Art Ed Blog of the Year!

So how about that! The Art of Apex blog just won 2nd Place Art Ed Blog of the Year! 

From the Art of Education website: 

"There are many amazing places to find ideas, inspiration, and encouragement on the web, and it’s no secret art teacher blogs are some of the best! That’s why for the past few years we’ve been highlighting these talented and generous individuals in our annual Art Ed Blog of the Year contest, the web’s only contest that exclusively honors Art Education blogs. The contest is a way for art teachers across the world to recognize their peers for blogging excellence."

"With thousands of votes coming in for the 2015 Blog of the Year Contest, you ended up in second place!"

Thanks!

from Virtual 123D to Literal 3D

This is the third test of our  Makerbot 3D printer and it's an important one. For this test I wanted to see if we could take a creature created in 123D Creature on the iPad and turn it into an actual 3D object.

It started a a virtual moose created using 123D Creature on the iPad. From the iPad we were able to export the mesh. The mesh was easily imported into the Makerbot software to prepare for printing.

The 123D Creature file was exported as a .obj file. Once imported into the Makerbot software, it was easy to rotate and scale. The software also allowed us to decide which way to rotate the creature so it uses the least amount of supports, saving filament. This is still something we're learning about.

The final result is this very cool little moose!

3D Printing on the Makerbot

Look at that! It's a shark! Pretty exciting, I know! OK maybe not that exciting if you don't know the backstory. So let me tell you a tale of the 3D printer.

Back in November I received an email from the folks in the Media Center. It was from Makerbot. They were holding a contest. Whomever had the most retweets that used the Makerbot hashtag would win a 3D printer. I decided to tweet and asked my students to retweet my tweet. 

We had a pretty good first day with around 200 tweets. In fact, we had more tweets that anyone. I started thinking, maybe we could win this thing. 

Then the next day, I saw that another school had passed us. The had over 250 retweets. I was like, on no you didn't! So again I asked the students to ask their friends to retweet...

We went from 200 to over 500 retweets in a day! Long story short, we won the printer! It came in a box a few days ago. This morning I decided to see if I could set it up. I did and it work! (See shark above).

Now the fun can really begin. Stay tuned to see what we build this semester.

A Look Back: 2015 Year In Review!

And now, a month by month look back at the Best of the Art of Apex 2015 Year in Review! 

January: Two SchoolArts Articles!

The February issue of SchoolArts Magazine features not one but two articles spotlighting the Art of Apex! The first article, titled Teaching Students to Think Like Artists was an in depth look at the grading and blogging policy being implemented in several of our art classes.The second article included a three page spread featuring four full color photographs of the art that donned the Apex halls and walls. See both articles here!

February: Text as an Element!
The first project for Art Three was to create an artwork the incorporated text as an element. This might seem like an easy task but for students who are image centric, this proves a difficult task. Check out some of the final versions here.

March: NAEA Convention New Orleans!
If you were looking for Sands and Purtee back in March you might have had to look in New Orleans. Both teachers attended and presented at the conference. Sands also wrote a few review articles for the Art of Education. Read all about our adventures here!

April: AOIT Meets 123D Creature!
I think every class that tries their hand at creating 3D has a lot of fun ad takes away some new skills but AOIT kids really get it! We took the AOIT Art One class to the Media Center and showed them a few tips and tricks to create in the world of 3D. The results were outstanding! Check out the 3D Creatures here!

May: Sugar Hill and the Wave in Bottle Cap Art 
Environmental artist Bryant Holsenbeck worked with our Art History class to recreate a work of art using recycled materials. This image was 10' x 16' large, and spread out over 8 tables. I use the past tense "was" when describing the mural because we only had one class period to complete it and when we were done, it was entirely dismantled. Check out our bottle cap art here!

June: Good Bye to the Art of Education
After two years and nearly 100 articles, Sands decided it was time to pass the torch to a new writer. Leaving AOE was a big decision so it couldn't be done without a big send off. Check out the three part series titles A Vision for Art Education!

July: The TAB Institute in Boston
Sands spent a week working with students at the TAB Institute at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston. This one-week Teaching for Artistic Behavior course offered intensive inquiry into the practice of choice-based art education and students could earn graduate credit. Here is a look at some at the TAB Institute Summer 2015!

August: Back at School so Elements?
I thought having students take a look at the elements of art and how different artists emphasize different elements in their work would be a good place to start. Each student selected an element that they wanted to emphasize and created a piece that emphasizes it. Take a look here!

September: What's in your Locker?
For the first Art One project I thought it would be fun to take a look at space and how artists use the space that is available to them. At our school, the lockers are a space that is under utilized. To counter this, the locker project was born! Check out some of the lockers here!

October: Answering Essential Questions!
This was a new unit and it asked students to come up with a word and then form a question around the word. Once they had a question, they needed to decide how to respond to their own question artistically speaking. This was challenging but exciting at the same time. Check out this unit and some of the responses here!

November: Non Traditional Materials
For our last unit, Artists Incorporate Non Traditional Materials, the only limitation imposed was the request that they not use any fine art materials that could be purchased from an art supply company. They needed to find some other material in which to create their art. All other considerations were left up to the artists. View some of the works in progress here.

December: We Won a 3D Printer!
Makerbot had a contest. The school that had the most retweets of their hashtag would win a 3D printer. challenge accepted! Apex rose to the challenge and retweeted our tweet over 550 time! So yes, we won! What does the future hold for Apex Art? Wither certainty the ability to print in 3D!