Rene Magritte and Surrealism

My 5th years made this fantastic version of René Magritte's famous Goldonda painting. We all know that Surrealist artists loved creating bizarre, dream-like visuals and Magritte in particular loved to make the viewer question reality. Hopefully our version of Golconda has the same effect!
Complete with bowler hats and everything!

Moving video of Performance artist Marina Abramovic at MOMA

http://enpundit.com/former-love-surprises-artist-at-her-moma-retrospective-after-decades-apart/

Lino Printing

Here are some brilliant second year lino prints inspired by Andy Warhol's celebrity portraits:

New School, New Artwork

Ok, so I'm all set up in a new school until Christmas, and I'm way overdue putting up some of the fantastic work that has been produced by my students...so over the next few days I'll begin posting again to catch up!
First to go up are my 2nd years Metaphorical Self-Portraits - the first project that they did this year.

Junior Cert Results!

Typically my internet was down when I wanted to post a 'good luck' message on this to my amazing Junior Cert class from last year...so instead of wishing you all good luck, as you have already got your results, I will instead congratulate you all! I'm sure you all did wonderfully, and I'm eagerly waiting to hear about your results (they should be posted to me over the coming weeks)!

Fascinating discovery of a 3000 year-old golden torc from the Bronze Age!

Bronze Age Irish art is one section of the Leaving Cert Art syllabus (in the Irish Art Section), so this is a really interesting find for those of you studying your art history next year!

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/rare-3000-year-old-golden-torc-unveiled-to-the-public-in-belfast-237309.html

Check out the link to read the newspaper article about the amazing find!

Leaving Parties...

Finally, the last things to go up for the moment are the pictures of some of my year groups. All the students I have taught over the last year and a half have been so fantastic, and I'm going to miss all of you so much! I know you'll all do me proud in your exams though, and get the results that you deserve.

A big thanks especially to my 3rd, 4th, lca and 5th years who've really made this a memorable year, and whose work will be used as examples of good artwork to all my future students!
Keep up with your artwork and remember - NO smudging!

School Anniversary Show

Ok, this is very late to be putting up on the blog, but I recently came across some images of the show's face-painting and couldn't resist uploading them. I'm a big fan of face-painting, as you all know! The show was such a huge success, and these pictures portray in a small way the energy and fun that happened back-stage!

Linking Hands Project

There's a project going on in Ballincollig at the moment, where we're all trying to help break a World Record by creating the longest banner of linking hands in the world.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Linking-Hands-Ballincollig/312022285567480?ref=stream
http://www.thecorknews.ie/articles/help-break-world-record-ballincollig-8395
It's a fantastic project to be involved in, and many of the students have been contributing fantastically original panels in order to realise the goal! Here are some examples of what has been made:

1st Year Portraiture

Ok, I'm way overdue with uploading pictures on the blog. The last term is a really busy one (although that's no excuse)! So to start with, here are some examples of first year self-portraits that I'm particularly proud of. You can see how the students have used hatching, cross-hatching and shading to make their images more realistic. They're full of character and life!

Representing Distance

Here are some fine examples of my first year's exploration of creating an illusion of distance and depth on a 2d surface.
Note how they've used overlapping, colour, foreground, middle-ground and background as well as adjusting scale in order to create a sense of distance in their images.

5th Year Still Life

Some really good examples of still life, by my 5th year students. Inspiring work!
For any still life exam, it's really important to be able to make use of the whole page (not drawing your object too big or too small), as well as creating an object that looks very three-dimensional (utilising tone effectively). Being able to incorporate colour with all of this is also a plus when trying to get marks in your still life exam.

Lewis Glucksman Gallery Visit

We spent a really enjoyable and educational day today in the Glucksman gallery in Cork city. You can see the transition years' hard at work in a fantastic animation and comic-book strip workshop, and some of the interactive sections of the exhibition, entitled Living and Loss. The exhibition even featured some work by artist Damien Hirst, so it's a must-see!
It was a great day out, and the transition year group have even been featured on the Glucksman gallery's Facebook page!