June 09th, 2016

​It was kismet that on the day that artist Audrey Condon visited grade 6 to talk about her work as an animator that Google celebrated artist Lotte Reininger. As Ms. Condon explained, Lotte made cut paper silhouette animations that predated Walt Disney by a decade. Here’s a link to a short animation about Lotte, made by Google artists. During her visit, Audrey showed examples of her work, talked about her education and training as well as showing how she created some of her special effects. Grade 5 students made individual claymations, some of which are already on YouTube. Now that they know the software and techniques I look forward to having them delve deeper into animation next year as 6th graders!
Students in grade 4 came up with some novel ideas for their board games. I was hoping we would have a chance to play them in class but the time has just flown. Hopefully they will share them with their families for game night at home. In grade 3 we completed our Egyptian project by creating golden, jeweled bracelets made from recycled paper towel rolls. In grade 1 students created their own “Polaroid cameras” complete with instant film. The cameras were made from cardboard and paper towel rolls which were filled with film (a strip of paper with funny pictures drawn on it)! Grade 2 has finished the year learning how to create a sense of perspective with both “falling picture” and fields of gradually diminishing poppies. In our final K2 class students drew the scariest sharks I have ever seen! Looks like it will be a while before I go swimming again.
I hope everyone has an art-filled vacation!
See you in September.