Young artists from Ms. Battle’s class work diligently in their sketchbooks. Students were asked to invent as many different line varieties as possible to demonstrate the power and versatility of the art element: LINE.  Among the student-named designs were zigzagonal lines, grass lines, lip lines, motion of the ocean lines, and loop-the-loop lines!

Hello studiomaury! What a jam-packed start to the school year we’ve all had! I want to begin by thanking anyone who has dropped by the studio to introduce themselves, donated recycled materials for future masterpieces, purchased an electronic pencil sharpener for our studio, and offered kind words to me. It’s so great to have your support.

I hope to meet and re-meet many of you tomorrow at Maury’s Back to School Night. Festivities begin at 6:30pm in the multipurpose room. I know many of you will be meeting with classroom teachers for the majority of the evening but please feel free to stop by the studio as you meander through the new building. I’ll be hosting a mini-activity for parents, inspired by the Responsive Classroom model, and would love your participation!

Art Club will begin in the next few weeks. I will devote a different day of the week to each grade level. Students who wish to forgo their recess time will have the chance to spend that 30 minutes in the art studio with me. I will have a sign up sheet on my door and space will be limited to 10 children a session. If we have an overwhelming number of interested students, I will be sure to rotate participants fairly. During Art Club,  students will have the option of working further on a class project, learn a new skill or technique that they are interested in pursuing, submit to school-wide art contests, help me hang student work, contribute to cross-curricular projects, design murals and other school-wide “installations”, and the list goes on and on. This time is intended to satisfy the personal motivations of  students and offer more of the one on one instruction that the regular class session, unfortunately, cannot always accommodate.

I will be mentioning it in classes over the next few weeks, but there is a wonderful opportunity coming up for students to submit a creative design to the PTA Student Art Contest. Designs will be voted on and the one that best captures the theme, “Sharing in Washington, DC” will be displayed on note cards due out around the holidays. The deadline for submissions is November 5. The link above describes guidelines for the contest. I will collect submissions in an envelope outside my door. I encourage all students to submit. This contest is a great opportunity for aspiring artists to get a taste for how working artists function in the competitive and creative world of art and design.

More to come about Art Around the Corner, our partnership with the National Gallery of Art, for 4th and 5th graders soon, as well as field trip opportunities through the DC Arts and Humanities Education Collaborative. I will be serving as Maury’s Key Communicator for the DCAHEC and will be attending an informative teacher information session on September 8.

Stay tuned for more updates regarding studiomaury and keep the bottle lids, caps, and tops coming!

Thanks again,

Ms. Bomba