Painting totems "en plein air"

It looked like something out of early 20th century Paris, students settling in under the trees at Mater Academy East in Little Havana to paint geometric signs and symbols on cardboard - our totems that will adorn trees and lampposts in the neighborhood. Ephemeral landmarks, filled with color.

Edison graphic novel lab

Hard at work - using both high and low technology. The computer is just another box of colored pencils...

Graphic Novels underway

Junior, at Edison, used the computer's PhotoBooth like a camera, to snap shots that he composed into a story of tech gadgets speaking to one another. Page layout, writing, photo editing, inventing a story - a lot goes into creating these works. Comic Life 2 is a fantastic little software!

INSPIRED BY THE BUILDINGS AROUND

We are creating a very large painting
 outside the school in the parking lot.

Each student brings a color, a line, an idea.

There is a lot of actual physical action to create a work this way.
Will keep posting the evolution of this painting.

Jessica at LHCC

Using Comic Life software, Jessica, a student from Turner Tech HS, began a visual diary in graphic novel format.

Graphic Novels to inspire us.

We looked at Chris Ware's Building Stories - to see how a master artist of the graphic novel designs his pages. Architecture, people, nature are all simplified into beautiful color schemes. Sometimes there's hardly any text. He will move from an entire streets cape to an extreme close-up. We talked about the panels being like frames from a movie, and we discussed how pages in a graphic novel tell stories that unfold in time, how our individual frames shape that experience of time.

"My Place as Graphic Novel" has begun!

Using Comic Life 2 software (available for mac and PC), Ronaldo at Edison HS created pages from a graphic novel. Starting with photographs of other students and features from the room, he composed a sequential work, using effects to give his photos a varied feel, and text.

Our next step will be to capture images from our neighborhoods - to discover the landmarks we interact with and weave narratives around them.

Happy Valentine!

Our group in Little Havana wrote a  LOVE sign in a fence with many pieces of color fabric.
They also wanted to share some of the work they have been doing for the past weeks.

FIRST looking at Landmark buildings in Miami and in our State of Florida
and performing and reacting around the theme of  BODIES IN THE LANDSCAPE.

Second:  They created beautiful color banners around ideas of color and design in the the landscape.

Color  Banners in a deep blue wall.

We can add some color to an window. 

Body in the landscape. 

After class celebration.

Works on progress.

El Anatsui, artist

El Anatsui was born in Ghana and has been working in Nigeria for many years. His works made from recycled bottle tops and other metal pieces have been exhibited around the world. His large-scale curtain-like installations are the inspiration for our recycled bag works.

Soft sculpture

At Edison, inspired by works by African Artist El Anatsui, we started to make soft architectural shapes out of recycled plastic bags. By ironing them in between sheets of wax paper, the plastic fuses and becomes leather-like. Perfect for a giant curtain/room divider, and also for constructing messenger bags and tote bags! Much better than tossing these in the trash. 

Drawing in space

We began our projects at Little Haiti Cultural Center by using the art room and patio as our drawing paper. Tape lines criss cross the 3D space, from floors to walls to furniture. Loukreishia and Ryan really got into it!

Silk screen demonstration at LHCC

Marie Vickles of Little Haiti Cultural Center gave our group - and others! - a demonstration of silk screen printing. Brick by Brick participants will get to print on paper and fabric this spring. We'll transfer images printed on transparencies to the screen using photo emulsion exposed to light.

Edison HS group TAPE TILES

Mondays and Wednesdays after school, a group of students from Edison HS meet in Ms. Money's art room to participate in Brick by Brick with artist Michelle Weinberg. This was the result of our first meeting. We used tape to create linear designs on tiles. Stay tuned for some stop motion animations made with the tiles.

Celluloid Curtain at Girl Power

We finished our Celluloid Curtain, which looks great on the front door at Girl Power! We will be taking it down to exhibit it at the Little Haiti Cultural Center later this year, but in the meantime, everybody's loving it at GP.

 Students who worked on this project include: 
Ariel, Ayanna, Daeja, Janieca, Precious, Tiffany, Aundrea, Jutovie, Zaria,

Kassie, Sarah, AntTanika, Audrey, Nadracar, Jasmine, Aaliyah, Jai-Nysha