After a two month process our art pieces are ready to be adjudicated by the Burnaby Art Gallery tomorrow morning.
This ‘competition’ is a biennial event put on by the Burnaby Art Gallery – every other year this is available to elementary school students. Each year there is a central theme. This year the theme is ‘places of memory’.
Division 5’s Places of Memories
This was quite a wonderful process for our class. We initially read Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge, by Mem Fox. This is a great story about a young boy who lives near an “old folks’ home”. When he hears that his ‘senior’ friend, Miss Nancy, has ‘lost her memory’ he begins a quest to discover what memories are, and then works to find her memories for her. It is a rather touching story.
We spent a fair bit of time discussing and learning about memories, including thinking about what emotions are involved in our memories. Students drew and wrote about memories associated with a variety of feelings. We then focussed on powerful memories – ones that are so strong that they are not easily forgotten.
Students made a preliminary drawing about the place associated with their ‘powerful family memory’. They then drew a second smaller drawing where they zoomed in (focussed) on the key elements of that memorable place.
Their final pictures were created on heavy card stock using plasticene as the medium. Students used their prior knowledge of colour theory to create a variety of shades and tints by blending different colours with white or black. They also made interesting colours by blending different colours together to achieve their desired effect.
Students wrote about their pictures (memories), as their “artists’ statements”, which are a requirement for entry into the Arts Alive programme. They also chose titles for their pieces of art.
As you can see, from the above photo, these finished pieces are on display in the Multi Purpose room at school. Tomorrow morning a Jury Panel, from the Burnaby Art Gallery, will come to Rosser and look at this art. Each piece will be photographed to be included in the digital display which will be shown on a television screen at the gallery. Some pieces (hopefully) will be chosen to be taken to the gallery for display. We will find out tomorrow!!
Mrs. O’Meara’s and Mrs. Iverson’s classes also produced pieces of art for Arts Alive this year. Hopefully some pieces will be chosen from each of the three classes.
Once the Jury Panel has left our school we will be hosting a ‘gallery walk’ for the other classes in the school to come to see all three classes’ work. Then our great pieces of plasticene art will be put in the display case outside the Multi-Purpose room. Please come by to look at them!!
