A Look Ahead….And Back!

If you are visiting the Art Room Blog because you will be new to Georgetown Elementary in the fall….WELCOME!  Please explore our art blog to see what we create – and don’t forget to take a look at the over 6,000 works of art on display in our on-line Art Gallery, ARTSONIA as well.

As our school year comes to a close, here’s a look back at what it’s all about….the annual HPS Student Art Show. Check out our Georgetown artists and their beautiful smiles!

Mrs. Brouwer will be at the Georgetown Open Library on Tuesday, July 15 from 10-12.  Stop in for a visit!

We’ll see you in the fall!  Have a wonderful summer everyone!

Love – Mrs. Brouwer & Mrs. Persch

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2 thoughts on “A Look Ahead….And Back!

  1. I see you mentioned you have over 6,000 works on Artsonia! That is impressive. I use Artsonia for my school, but find it difficult and time consuming to photograph, upload, and match the files to the students. Do you have any tips or tricks? I have 560 students K-5.

  2. Hi Caitlin! Yes…Artsonia is a lot of work – a labor of love I guess! It IS time consuming, but there are so many benefits to using the site that I want to continue to use it. Our parents love it and provide so much positive feedback when art is posted, and I like the idea that I am creating a record of student growth in art as pieces are posted each year. An added benefit is the funds raised through Artsonia sales, which kind of helps off set the extra time spent uploading work. I also use it as a teaching tool for my 5th graders; we view each other’s galleries and do some informal critiques. Anyway, a few tips:
    1) It may help to put the pieces in the same order (alphabetic) as they are on the Artsonia class lists and photo them in that order. It might be quicker to then match each piece to the student after uploading. Honestly, I tried it this way but find it quicker to just write the names as they appear in random order on a piece of paper, photograph the works in the order of my list, upload the photos, and quickly locate the names and assign the art piece to them. Guess it depends on how well you remember the kids’ last names – if you know them well (as I do) then it goes pretty quickly.
    2) photographing the work takes me the longest. One of my fellow art teachers has her students do this – kids who finish early are in charge of taking photos. I haven’t had good luck with this method – the photos do not turn out as well as I’d like. So I usually do my photographing while my students are working independently on a project (4th and 5th grade classes). This also gives my students a chance to see the process and learn a bit about photographing an art piece. Sadly, I tend to do most of my photo cropping and uploading at home in the evening – I don’t have time during the school day to do this part of the Artsonia process. I do find it quicker to use my computer’s iphoto program to do photo editing/cropping instead of the editing option provided on the Artsonia website.
    3) One of my colleagues also has a parent volunteer who does some photographing and uploading for her – I haven’t figured out how to coordinate this with a parent so am not sure if it would work!
    4) I wish I had some magic tricks to share with you – I guess the one suggestion I have is to aim for uploading 3 or 4 pieces per student per year; their individual galleries will grow quickly with this goal. I only upload pieces that will photograph well and that I think parents might like to have printed on items to purchase, and try to present a nice selection of pieces that show student growth and are a good representation of our art curriculum. I don’t see the point of uploading work that doesn’t photo well! I started out just doing one piece in the fall and one in the spring (a little less overwhelming with the 620 students I teach!) and then gradually moved to 4 pieces per year. Well Caitlin, that’s all I’ve got…I just keep plugging away at it throughout the school year! Wish I had better ideas to pass along. Good luck!

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