Vans Shoes Design Contest Winners

Congratulations to Angie G., Angel L., Lexie C., and Megan S. for their winning designs in the Middle School Vans Shoe Design Contest! These oustanding artists were chosen based on their design's craftmanship, use of space and origionality. 

Winners recieved a pair of Vans shoes to make their design a reality! Keep your eyes posted at our Spring Art Show for their creative kicks! 

Happy Chinese New Year!

Want to know more about Chinese New Year? Ask a fifth grade student at Cooper School! Fifth grade students planned a Chinese New Year Celebration which included a parade, a small feast of oranges and dumplings, red envelopes, lanterns, and a dragon dance!

To plan our celebration, students annotated text about Chinese New Year into four categories (traditions, food, what we see, and meaning). Students then shared what they felt we could do in art class to plan a traditional Chinese New Year Celebration. We also visited a few classrooms to tell younger students what we learned!

Toledo, OH Postcard Exchange

Third grade students at Cooper School are exchanging homemade postcards with students at Hollingworth School in Toledo, OH!

Students are learning to create art that shares information about our community. They are successful if their postcard design will tell the students at Hollingworth School something about Milwaukee or Wisconsin.

We are extremely excited to learn about Toledo, OH when their postcards arrive to Cooper School!

Top: Anahi and Temoc     Bottom: Sajed and Aiden

Clockwise from top middle: Rohan, Elio, Armani, Mariah

Eric Carle Inspired Animal Collages

Above: Gigi's elephant, Ezra's hippo

Second grade students learned to observe the work of artists and make predictions about their art making. Students worked in small groups to observe Eric Carle's illustrations. After documenting their predictions, students watched videos of Eric Carle working in his studio creating painted paper which he then used to cut into smaller shapes for his illustrations. The students also observed that Eric Carle made several illustrations of animals. After learning about Eric Carle's process, second graders painted several sheets of painted paper using brushes, sponges, toilet paper rolls, bubble wrap and other found objects. The painted paper was then cut apart and collaged into lovable creatures! 

Below: Landon's turtle, Tyler's bear and Gavin's bee

Mud Stencils

Sixth grade students are learning to create art that shares a message. After observing and discussing the process and purpose of, Milwaukee artist, Jesse Grave's mud stencils, students worked in small groups to design a mud stencil to encourage the Cooper community to take care of our environment.

To learn more about mud stenciling or Jesse Graves visit: https://vimeo.com/22121429 

Above: A few examples of our mud stencils

Above: Unveiling a finished mud stencil (video)

Below: Artist Statement for "Let it Grow: (video)

Observational Drawings

 Second grade students paint their observational drawings of sunflowers.

Before using watercolors, students carefully examined vases of sunflowers as they drew. They were successful if they were looking at the sunflowers as they drew and showed important details such as texture, angles, directions, and use of shape. This helps our drawings look more realistic and interesting.

Mark Jenkins Tape Sculptures

Above: A team of 8th grade students create their sculpture by wrapping plastic wrap and packing tape around a "model". 

Below: A finished sculpture welcomes visitors to Cooper School!