Express Yourself: New Energy in the Art Program

Jessica Perry, our new art teacher, is making great additions to our popular art curriculum. Jessica has been helping students find their artistic style. So far students have learned about color theory, shading, figuring out their artistic style, etc. This class is incredibly fun, and right now students are working on their final projects for this quarter. Aubrie Hall (7th grade) says “With art, you can express how you feel.” 

Jessica’s Philosophy About Art Education
According to Jessica, “Your artist voice is a unique and recognizable artistic style that is distinctly your own; your inspiration, your materials, techniques, themes and color palette all working together in a way that looks like it comes from you and no one else. The main objective of this course is for students to discover, identify and develop an authentic style as young artists; Design Principles and concepts will be emphasized and students will learn how to utilize these principles and techniques successfully in their artwork. Students will learn a variety of drawing, mixed media and painting techniques and other creative processes.

Cleaning Up in Soapmaking Class!

In Sakeenah Franzen's soap making class, students have been learning about the history, origins, and properties of soap and how it works to protect us from germs. They were surprised to learn that antibacterial soaps don’t actually do much cleaning and have chemicals that could be harmful. They learned that soap doesn’t actually kill germs, just gets rid of them. Another fun fact is that soap was originally invented by the Babylonians, but they didn’t use it for body cleaning as much as a cleaning product for other things.

Over the weeks, students have had several virtual labs on making soap or other body care products. The students will choose among many options for their final project, which could include making soap or some other body care product, creating a timeline on the history of soap, or exploring further the chemistry and structure of soap molecules and atoms.

Overall, the soapmakers are having fun learning the intricacies of soap making and use!

(Article by Ian Wood)

Upcoming Denver Events!

There are some incredible events happening in Denver this weekend, including the epic Crush Walls street art festival in RiNo, with live music, circus performances, and dozens of artists from all over the world!

You can find more local events here.

If you go out and about, stay safe and have fun!

Student Art Feature

Welcome to the weekly student art feature, where we show off art created by students both in and out of class!

Katie Aron (7th Grade) drew a picture of her "happy place in the snow" in Creative Arts and Movement class.

Wyatt Muncy (9th Grade) drew two Anime characters. The first image was colored with alcohol markers and Prismacolor, and the second is a pencil drawing on which he practiced light and shading.

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Thank you, Katie and Wyatt, for showing us your artwork this week!

A Glimpse Into Creative Writing Class

In Robin Yokel's Creative Writing class this week, students wrote short stories practicing the use of point of view (POV) and tenses.

POV refers to who tells/narrates a story: it might be 1st person (using I, me, and we), 2nd person (using you/your), or 3rd person (using he, she, and they). Tenses tell us if the action of a story takes place now (present tense) or in the past (past tense). We focused on keeping our POV and tense consistent throughout a story. As Robin explained, "Inconsistencies often confuse readers, and our jobs as writers are to make sure our readers understand our story. Otherwise, they can't enjoy it properly!" Students did a wonderful job demonstrating different POV and tenses.

Our class is filled with talented, hard-working writers, some of whom have shared their short stories below! We hope you enjoy them!