Wednesday, June 15, 2011

CRMS Mosaic Project Slideshow- From Beginning to End

Photos from November to June. 
Amazing what can be accomplished within a school year!

Click on image below to view slideshow! 

The Installation

Believe it or not the mosaic installation went as smooth as silk!    Michael Roy of Phi Home Designs really showed off his talents and attention for detail!  
Thank you Michael Roy, Will Power and Jason Homer!

Copy and paste this URL below to check out the pictures of the installation!

https://picasaweb.google.com/cassandersen/MosaicInstallation?authkey=Gv1sRgCLnb6OTE5baCqQE&feat=directlink


Thursday, May 12, 2011

1 DOWN 7 MORE TO GO!

Panel measures  2 1/2' X 5'

Here it is!  
On May 10 the first panel out of the 8 was finished. 
This was a very exciting benchmark to reach.   I just counted the amount of school days left to work on it and it is only 16 but we are not stressed! We all feel the end is near as the final swirls of turquoise and cobalt blue in the ocean get glued down.

June 6- Michael Roy from Phi Designs will hang and frame the mosaic in the cafeteria
June 10- it will be grouted by Frank from Belfast EBS
I am not posting anymore pictures in the final days but hope everyone who is interested will attend the Camden-Rockport Middle School Fine Arts Night on June 14 from 5-8.  
The official unveiling will be from 5-5:30pm.  


We started thinking about this project in October
Ordered Materials in November
Started working on it in December
From December-May 
200 students have worked on it!  
AND we will finish it in June!
A true school community collaboration 
that will bring beauty to our learning environment
 for years to come.


Thank you all for following the blog and I hope to see you on June 14!  An enormous thank you to Youth Arts and Lana Arau, Michele Orne, Ingrid Ellison,  Jenn Iott and Susan Taylor.  These parent volunteers  made this happen and I will miss seeing them every week.  What's next year ladies?

-Kristen Andersen
One very proud art teacher!


Panel measures  2 1/2' X 5'

Thursday, April 28, 2011

The sky is done!

I am happy to say I was only about a week off my personal deadline of getting the sky done before April break.   

A big THANK YOU to about 20 students and Youth Arts parents who came in on a rainy Wednesday and really got a lot finished.  We had a great time and finished with pizza...always a good way to end.  

The pictures below are taken from Tuesday's work session.   The sky is almost complete and we are falling in love with the swaths of colors in the shallow water color mix.

Add caption






Thursday, April 14, 2011

Pictures this week!

Shallow water has been glued down and the sky is almost complete.
A typical size crowd at schooner time


With this many kids thank goodness it is 20 ft long!







Planes, Trains and Automobiles

One of the greatest movies ever (agreed) but none of the 3 things listed in the title are in the mosaic yet it SIMPLY had to be the title.    I just spent the majority of my lunch taking footage of the mosaic with my andriod phone,  posting it to youtube,  copying from youtube to my desktop using keepvid.com,   importing it to imovie to give it background music, posting it back on youtube to finally bring you this-

http://youtu.be/vKUMwJ7cdrw

Phew!  I am technologically tuckered!
The quality is not great and the music is what I had in my itunes library BUT it is a start and has inspired me to take more videos as this mosaic takes shape.

Back to gluing tiles...

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Rocks

Are there any beach combers out there?    I am in need of flat rocks in many colors (pink, white, black grey, bluish grey)   to add to the mosaic.    Rocks should be bigger than a walnut but smaller than a Yukon Gold potato.    Please drop them off in the main office at the middle school in Camden.

Many Thanks!

Kristen

Monday, March 28, 2011

Time is Flying!


87 students (about a 1/4 of our school population) have worked on the mosaic so far and there is still PLENTY of opportunity for kids to come down 
and glue on some tile pieces!     

Stats to dates-

 25-   5th graders   
15- 6th graders  
21- 7th graders 
26- 8th graders  


 2nd bird done with legs!   (although the legs are not glued down yet)


2 birds and a possible 3rd might join them!  Notice the sky forming.   It started out white at the horizon line and has transitioned to light blue.   Soon kids will be transitioning into a slightly darker blue and will continue that pattern until the top.


I see blue skies all around me.....


birds again


Color study of water.   Tile will be cut in half when finally glued down.



Color Study of water.


Close- up of sky starting to fill in


Horizon line water color study


Hellllloooooooooooooo!

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Close-ups!

cloud upside down

cloud close-up


bird closeup w/ smalti

trees, grassy area and rocky area


glass tile against natural beach stones
ooh la la

New pictures of the bird and castle

Tiles are roughly placed to get an idea of color scheme

The bird will look more like this once cut and glued into place

Beach stones will create Mt Battie castle.  We have to decide whether or not to leave spaces between stones or place glass tiles/smalti between them.







Friday, March 4, 2011

Thank You Michael Roy!

Michael Roy (Phi Home Designs) has been coming in to help straighten out our boards.   This morning he put horizontal supports across the 2 1/2' x 5 ' sections.   The boards are perfectly straight and all is well again to begin glueing the larger rocks on the boards.


The castle will have beach stones instead of glass tiles.  We are hoping it will be a nice contrast.

Smalti arrived in the mail yesterday!  Yahoooo.  Stay tuned for more photos!

Friday, February 11, 2011

Artist Eric Hopkins Visits CRMS

This was a great day for the arts at Camden-Rockport Middle School.  
I started out my introduction at the assembly by saying I was one happy art teacher and I was so proud of the 50+ students that have worked on the mosaic so far.  When you look at it in all its enormity it is hard to believe 10-14 years olds have made it.  It goes to show you what you can do when people work together.  This is a true collaboration of teachers, parents, students and community members.   In this crazy world we should be thankful that the joy of "making art" and working together as a community is still alive and well in Camden-Rockport.  

A big thank you to Eric Hopkins who made time in his busy schedule to connect with our kids and motivate others to participate.  It was truly an honor for me to have him in our company and look forward to his return to celebrate the finished and installed artwork.  

Now here are the photos from the day!   Thank you Ellen Curtis for taking lots of pictures!


The unveiling of the unfinished mosaic to the whole school at the red/white day assembly.  Thank you to all Youth Arts moms who helped lug the panels into the gym.

Eric spoke to the school about how we are so lucky to have such natural beauty in our backyard.   He reflected back to what he was doing during his middle school years in Rockland, Maine and encouraged kids to get involved in the making of this mosaic.    "How cool would it be to come back 30 years from now and know you helped create this!" said Eric Hopkins.


Back to work!  After the assembly, we took about 23 kids back to the IA room and Eric spent time talking about his own artwork and inspirations.



Here we are asking Eric questions about depth,  horizon line crispness and whether to add more islands.























 We put him to work! We asked Eric to paint some of the water so we could get 
the "flow" correct and he graciously accepted.





















                                                 Then the kids started to paint too!!!!