This year nine of my AP Art students participated in the annual Katonah Museum of Art “Young Artists” show up for this week as part of national Youth Art month. Students also had a chance to work with professional curators and hang the show. A great time was had by all and the work looks fabulous!
During the winter break I had a chance to work with the cutest kids and experiment with some new crafts at the Garrison Art Center!
We made water bottle stamp “snow flakes” by putting the bottom of a water bottle into white paint and stamping it onto blue paper. While that dried the kiddos practiced tracing different sized circles on white paper and cut each out for a snow man. They had fun using markers for adding details to their snowmen and then glued it all together for an adorable winter scene!
We also read the book “Over and Under the Snow” about animals that live underground in the winter. The kids LOVED guessing what animals we would find under the snow and then trying to draw their favorite.
We started by folding a piece of paper in half, and then used tape to make trees (these would be white after painting over) on the top. We kept the paper folded while they painted a sky and made sure that none of the paint would get onto their “snow” & underground animals. The kids were great about leaving the paper folded- I couldn’t believe we had no paint spills in the snow! Once dry, we unfolded the paper to reveal the bottom half and the kids drew their favorite animal hibernating.
Their favorite part of the day was our “inside snow” play time. Since it was too cold to go outside, I made fake snow out of 2 cups baking soda & 1 cup hair conditioner. I gave each of them a big handful in a large container and they played around with making snowmen, adding toy animals to their game and making footprints, but the best was painting on the snow (also the messiest!) This was definitely easier than getting everyone all dressed up to go outside and was even more fun. Next time around I’m definitely going to skip the snow pants, hats, gloves, scarves, jackets, drippy noses, wet socks, and stay inside with some fake snow and maybe a hot chocolate!
Thanks to a generous grant from the Hendrick Hudson Community Educational Foundation (HHCEF), student artists will have use of brand new equipment, including computers, digital cameras, lighting, and a large format printer.
Foundation President Beth Gruber met with me for a certificate presentation acknowledging the Foundation’s contribution to my classroom.
The addition of this state-of-the-art photographic equipment to Hen Hud’s already impressive offerings will enhance the District’s ability to provide real-world skills and experiences that students can use as they pursue their career objectives.
At Garrison Art Center with the Art Tot’s weekly after school sessions is always fun exploring and playing with all of the nature around us. 
We went on a scavenger hunt for leaves and the kids found tons of great stuff to use for printing, they loved looking for pine cones under the trees. I made “stamp pads” using plastic containers and old sponges and poured paint over the sponges for them to stamp paint onto the leaves. 
I unfortunately did not have time to get photos of everyone’s wall with all the craziness, but I’m very happy with the way it all came together. I usually hate putting up work that looks very similar but in this case all of the layers of each project took quite some experimentation from the kids.
The kids got to make their own “stickers” using blank labels and markers and they loved the process of peeling and sticking to bright paper!
We started out a little timid but when the kids got around the whole paper they got a lot of bubbles on there! I wish we could have propped it up on a wall so they had more room to blow bubbles and move around, but it worked anyway so hallelujah!
Jess Nash Art 
