I am the faculty advisor for the Art Club which runs after school once a week. In the past we've used that time to run workshops on things that students have asked to learn that we don't necessarily get to cover in a class, like alternative printmaking processes (potato and gelatin prints!), creating marbled paper, paper bead making, etc. Sometimes kids just want to work on their own thing. It's always been a time for kids who like to hang out and make art to come together and a space to do so. This year the kids wanted to partake in something bigger so we decided to participate in the Memory Project.
https://memoryproject.org/. This organization invites participants to paint portraits of children who have been orphaned and neglected throughout the world. Participants create a portrait from photos that are sent to us and then the Memory Project delivers them. We decided on Romania and got our batch of photos in February. We finished them up last week and I am so proud of what our students did!
Here are a few:
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| Watercolor, by Abbie |
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| This stunning colored pencil portrait is by Allison |
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| Colored pencil portrait by Aimee |
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| Watercolor portrait byCat |
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| Colored Pencil, by Kara |
My colleague and I each did one and then...someone came down with a case of senioritis and wasn't going to complete hers for the deadline, so I ended up with another.
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| Fellow art teacher Sue, with her beautiful portrait |
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| This was my first one.. |
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| and my unexpected second... |
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| Art Club members with their completed portraits- the recipients like to see pictures of who painted/drew them so we included these. |
Overall it was a really meaningful and enjoyable project that we were all happy to particpate in. I will definitely steer kids towards this project in the future!!
