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BLUE BOMBER VOICES: March is Youth Art Month

Youth Art Month, or YAM, is an annual observance each March to emphasize the value of art education for all children and to encourage support for quality school art programs.

In celebration of YAM, the Lake Placid Middle High School will have students represented in the upcoming Juried Art Show at the Lake Placid Center for the Arts and will continue to bring more art to the community through media and other collaborative projects.

The Banner Project has been an ongoing one and banners were hung in Wilmington and now can be seen in the school foyer. This project has been a collaboration with the Connecting Youth and Communities organization. Naj Wikoff has also been working along with us and our students.

The Studio in Drawing and Painting classes and Studio in Art classes painted fish for the mural recently installed at the base of Whiteface Mountain.

Lake Placid Middle High School’s visual arts program has been steadily growing over the years and Anne Rickard and Sandy Huber have been teaching art here for many years.

Mrs. Rickard teaches the following courses:

Advanced Placement Art:

Drawing or 2-D Design Portfolios

This course is one in which the student chooses a specific portfolio to focus on. It is not based on a written examination but rather on a final portfolio, that students submit for evaluation at the end of the year. Students must demonstrate a significant commitment to this course due to the fact that the portfolios contains 24 works of art. Portfolios are submitted in May and students may receive college credit for this course, dependent upon their exam results. The prerequisite for this course is Studio in Drawing and Painting.

Studio in Drawing and Painting

This is a full year elective course. Students will concentrate on developing skills in a variety of drawing techniques. Students will be given an opportunity to seek solutions to a variety of assigned problems, which should lead to increased creativity, and an expression of ideas. This

year we have concentrated on various drawing skills and techniques, including still-life and other observational skills. At the present time we are working on a painting unit and studying some of the Great Masters in depth.

Studio in Art: Comprehensive Foundations

Students will learn about the elements of art and principles of design. These are key concepts used by artists in understanding and creating art. Studio work will be assigned which will allow the students to find out about a variety of media. This year we have painted fish for the

mural at Whiteface Mountain, learned various drawing techniques and skills, and currently are working on a Color Theory Unit. We have studied and researched a variety of artists, most recently, the Impressionist painters, Edgar Degas and Mary Cassatt.

Grade 8 Art

Students in the grade 8 visual arts curriculum will be able to gain experience in the making of art using a variety of mediums and art processes. The class will include lessons in drawing, painting, printmaking, and sculpture. The students will also begin learning how to critique and talk about their work with others as part of the assessment process.

Mrs. Huber teaches the following courses:

Photography

Photography is a one-semester class that is designed to give students a basic understanding of traditional black and white photography. In this class, students will be instructed in the fundamentals of photography such as the meanings of photographic terms, functions of cameras and camera parts, methods of exposing and developing film, and printing black and white photographs.

Computer Graphics

Computer Graphics class is designed to give students a broad overview of technical and artistic aspects of creating and manipulating art and photographs with computers. Projects include retouching, combining photographs, drawing in Photoshop from scratch, and many more.

Ceramics

Ceramics class is a one-semester course intended to provide a basic understanding of and skills in the art of ceramics. Ceramics class includes a variety of projects using clay and plaster. We learn several techniques including hand-building, pinch and coil pots, slab, and wheel throwing. Some of the projects we do are clay ocarinas, slab houses, piggy banks, and bobble-heads.

Grade 6 Art

Sixth-graders have art for 10 weeks. We cover a wide range of materials and techniques, such as drawing, painting, grid drawing, Op Art, collage, and weaving. Projects

range from abstract to realistic. Every student will have a self-portrait tile on permanent display in the cafeteria, as well as having one or more works of art in the December or May art show.

Grade 7 Art

This is a 10-week class. We draw, paint, sculpt, and learn about famous artists like Vincent Van Gogh and Chuck Close. Students continue to build upon skills from Art 6, and are introduced to color theory, one-point perspective, and 3-D design. Seventh graders are also represented in the bi-annual art shows.

Mrs. Huber is working on the 5th annual sixth-grade self-portrait tile mural. It will be installed in the cafeteria this summer.

The Lake Placid Middle High School arts programs continue to thrive due to the support of our school, community and students. We hope to instill in our students an appreciation and love of the arts and the realization that they touch all of us every single day. The Lake Placid Center for the Arts annual juried art show opened Friday, March 13. Many of our students’ works are exhibited along with other schools in the North Country. Thank you for celebrating the arts.

You may check out our websites here:

Mrs. Rickard: www.lpcsdarickard.weebly.com

Mrs. Huber: www.lpcsdshuber.weebly.com

Starting at $1.44/week.

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