The shoes are finished!

After working diligently for several weeks, Ceramics students finally finished their shoes! The inspiration for this assignment came from Van Gogh's expressive series of shoe paintings. Students have enjoyed trying to match the shoe to the student artist that created it.

Shoes

I am all about Vincent Van Gogh this quarter! He is one of my favorite artists and his work offers so much inspiration. Check out this GE sponsored installation at London's National Gallery: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=541_ke_ADl0

 He is famous for a series of paintings of shoes. They have such an expressive quality; they are almost like portraits, as they can tell you so much about their owners. These paintings served as the inspiration for our current ceramics project. Students are working from observation to create a shoe sculpture that tells the viewer about themselves. Below I have included pictures of two projects that are approaching completion: a soccer shoe and worn-in Converse. I am absolutely floored by the quality of these pieces. This is easily high school quality work! I would love to enter them into an art contest, if I can only find one.

Dear Vincent

3rd graders studied the life and art of Vincent Van Gogh then embarked on the creation of their own "Starry Night" masterpiece. Our skys came alive with swirling motion, bold colors, and short brushstrokes.Students washed over their oil pastel lines with liquid watercolors. No "mud" was allowed so artists had to be mindful of what colors they were blending. Once the background was completed we cut and paste our foreground from construction paper. Artists also enjoyed writing letters to their friend Vincent. They asked such great questions and were, of course, very interested in how he lost that ear. We look forward to hearing back from him later this week ;)