As the art specialist at DeSmet School, I excitedly look forward to the annual visit of Sara Colburn and the Art Mobile of Montana. On Jan. 27, our gym was transformed into an art gallery with 21 pieces of original artwork by Montana artists, including several sculptures, weavings, and a one-of-a-kind artist book. Colburn, who also visited Paxson, Lewis and Clark and Prescott schools, gave art lessons to several classes and the families, teaching the art of three-dimensional paper-folded-boxes with watercolor decorations and "Gyotaku," the ancient art of Japanese fish printing. The watercolor/folded box lesson transformed a two-dimensional painting into a distinctive container to hold something special. Gyotaku originated as a method to record fishermen's catches and has become an engaging art form. Colburn, brought a set of rubber fish that were molded from actual fish. The parents, students and their siblings had a fabulous time creating colorful and unique fish designs on rice paper.
Feather Sherman,
The Art Mobile visit had its finale that evening through DeSmet's Family Fun Night, a monthly event sponsored by the Family Resource Center. Parents had an ideal opportunity to view and learn about the works done by some great Montana artists. Doing the fish prints with their children let them see firsthand the value of art education in their children's lives. And it was just so much fun for the parents and kids to make art together.
Sara Boyett,
Literacy Corps specialist for the Family Resource Center
You can check out more of DeSmet School's artwork at an exhibit at World Games, 115 W. Front St., in Missoula.
I love art
First gradeKendra Sorenson: I think art is fun because I like to paint mice.
Johnnie Kaye Smith: My favorite thing to do in art is making mice and drawing.
Henry Hughes: My favorite art to do is clay art. I love clay art. It is fun to make because it is cool.
Bradly Shoen: I love art because I love to draw. I love to draw with pencils.
Noah Kohut: I love art! I like when it's made out of clay.
Art Mobile visit
Third gradeTimmy Ketron: My favorite painting was the painting that had a bunch of animals and purple, blue, and pink.
Samantha Murphy: My favorite part was seeing a crow sculpture. I think art is important because art is fun and challenging sometimes.
Nathan Duff: My favorite painting was the painting Sara Colburn did. I liked it because it looked real and I like cows, too. My other favorite painting is the book.
Emily Finnegan: My favorite part was the art sculpture of a big cowboy boot. It had lots of pictures on it. I think art is important because it is a part of life.
Ritchie Trams: My favorite part was when I touched the metal sculpture that was filled with angels. Mrs. Colburn's cow painting was cool. I think art is important because it is cool.
Katie Swann: My favorite painting was the cows in the barn and it was made by Sara Colburn. I think art is important because people who do it must be very proud of such great work they have done.
Tricia Smith: My favorite part was Sara Colburn showing us all the pictures, photos and sculptures. I think art is important because it is nice to do.
Josh Amsdill: My favorite sculpture was the cowboy boot. I think art is important because it makes life more colorful.
Nathan Bronec: My favorite painting was the picture that had the bear with the bison and the canoes going up the river. I think art is important because I can draw pictures of bears.
Tim Thomas: My favorite part was the bronze sculpture with the angels and the bird sculptures. I think art is important because it is really fun and there are a lot of techniques.
Eian Thomas: My favorite part was the cowboy boot. I think art is important because you can draw stuff like animals.
Making boxes
Fifth gradeLaura Jean Schwarz: "Hunter Wolf" The wolves' howls can be peaceful, scary or a warning. The wolf can be vicious, but it is rare for a wolf to kill a human. The colors I used on my box are brown, blue, yellow, red and black.
Weston Rynestad: Mrs. Colburn taught me to make a box. I put "Stay Out" on the top. It is square with a stripe on it. The colors are red with blue and black writing.
Kilee Amara Stepper: Mrs. Sara Colburn taught my fifth-grade class to make boxes and told us to tell and teach people all about the boxes and how to make them. I made a beautiful, colorful box painted green, black, blue and purple. I folded and folded until it was a box.
Ray Roberts: Mrs. Colburn taught me how to make a box. She taught me to write stories about my paintings to keep inside of it.
Jason M. Duff: When the art van came to the school, I thought it was cool. Then when I found out we were making boxes out of paper, I was amazed that you even could make boxes out of paper. My box has Chinese writing on it and a big "X."
Eighth grade
La Kiesha Sipp: I learned how to make paper boxes out of two 12 by 12-inch pieces of paper. It was a very fascinating process. You think it might be boring, but once you know how to make them, it can be really fun. You can make abstract pictures or make the boxes all different sizes. It's really cool to see how the pictures come out once the box is folded.Sherika Fernando: When we first started making our boxes, I thought that it would be a boring thing to make. But it was actually very fun and very colorful. I love how the box turned out. I liked how the colors mixed perfectly together and how the box fit very nicely. I think the box is very beautiful and I would make another one again.
Nikkiah Kapron: I thought that it was easier to make a box out of construction paper opposed to printing paper because the construction paper is not as flimsy. At first I did not know what we were doing, then I got the hang of it. I have made three boxes so far - two construction paper ones and one printing paper one.
D.J. Smith: Today in art class I learned how to make boxes out of paper. We first painted on the paper and let it dry. While it was drying, Mrs. Colburn showed us how to make the bottom. We then had to fold the top when it was dry. I had fun making boxes. We wrote a note to ourselves for the future to put in our box.
Kacy Marr: Mrs. Colburn showed us how to paint the top of our boxes with watercolor. It was fun making patterns with primary and secondary colors. We took two 12x12-inch pieces of paper and folded them into a top and a bottom of a box.
Schyler Jelmyer: When Mrs. Colburn said, "We're going to be making a paper box," I sighed, "Like yeah, this is going to be fun." Then when we started, I began to have fun painting and folding. Afterwards, I was surprised at the outcome.
Fish prints
Seventh gradeSimeon Chinikaylo: It was a very fun experience to make fish prints. If you didn't use contrasting colors it would not show up that good. And you didn't have to destroy a real fish because they were made of rubber.
Kylee Hoiland and Robert Sween: Robert Sween and I like the fish printmaking. Under the paper, the rubber fish felt really squishy. It was a good experience on how they used to print real fish to keep track of how many fish they caught.
Erin L. Amsdill: My fish print is silver. I got the idea from my fish Sparkle. Thinking of the deep blue sea, I put a little purple in it.
Laura Sterner: I had fun doing the fish prints. It is fun to use bright colors that really show up.
Alicia Thomas: My experience with the fish was fun. I think this is a very creative idea. I think that if I were younger, I would have liked it a little better, but we used rice paper, watercolor paint for the background and acrylic paint for the fish.
Tia Holyk: My fish is a very bright, colorful, blue spotted, orange and yellow striped, red-eyed animal swimming through the sunset-colored water. I had fun with this experience.
David Orin: I did a sting ray because I thought it would be a good experiment to try. I had a fun time with the project. I thought I would get embarrassed but I didn't.
Allie Jelmyer: I made a starfish because I like the way they act and where they live. I liked fish printing because it gives you an experience to see what a fish actually looks like. I used to not like the way fish looked, but now I see how beautiful they are, even if they are rubber!
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