Finished Dinosaur Demo

Alright. It's absolutely frigid outside. The actual temperature here in Columbus, Ohio on Friday was -10. I couldn't feel my face during outdoor duty this morning. My view from my room is a massive pile of snow that has been plowed from the playground. It's Monday. We all need a little levity. For that, I present to you my finished example piece for my Art Club students. If a bright pink paper mache dinosaur head mounted to the wall doesn't make you laugh, I'm not sure what will. Enjoy. 

Art Club Update

I thought I'd tell you all a little more about Art Club. What's the first rule of Art Club? Tell EVERYONE about Art Club. 

I have a total of 20 4th and 5th grade students in Art Club. We meet every Thursday after school until 5:00 for 12 weeks. There was a small fee involved to pay for materials and the club t-shirt (that we screen printed ourselves). Students had to apply to get in and I based entry on the application as well as overall classroom behavior. I limited the group size to 20 because I wanted to work on bigger and more difficult projects. It's also nice not to have 30 kids in my classroom.

We're currently working on paper mache animal heads that will be mounted on wooden backing boards that will be able to hang on the wall. It's kind of a riff off of taxidermy. Anyway, here are a few in process examples. Enjoy.

There's nothing like a big pile of animal heads to give your art room that unique touch.

Giraffe

Saber Tooth Tiger

Of course I had to do an example
piece. This pink Brontosaurus will
wind up in my daughter's room.

Art Club is the Greatest

Art Club might be my best decision in many years. I decided to start it this year and, so far, we've had three meetings. Art Club meets on Thursdays right after school until 5:00. I have 20 4th and 5th graders who all had to apply to join. Of course I got all kids who are in love with art. 20 super talented students and no behavior issues. It's like art teacher heaven. 

1/4 of Art Club in their sweet shirts we screen printed last week. One of these
days I'll remember to take a picture before we get busy making awesome art. 

A big reason for starting Art Club was to give my students some extra opportunities to continue to improve their art skills. I'm able to have them work on projects that would either be too difficult for a whole grade level or impossible to store with 120 kids working on large projects. 

Our first project is animal head sculptures made out of paper mâché. They'll eventually be mounted to boards I cut out of MDF. They'll look similar to taxidermy mounts. The pictures below are a few in-process works.