Making Progress: Skate It or Hang it? Continues in the Art Room

South Kam art students are beginning to see their artwork and designs develop into individual images on skate decks in our Skate it, Or Hang it? project.  Alma Shankar and Noah Fischer share a few words about their personal experience working with airbrushing:

Creating a personal skate deck design has been such an interesting experience. Specifically, we are learning to airbrush (a brand new medium to all students) with professional artist Vaughn Warren in our classroom studio.  While exploring this new experience we have learned so many new things, both in considering design and specific techniques.

To start, we have learned how to control the airbrush and move it along the skate deck to create different effects on our artwork. We have also explored how to layer colors and blend them together to alter the design we created before beginning. Along with this we have learned the difficulty of cleaning the brushes, and the effort it requires to maintain the airbrushes.  From the time we began by transferring our design, it was an eye opener to see how much control and effort it requires to airbrush properly and safely. With this in mind, Vaughn has been so helpful with everything, as well as very patient when helping people that are a little bit uneasy - he has helped make this an amazing opportunity!  Overall throughout this whole process we are enjoying every step, and triumph we’ve had! 

As an art educator I have witnessed our students truly embrace the process of learning a new technique as we continue with the final details and finishing touches on all the skate decks at SKSS.   Perhaps most importantly, it is such a pleasure to witness the collaborative and supportive learning environment our students have created through the guidance and teaching of artist Vaughn Warren!  Each day student artists are working together and sharing as they take risks within their artwork, solving problems, and celebration of individual successes.
Again, we would like to thank both ArtStarts for providing grants to promote artists working in classrooms and OLIVE Skateboarding for supporting visual arts programs in Canadian schools.