Elementary Art Show at the Remington

Last Saturday I went to the Elementary Show opening at the Remington Art Gallery.  I was a little surprised at the small amount of work that was submitted...I was expecting almost every school in the area to participate!  Not the case.  Either way, (and I don't know how to say this without sounding cruel...) seeing what other schools put out made me feel good about the art I can get my students to do.  I work in a very low-income school district and we are actually ranked 30 out of 32 in the local two counties in our math/English test scores.  :(  I'm not saying the art there was bad, but in comparison, I saw that the artwork I submitted was at least par or above par to the other work that was submitted, in my opinion! I know that probably sounds bad, but I've never really seen other Elementary artwork from the area until now (last year, I never went to the show...my parents came up to visit the weekend it opened and we had a horrible snow storm, so I never made it out there.), and I've always wondered where my students rank in the art department across the county.  Here are just a few photographs of the art that was at the show.

The pastel poinsettias and Greek vase are from my students...The small watercolor picture of a house was pretty impressive!

The birch trees with the white border and dinosaur picture in the top right corner are from my students...maybe I'm partial, but I like my birch tree project better! ;)

Drip paintings and a Chihuly project done by the Remington day care students.

The mask and Aboriginal art on the left comes from an art teacher who just started teaching this year.  Her and I actually graduated college together.  She has four blogs for her grade levels (she teachers in a small school district and teaches K-12 art.)

The Chihuly project on the right was done by the Remington day care students.

Art Shows: How do you decide which art to send?

Thank you Ruth for introducing me to Picasa!  I'm not really sure how I missed the boat on that one, but I'm in love!  Finally figured out an easy way to edit my photos quickly, as well as add my blog in text on top of the photo!

Alrighty, this post is about sending student artwork to art shows.  How do you decide which art to send?  Do you base it off of skill, student improvement, student in need of praise...???  I finished the process of picking out four elementary student artworks to send to the 30th Annual Elementary Art Exhibit at the Frederick Remington Art Museum.

For anyone who doesn't know, the American artist Frederick Remington originated from Canton, NY.  He is most famous for his artwork of cowboys, soldiers and Native Americans from the Old West.  I honestly don't know much about Remington and I feel I should brush up on him since I live a short distance from where he worked (I'm not into the "Wild West", nor is his painting style my favorite to study).  Anyways, the art museum owns a variety of his works (not necessarily his most popular or well-known ones) and I believe one of the buildings is his actual house.

This art show does not have any awards for having the best artwork.  It is merely a show for local schools to send their artwork to for recognition and to show the public what we are doing in art.  This is how I tend to choose artwork to go to this particular show:  I like to choose two artworks that are excellent in skill and craftsmanship and two artworks from students who have shown improvement or don't usually receive positive praise in school or at home for that matter.  If it was a show where there was an actual prize to be won, I would probably be a little more selective, however if it came down to two or three artworks and I couldn't choose, I would pick the student who is less recognized to go to the show.

1st Grade Dinosaur World crayon drawing with Sharpie marker

4th Grade oil pastel poinsettias

6th Grade Greek pottery scratch art

3rd Grade winter birch trees

Relaxing Weekend in Alex Bay!

Since my parents were up visiting this weekend, we took a break from work and headed out to Alexandria Bay, NY, which is about an hour from where I live.  We've been to Boldt Castle quite a few times on Heart Island, so this time we took the tour of Singer Castle.  Yes, the same Singer that is the sewing machines!  If I remember correctly, the Frederick Bourne built this castle in the 1000 Islands on Dark Island and was a fifth generation CEO of the company. He built this castle as an intended hunting lodge!

Just a cool picture I took with my iPhone!

One of the exterior views of the castle from the base of Bridal Walk.

A view of the St. Lawrence River from castle and the six story clock tower features this clock face all around which is actually 6' in diameter!

The other cool think about Singer Castle is that Frederick Remington purchased an island across the way from where they built the castle for his art studio!  They said on the tour that he bought the island for the quiet atmosphere away from Canton, NY where his home was.  Instead of quiet  though, he faced all the builders, quarry men, and large boats from Singer Castle!  In the end though, Remington apparently forgave the Singers and sent them a bouquet of flowers when they moved in!  There were a few paintings and sculptures by Remington at Singer Castle inside, like this one below!

Now all I can say is, bring it on Monday!  I really need to get to work on my school stuff for next year!  I really feel like this summer is starting to fly by now that I've created my check list of what I need to accomplish before school starts....