By: Thomas Goldberg, Instructional Paraprofessional/Substitute Teacher 

Students have been working hard on a couple of art projects here at OA.  The first involved the students drawing their hands in the shapes of letters from the American Sign Language alphabet.  Students chose four to five letter words that have a positive meaning and resonated with them.  Students based the shapes of the hands on their own hands.  To increase the accuracy of each hand, students had to focus on the lines and details that were present in their own hands when making the shape of the letter.  Once each student completed their word, a hand was used from each student to put together the letters needed to spell “Ocean Academy”, turning an individual project into a class project.
Their next project centered on “cubism” which involves different perspectives of one image combining to create an abstract version of that image.  For this project, students created a portrait of themselves in the cubist style by combining a front and side view of their faces.  From there, students used different media throughout the portrait to add color and to create the geometric look that is found in cubism.