The Amazing Race through the Arts: From Plock, Poland to Gera, Germany to Takaoka, Japan

The Foundation for Arts and Music in Education of the Wabash area will host its fourth annual FAME Festival on March 27, 2010. The festival will take place at the Honeywell Center in Wabash, Indiana.

The FAME foundation was founded in 1987 to foster and perpetuate creativity through multicultural arts education.

The theme this year is centered around the countries of Poland, Germany, and Japan, each having a sister city to Fort Wayne, Indiana.

The 2nd 9 weeks group of fifth graders each made a poster representing the FAME festival's theme. Each poster refers to Poland, Germany, and Japan in some way.

One of the Blair Pointe submissions will be made into a professionally printed poster which will be used around Peru to publicize the FAME Festival.

For more details about the Foundation for Art and Music in Education, or the FAME Festival, please visit their website: www.famearts.org

Dia de los Muertos

The Day of the Dead

The Day of the Dead is a holiday celebrated in Mexico and by Latin Americans living in the United States and Canada. The holiday focuses on gatherings of family and friends to pray for and remember friends and family members who have died. The celebration occurs on November 1 and 2.

This year, two groups of fifth graders learned about the Mexican culture by studying The Day of the Dead, and creating two common Mexican symbols.

CALAVERA is Spanish for "skull." A popular calavera around Day of the Dead is CALAVERAS DE AZUCAR, or "sugar skulls." These are used to adorn altars and can be eaten.

A mask that is made to resemble a skull is also called a CALAVERA.

One group of fifth graders created their own Calaveras with cardboard, oil pastels, marker, and glitter.

They then sculpted the bones to use as a border decoration.

CALACA is a Mexican name for skeleton. It is a figure of a human skeleton used for decoration during the Day of the Dead festival.

Calacas are usually shown as joyous rather than mournful figures. afterlife.

They are often shown wearing festive clothing, dancing, and playing musical instruments to indicate a happy afterlife.

This reflects the Mexican belief that no dead soul likes to be thought of sadly.

This group of 5th graders created these 3D Calacas out of pipecleaners, lots and lots of masking tape, paint, and cloth.

The students had to make the clothing and props for their calacas by themselves! We used a lot of hot-glue!

Japanese Treasures

KIMONOS & KABUKI MASKS, oh my!

The word "kimono" literally means, "a thing to wear." A kimono is a traditional 'T' shaped, ankle length robe worn by people in Japan. They have long wide sleeves and are wrapped around the body, always with the left side over the right (except when dressing a dead body for burial). Kimonos are secured with a sash called an "obi" which is tied in the back.

In Art we made a Japanese figure wearing a kimono, and a Kabuki mask.
"First we got a piece of paper, then we made a person with our pencil. Next we got a rubber block and carved it. Then we got ink and stamped the person. Then we cut it out and glued it on another piece of paper. Then we glued on the mask and then made a symbol." -Elijah

Kabuki masks are worn in traditional Japanese Kabuki plays. This form of entertainment began during the Edo period of Japan (around 1603). Kabuki plays depict historical events, moral conflicts, and love relationships. In the early years both men and women acted in Kabuki plays. Later women were forbidden from acting. Female roles in the plays must be played by men!

"I made a mask that was 3-D. I used a plastic mask and I stuffed gooey paper towels in it. Then I waited about a day and I painted it. I think I did a good job." -Marissa

Of course, we learned about the Elements & Principles of Art along the way...

"I used the elements of art in my project by making patterns on the body, and FORM to form the face. I also used PATTERN on the body." -Maggie

"When we drew our figure, we used LINE." -Ben

"I used all different COLORS like pink, blue, red, gold, black, and white."
"I used TEXTURE in my project by gluing my head (which is made of paper mache) on the kimono." -Jessica

"I used REPETITION by repeating my design." -Chase

"I used a PATTERN over and over again with ink and rubber." -Bryce

Reflections on our artwork...

"My favorite part was printing the kimono, it was really fun." -Samantha

"My figure's name is Chingcho. It is like a Japanese name." -Sara

"I am proud of my artwork because I made a cool stamp and my colors match." -Conner

"I would call it Kimono Figure, because it sounds interesting to me, and I want my artwork to sound interesting." -Drew

"My biggest challenge was carving the rubber block." -Mackenna

Artwork shown was created by: Mackenna, Maggie, Jessica, Kayla, Ben, Adam, Samantha, & Skylee.

LEARNING ABOUT LEO ...nardo daVinci, that is!

Leonardo DaVinci was alive about 500 years ago. He was the greatest genius of the Italian Renaissance, and a really good artist!

This is a SELF-PORTRAIT of Leonardo daVinci, a picture he made of himself. It is MONOCHROMATIC:

"Monochromatic means one color. I am one color. My one color is brown. I get made fun of because of my color. Some of Leonardo daVinci's pictures are one color." -Maliah
















We made our own monochromatic self-portraits, like Leonardo:
"I learned how to make a self-portrait. You hold a mirror up to your face and draw." -Jacob

"First we draw our faces, then we paint it and put salt on it and put glitter (paint) on it." -Ben



We learned about the Elements of Art along the way:
"The elements of art are: line, shape, form, color, value, texture, and space. The ones I used the most are line, color and value." -Dawson

"I've used the element of line for my hair. I used wavy lines to give it texture. The other things I used it for are my eyelashes, eye brows, and neck." -Mackenna

"When I was painting I used salt to give my artwork texture. I think I used too much salt but it looks nice. I scraped off most of the salt, and that gave my artwork the crystally look. I hope you like it!" -Kayla

Reflections on our artwork:
"Ripping the paper was the easiest thing to do on this project because all you had to do is rip the paper." -Seth

"I named my artwork Monochromatic Marissa because I used one color like daVinci did." -Marissa

"I'm proud of my artwork because I did my best on it. I believe mine is pretty and looks like it's supposed to." -Maggie

"I think other people will think that my portrait is ok because it is a good drawing. However, the paint ran." -Conner

"My favorite part of making this project was making the face. Eyes, nose, and mouth. But my eyes were the funnest to make, they were hard, too." -Drew

"Drawing the nose, the eyes, and face was the most difficult thing to do on this project. It took me four days!" -Cody






Portraits shown were created by Maliah, Nathan, Bryce, Samantha, Ashley, Maggie, & Drew

Coming soon...

School starts for us on August 14th. Check back about a week later to see what we create in Art class the first week of school!
See you then!