Annual Art Show: Discovering Our Creative Side

Brie Cooper, Art Teacher.

"I am thrilled to be able to share with you the results of months of hard work and effort Linden students have put into developing their visual art portfolios. What you are unable to see tonight are the countless hours of re-working, mapping, technological glitches, stress, tears, and the inevitable roller coaster ride that is the creative process. Congratulations to all those students who have persevered through the difficult stages of each project. Each work speaks for itself! I am always amazed by the amount of creativity, talent, and determination that each of our students brings to school every day. Enjoy the show, and don’t forget to check out student portfolios and Instagram @lindenartroom." —Brie Cooper, Art Teacher

Art Show Visitors

JK–GRADE 2

Exploration and Experimentation
Students have enjoyed working with a wide variety of mediums and styles of art throughout the year. They have worked hard on completing weekly cross-curricular projects and inquiry-based projects. Learning to experiment and gain better control over various tools and mediums, these budding artists were never afraid to get their hands, and clothing, dirty!

GRADES 4–6

Mondrian Painting
As an introductory unit to painting, students learned about the art and life of Piet Mondrian. Using maps as inspiration, students developed their own traditional Mondrian painting using only squares, rectangles, and primary colours. For their second Mondrian, students were given the freedom to expand on Mondrian’s ideals and add different colours and shapes to their designs.

Koru Art

Student’s ventured across the world to New Zealand to learn of their indigenous peoples, the Maori. Looking to the Maori symbol of the Koru as inspiration, students designed their compositions to show movement and energy. Traditionally, the Koru in Maori culture is a stylized rendering of an unfurling fern, which represents new life, growth, peace, and strength. Students found inspiration from these beautiful depictions and designed their own stylized compositions using oil pastel.

Self-Portrait
As an introductory unit to drawing, students worked through a detailed drawing workshop before tackling their first grid system drawing. Learning how to manipulate their hands to change pressure to add value, studying different techniques and styles to draw eyes, lips, and hair, the students developed a strong base to build upon. After learning the steps of using the grid system, students applied their new knowledge of drawing to add value and detail to their self-portraits.

Daily Life Collage
One of our first collages in our mixed media unit was to reflect students’ day-to-day realities. Students collected found items like TTC transfers, old class notes, cereal box labels, photos of friends and family, as well as other items from their daily experiences. They used their class notes to guide their work. Once the items were glued on paper, students thoughtfully added other personal items to their collage. Each student personalized their design with colour, using stencils to depict meaningful words and/or quotes.

GRADES 7–8

Emily Carr Oil Pastel
Students found inspiration from learning about the life and art of Canadian west coast painter Emily Carr. Each student selected an area of one of her paintings and imitated her painting style using oil pastels.

Toronto Starry Night
Students spent time learning about the art and life of Vincent Van Gogh. Using his “Starry Night” as inspiration, each student designed their own wind pattern and colour palette, modernizing the piece by rendering the Toronto skyline. They created the illusion of a painterly brushstroke through the use of oil pastels.

Zentangle Animals
Welcome to the wonderful world of the glorified doodle! Students chose an image of their favourite animal and learned how to draw in simple shapes. They added value to the faces of their animals by applying various drawing techniques using graphite. To finalize the piece, they transitioned their drawing from a realistic rendering to stylistic zentangle designs.

GRADES 9–10

Sign Language Sculpture
Using Plaster of Paris, students worked in pairs to cast a sign language model of their hands expressing the first or last initial of their name. They further personalized their designs by adding visuals that represented who they are as a person.

Alexa Meade Workshop
Alexa Meade is an American installation artist best known for her portraits that are painted directly on the human body and inanimate objects to make them appear two-dimensional when photographed. Students utilized this approach by painting on their faces and bodies to represent 2-dimensional paintings and captured the results through photography.

Inspirational Women with Text Drawing
As an introductory unit to drawing, Grade 9 students learned various drawing techniques, gaining stronger control when using graphite. From here, they were asked to find a high-quality photograph of a woman who inspires them. They were taught how to use the grid system to render their small reference image proportionately on a larger surface. They then added value to their drawings and learned various tricks of the trade to draw a photo-realistic drawing.

Micro-Macro Painting
Looking to famous paintings throughout history as inspiration, Grade 9 students chose a favourite painting and selected a circular area to study. They learned various acrylic painting techniques and tried to match the colour and style of the original artist using an old record as their painting surface.

Transform Me Drawing
Students had to challenge their creativity by drawing three different versions of an object. Their first drawing was to be a photo-realistic still life, capturing details by using a pencil. From here, they had to transform this object into something new that still captured the essence of the original drawing. Their final drawing was an abstract rendering of their object, which captured the textures, values, lines, and shapes seen in their past two drawings.

Imaginary Landscape
Students were challenged to use their creativity to compose evocative landscapes that indicate a strong sense of space and form with highlighted foregrounds. Oil pastels were used to showcase different shading techniques.

GRADES 11–12 

Mandala
Students used compasses, rulers, and protractors to divide the drawing space when creating their Mandala designs. They incorporated as many creative designs on each ring around the centre point while learning the cultural significance of the Mandala. Using a sharpie marker, they were able to add a high level of contrast.

Public vs. Private Self Woven Image
Students were challenged to represent their public self in contrast to their private self in an art piece using two images to express their personalities. The images were woven together to make unique compositions. Students then used graphite and pencil crayon to create a larger version of the woven image and in doing so learned how to use these tools to layer and work in the grid system.

Social Justice Painting
Students researched a current social justice issue they cared about, and chose a person to best represent the issue. Using a grid system, students painted on a large canvas using at least half of the page. They then incorporated text from their research into their design. Using acrylic paint, they rendered their image using a monochromatic colour palette and experimented with various painting techniques to finalize their piece.

Micro-Macro Pen and Ink Drawing
Students were asked to create a three-part drawing using different drawing techniques with ink. Once they selected a picture, students chose three angles of the picture and three drawing techniques to depict the piece.

Independent Project
Students challenged their creativity by designing their own project! They began by writing an artist proposal. By describing the steps and tools they would need to complete the project, they planned their daily schedule. Their completed projects included an artist statement and a website, followed by a presentation to their classmates during a group critique session.

Silent Auction Art