Min-comics

In Studio Art class we are just wrapping up our creating our mini-comics and now it's time to share them.  Make sure to scan and save you full mini comic so that we can have a copy to share (and grade) in the class public drive.  The stories have been diverse and terrific, I love this comic from Adelaide above, it's a really powerful story and very well draw and designed.  I'll be collecting all the mini-comics today, looking forward to reading more of them!

AP Art: Sketchbook Work

The AP Art and Studio Art classes might want to take a look at my featured post on the Sharing Our Notebooks Blog this month in which I share some of my sketchbook art and writing process.  The blog looks at writers and artists and how they use notebooks and sketchbooks in their work.

STEAM and StoryCorps Webinars

This week I'll be a guest on two webinars to share some of the educational programs we have been working on in class: STEAM and StoryCorps.

On Tuesday the webinar is hosted by the School Library Journal and ISTE, the International Society for Technology in Education, and the webinar is focused on the A in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, & Math).  I'll be a guest along with LittleBits designer Krystal Persaud, librarian Shannon M .Miller, and host Kathy Ishizuka.  I'll be sharing some of the great STEAM project we've worked on both in Digital Media and Art classes and the Makerspace Club.

On Wednesday the webinar is hosted by the TED prize award winning NPR radio show StoryCorps and I'll be sharing some of my insights on creating great student interviews for the Great Thanksgiving Listen Project along with Maureen Nagle, a teacher from the Moses Brown School.