For the parent-teacher conferences at MS8, I was given the opportunity to help MS8 art teacher, Ms. Schneider, with the art show. I helped with the setup and I gave tours. The art gallery showed our art that the middle school has made over the year.
A highlight from the show was the Sixth Grade Mummy Tomb.” All of the sixth graders made headdresses based off of what “land they ruled” (example: heavens, oceans, underworld, etc.) and we made a mummy made out of toilet paper and tape. At the same time in humanities, we were studying ancient Egypt! As a final result for the art show, Ms. Schneider and I made a tomb with a big red light making it creepy! The exhibit was in a closet in a creepy room.
A colorful exhibition was the world wildlife foundation posters. We used a great method to print photos of endangered animals of our choice onto big brown paper. We picked patterns based on the animals’ habitat and why they are endangered, then we drew these patterns on the inside of the animals’ outline. After this, we picked a color and made a colorful background.
Another colorful project, every grade made self-portraits based on Shepard Fairey’s “
Obey” exhibition. We made our own “Rebel Identity” self-portraits! We used a printing technique to get them on white paper. Then we made the portraits in different shades of one color (the darker colors in the shadow and lighter colors in the light parts of the portrait). For the backgrounds, we chose any pattern we wanted. Overall, it was a great project and really showed us the different shades of colors.
In addition, we included art from the Friday after-school drawing club. As our final drawing project, we found photos on-line and then we printed them onto paper. Using an awesome grid method, we enlarged the photograph onto big paper. This allowed us to totally draw the photograph! We used charcoal, shading stumps, etc. All of these materials made our drawings POP to life! It was really cool.
Seeing all of our artwork in one big room, made it all seem so popped out! All of the different artworks were unique in their own way and that is what made it all so cool.
Check out some of our middle school students’ incredible protest-themed artwork in response to Shepard Fairey’s work and posters by the World Wildlife Foundation (WWF) on PS8 PTA’s Facebook Page.
By Ansophie Pagani, sixth grader
