Two days of some hard physical labor and the art show is up! All the activity really makes me wonder how I used to do all the musicals – ‘course that was 16 years ago. Sheesh, I’m getting old. Yesterday my eighth graders helped with all the nuts and bolts (literally) of putting the panels together. Today with my seventh grade I did a quick design lesson about measuring, making sure things are straight, looking for balance, a good color mix – and then they took the artwork, chose a panel, and started to mount the work.

Two of my girls helped me during seventh period (thanks Arreana and Zayra!) and they rearranged a few panels so the work was more balanced. Turns out they discovered they have a very good eye for this sort of thing! So here they are – five out of the 10 panels – notice what I mean about the great stone wall?

You can see some of the digital work the kids did, plus some of the stained glass letters.

The circle piece is really fun – Brianna did a bunch of overlapping circles and didn’t know where to go from there. I suggested she vary the colors from light to dark and she ended up with incredible depth to the piece.


Some of the geometrics, once color was added, really improved their impact. The bottom piece started out as a perspective lesson, and when Jullian framed it off-center, it led to him adding the flames around the NYC skyline in memory of September 11.