Amherst Art Students Display Work At A&E Roastery For The Month of July

Hello all! I am pleased to announce that A & E Roastery in Amherst, NH will be displaying the work of five of my art students for the month of July in their café on Route 101A. 

The work is the product of my most recent art class, held after school at Amherst Middle School entitled "Art As A Career: The Graphic Design and Illustration Challenge." The class introduced students in grades 6-8 to the exciting careers available to artists today in the design industry.
As part of the class, the students created a label for a bag of "Earth Day Blend" coffee based on the specifications provided by real-world client, A & E Roastery.  Along the way, students were able to brainstorm and create a comprehensive illustration, select fonts that were readable and complemented their illustrations, and create a design that included all of the elements the client required. Quite a challenge, and the results are fresh and creative.

The students who have work on display are Hailey Hull (Grade 7), Cassandra Jillson (Grade 8), Sarah Kayser (Grade 7), Eliza Mastergeorge (Grade 7), and Lucy Stover (Grade 7).

The completed designs will be on display at A & E Coffee Roastery through the month of July in their café. A & E Roastery is a retail and wholesale café providing each customer with personalized service and the finest coffee and tea possible in a business that promotes environmental stewardship and economic fairness to growers. This display is part of an ongoing monthly series encouraging local arts. They are located at 135 Route Route 101A and open Monday -Friday: 6:30am - 6pm , Saturdays: 8am - 6pm, and Sundays: 9am - 5pm.

Hailey used colored pencils for her illustration. 

Cassandra used colored pencils for her illustration. 

Sarah used watercolor and ink for her illustration.

Eliza used cut paper for her illustration.

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Art teacher-y Stuff: A & E had a label design contest in February 2013 and gave all of the specs for the project online on their website. I saw this and thought "what a great project for my students!" I didn't have access to computers, so I had to do some creative thinking about how we'd do the design work and have a real-life finished product.

So, the first class, we brainstormed and did thumbnail sketches. Then the students created comprehensive drawings and we discussed different ways they could create their illustrations: cut paper, watercolor & ink, watercolor and colored pencils, or colored pencils. I gave demos on all four techniques.

In week two, the students were able to complete their illustrations and then I gave them a sheet that had a list of all of the components that needed to me on the finished label:

Each label needed to meet the following criteria:

• A full color illustration
• Include the title of the coffee ("Earth Day Blend")
• Contain the A & E Logo
• Contain the USDA Organic Logo
• Display the coffee description
• Include the text "Date Roasted" with a space to handwrite the date
• Include the bag weight: 1 lb.
• Display the A & E Contact Info (URL, Town, State, and telephone number)
• Finished label size of 3" x 4"

I had all of the text and the logos printed on paper and the students literally cut and pasted them to create labels. I had 6 different fonts and three different colors of backgrounds with the fonts (dark green, black and white). The logos were in a variety of sizes, so they could choose what worked best with their design.

Their finished labels were mounted on black mat board just like we would do if we were showing them to a client. But for the show, I took a color photocopy of each label and mounted them on coffee bags (thank you A & E for those!). I then mounted the coffee bags to black foam core I bought at the dollar store. Seeing the labels on the coffee bags makes them look real!

If you are an upper elementary art teacher and want to include graphic design and illustration in your curriculum, this is a wonderful project! I highly recommend it!

Enjoy!

Graffiti Names...ooh, Edgy!

Here in southern NH we aren't exactly urban or edgy. Our town is more "quaint" and "quiet" and is best known for its Colonial feel. Graffiti can be seen here and there, but it is looked upon as vandalism. Probably for a couple of reasons: 1. It appears in inappropriate places such as on street signs and, 2. For the most part, it isn't very good...Sorry!

I am not crazy about the swear words or anatomy lessons that sometimes appear on the underpasses. It's always lovely to have your emerging reader sounding out four letter words he has seen as you make the trip to Grandma's house! That's not the kind of graffiti I'm talking about. I'm talking about the artform in which artists use spray paint to create images and lettering in a colorful, concise way in a public setting. This is a type of artwork I cannot do (at least in spray paint), but I highly admire. The colors are out-of-this world! The way the artists combine text and image is amazing and creative. So, I needed to do this with my kiddos and see what they could come up with.

This student is in 3rd grade.

I did this project with students in 2nd-4th grade and then again with 5th-8th graders and both groups of students took to the project easily. I love the creative results and would highly recommend this project! A site that I found VERY helpful when planning the project was www.graffitidiplomacy.com--lots of visuals and handouts and how-to's. Another great take on this project can be seen at Art Room With a View. Danielle's 7th graders created graffiti tags but then went above and beyond with the backgrounds--you have to go check those out!

Graffiti Names

Supplies Needed:

• Lettering Sheets (examples of the alphabet in different styles of graffiti--bubble, tag, etc.)
• White copy paper
• Pencils with erasers
• Sharpies (I had fine point and ultra fine on hand)
• Colored pencils
• Scissors
• Glue sticks
• Print-out of a photo of a brick wall

Directions:

1. Choose a word, nickname, or your name to use for your tag and sketch out a few ideas for your tag. 

2. Choose a font for your tag. Are you going to use bubble letters or a more edgy, linear font? Draw or trace the letters for your tag on the white copy paper.

3. Thicken the letters in your tag, if desired, and then retrace your letters so that they touch one another.

4. Make your letters 3D, if desired.

5. Add "bits" such as shiny highlights on the letters, a crown, hearts, bubbles, or arrows.

6. Add a "forcefield," or two to hold it all together. The forcefield is the cloud around the letters.

7. Ink pencil lines with Sharpie. Erase any extra pencil lines.

8. Add color with colored pencils. Colors can be bright, you can use complementary color combinations for "pop," the letters should be different than the forcefield for readability, use effects such as gradients, textures, patterns, etc. 

9. Cut out the finished tag. Glue to the printout of the brick wall with a glue stick. Re-outline the tag with Sharpie, if necessary.

Have fun with this artform and make it yours! Don't worry if your first try isn't exactly perfect--just try again! Try using your tag as your homescreen on your phone or iPod or putting it in a tee-shirt. So cool!

This student is in 5th grade. 

This student is in 5th grade.

This student is in 2nd grade.

This student is in 7th grade.

This student is in 5th grade.

This student is in 3rd grade.

This student is in 2nd grade.

This student is in 2nd grade.

This student is in 2nd grade.

This student is in 5th grade.