Thank you so much to my wonderful coworkers for helping me for HOURS as we hung up nearly 550 portraits. The next time you are by the school, please visit to see the awesome work of our students. Below you can see a video compilation of the wall, or you can click through our gallery photos yourself!
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For scheduling purposes, each class has one of their specials twice. There are 5 classes that have art twice first quarter: Room 102, 214, 309, 312, and 209. These classes currently have art on Mondays and Fridays, and we fondly call the Friday class our "bonus" class. With our extra time together, we are working on a fun Friday project: colorful floral still lifes inspired by the work of renowned Cuban artist Amelia Pelaez. These projects mirror the process of our rainbow portraits (pencil, marker, watercolor) with a lot less pressure. Drawing faces can be stressful, and so taking time to draw abstracted flower vases is a nice way to wind down the week while still practicing the skills we are using on our main project.
I'm attaching pictures below because these are already looking gorgeous! Thank you to everyone who visited RAY-Vinia and our Art Gallery walk! We are leaving the work up for a couple more days and will start to send it home on Thursday. I just wanted to post a few pictures for those of you who were unable to make it, I'm pretty proud of our kids! Special shout-out to my after school students who helped hang and present over 1000 pieces of artwork!
To kick off our altered book unit, 3rd-8th grade students were given a quick assignment to create a black-out poem using pages from old books that had fallen apart. Sometimes it can be very surprising what can be found when you search for only the emotional words on a page. Sometimes there is little to be found - but either way we are artists and we work with what we have! Take a look at some of the progress below!
My 3rd-8th grade classes are at various stages of building their relief sculptures, depending on how often I see the class. All classes have completed the introductory steps of looking at various pop artists and installation-based artists for inspiration, and creating their plans and paper armatures. Most classes have begun to add paper mache (glue and paper) layers to their armatures, and a few have begun to paint and add details to their sculptures. Below you can see some process photos of students building their armatures, layering their paper mache, and adding details. I'm so excited to install these around the school!
Take a look at our submissions for our Black History Month Art Contest. The variety and skill shown by students brings life to our hallway. Our judges have a difficult task ahead of them!
The past couple weeks 3rd-8th grades have been working on their culminating painting activity: an acrylic painting on a canvas board. Thank you to all of the parents and community members who donated to the art room donors choose to make this possible.
Students practiced a variety of painting techniques before winter break using tempera paint, and now they are creating their own images using photography books and references on the art room walls. Below you can see some students painting their skies and first landscape layers! It took longer than I'd hoped, but our Alebrijes are finally hanging up in the school and looking fabulous! Third through 8th grade worked in teams to develop a story for an imaginary creature, and then designed and painted it drawing inspiration from Oaxacan Alebrijes. They are located in our main stairwells, and they really pop!
![]() When you visit Ray for parent teacher conferences over the next couple of weeks, please be sure to take a walk down the annex ramp. Our rainbow portraits are installed there, with a self-portrait hanging from each student in my K-8th grade classes. The beginning of the hallway starts with pink portraits created by kindergarten, and the hallway ends with red-violet portraits created by our 8th grade class. Each shift in hue denotes a new class. The class colors are: Kindergarten: Pink, 1st: Red, 2nd: Orange, 3rd: Yellow, 4th: Green, 5th: Teal, 6th: Blue, 7th: Indigo, 8th: Violet. Students can expect to create one of these portraits each year they are at Ray so that as students get older, they are creating a portrait in every color of the rainbow. When they receive all their portraits back, the collection can become a personal keepsake. I have some photos posted below, but it's much more vibrant in person - please visit! Third through 8th grade are working on their painting skills in preparation for creating a landscape of their choosing. First students practiced color mixing, then various textures, and finally students will create a copy of a generic landscape where they demonstrate both color mixing and texture. Once they have completed these exercises, they will select an image of a landscape to use as a reference, and develop their own painting from it. Some of my classes have completed the first two challenges, and you can view some good examples completed by 7th grade and 6th grade below.
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Ms. KatzenbachMs. "Katz" is a teaching artist, with specialties in painting and video. She graduated from the University of Illinois with both a bachelors and a masters in Art Education. Archives
May 2023
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