Last week I asked for your blog recommendations. Here’s a great one:
Local art teacher Don Masse started a blog last year to document the artwork made by his kindergarten-through-fifth-grade students at Zamorano Fine Arts Academy, a public school in southeastern San Diego. It’s a magnet school, meaning that students from all over the San Diego Unified School District can go there. Masse blogs a couple of times a week about the projects his kids are working on.
This year, he told me he’s emphasizing projects based on living artists. In the blog, he describes the artist in focus and then how he teaches his students about a piece they’ll model their own work after.
Masse explained a bit more of his motivations in an email:
I think it’s cool for students to see what is being made now. I’m trying to give students exposure to different careers you can follow in the arts — illustrator, designer, painter, teacher, etc.
One of the cool things about doing projects based on living artists is that I can send them a link to the blog and get them to respond to me and the kids. I love being able to share compliments from the artists with students after we have done a project. It makes the connection to the material that much stronger.
Stay tuned for more from Zamorano; I’m going to check out Masse’s classroom later this week.
Please contact Kelly Bennett directly at kelly.bennett@voiceofsandiego.org or 619.325.0531 and follow her on Twitter: @kellyrbennett.