Cougar Students Display Their Art With Flair

Cougar Elementary School held an Art Fair to display the talents of the student body March 30.  All 830 students created their own masterpieces which were adorned all over the school, throughout every hallway, on every window and most proudly posted in the school's City Square.

Ms. Althea Keogh, the art teacher at Cougar Elementary School, was overjoyed with the effort put into the artwork by every student.

"Each student is featured in the art show.  We have sculptures and 2D artwork all throughout the school.  Each student studies a famous artisit such as Claude Monet, Joan Mirot, Grandma Moses, Piette Mondrian, Andy Warhal, Olma Thomas who is right now in Obama's office and also an art teacher in Washington DC.  So we did her for Black History Month as well.  We have also been featured in the Davis Ford Crossing coupon booklet."

"Every single class is featured inside of city square as well as on their hallway or in the office or conference room.  So we pretty much plastered the entire shool with artwork."

"Each grade level studies a different artist and we do a lot of color theories.  Basically, I start off with the elements and I have the kids do visual warmups and we learn how to use the tools based on Andy Warhol.  So we learn about what the different colors are on the color wheels and why they are the way they are.  We use them in the artwork.  We do a lot of collaboration projects as well.  We've been working on this project since September.  Each kid has done about 3 of them and I wanted them to look like Andy Warhol.  So I had them choose a specific color set and then use that in their artwork."

 "The Joan Mirot projects came out really well.  We did geometric and organic shapes.  And so they had to choose three of each and then create a creature out of them like the artist's artwork.  Then we used glitter paint, of course!"

"And then on the stage, the Kindergarten made-we pretended we worked at a toy factory and they had to come up with a brand new toy that had to be sold on the shelves.  So we had to think about what was the most interesting toy we ever played with.  And then we had to think about form and how we see the toy from all sides rather than just on a peice of paper.  And then they had to decorate it with florescent paints, and you'll see helicopters, trains and cars.  You can tell that some of them had specific ideas that they definitly put together."

"And then we also featured a first grade teacher who put on a dinosaur show and her students did paper mache, dinosaur eggs.  And then in the sky we also have butterflies by the Kindergarten.  And then our first grade did little bugs."