Grade 8

Mask and a Message Posters

Students had a sketchbook assignment to create an advertisement, with the requirements of including a mask and some text, “a message”.

They started with thumbnail sketches to brainstorm, then chose how realistic or stylized to make their design. The message was their choice and fit with the design choices they made.

Bakhtawar Mufti

Iroquois Middle School

Duncan Munro

Iroquois Middle School

Julia Mongelli

Iroquois Middle School

Maria Samuel

Iroquois Middle School

Maya Lembo

Iroquois Middle School

Megan Breslin

Iroquois Middle School

Noah Martinez

Iroquois Middle School

Sage Kos

Iroquois Middle School

Sydney Markham

Iroquois Middle School

8th Grade Masked Self Portraits

8th graders developed skills in proportions and shading through this observational self portrait. Each student decided how to treat the background since they were alternating between days in school and days of remote learning.

As students drew, they considered the layer of meaning added by the mask and wondered how they would feel looking back on these months or years from now.

A note from Ms. Chwazik: “These drawings make me so proud - of the creativity I see in the choices you make and ideas you bring to class, and of the persistence you’ve all shown in continuing to put your best foot forward in the middle of a chaotic time. These portraits capture the essence of this year - they’re honest about the fact that nothing is the same, but they find meaning and beauty in it all anyway.”

Abigail Lunetta

Iroquois Middle School

April Zhang

Iroquois Middle School

Audrey Murphy

Iroquois Middle School

Bakhtawar Mufti

Iroquois Middle School

Brian Wolff

Iroquois Middle School

Daniel Shahata

Iroquois Middle School

Ella Lovegrove

Iroquois Middle School

Isabelle Mok

Iroquois Middle School

Jacen Schechter

Iroquois Middle School

Jacob DiCaprio

Iroquois Middle School

Max Ferran

Iroquois Middle School

Monica Amirbekian

Iroquois Middle School

Noah Martinez

Iroquois Middle School

Sage Kos

Iroquois Middle School

Sasha Goodman

Iroquois Middle School

Toby Cooper

Iroquois Middle School

A Year Like No Other

Alyssa Ramsundar

Van Antwerp Middle School

The theme of my artwork from “A Year Like No Other” is about the big things that have happened in 2020. It is also about the different things we have to do during this time compared to previous years and how the year is different from all of the other years before.

When I was presented with this assignment and my teacher told us the things that we could do for this when she said collage I immediately wanted to do that for my assignment. I thought that doing a collage would be very cool because I have never done one before and I have seen collages before and they all look really cool. I thought it would be something interesting to do because unlike my other art assignment I wouldn’t have to draw anything. I came up with the theme of it from the title of the assignment, “A year Like no Other” and how 2020 was different. So I wanted to include how 2020 was different and all of the big events. It was mainly on the pandemic because the is the biggest thing to happen in 2020.

Once I settled on the type of media I was doing I came up with what I wanted to make my collage about. I decided I wanted it to be about mainly the pandemic, how 2020 is different from other years, but also big things that happened in 2020. Then science I was going to do a digital collage, I went onto Pinterest, and then I found all of my pictures representing the pandemic, big things that happened, and some new things that we have to make sure we do that we didn’t need to in previous years. While I was gathering some pictures I also went and founds some quotes relating to 2020 and the year. After I found all of my pictures and quotes, I downloaded them onto my photos on my ipad. I went onto this app that is on my iPad called “Procreate” and uploaded all of my pictures and quotes onto the app. Once I did that I I sized each picture and placed them where I wanted them to be placed, when I finished putting all of my pictures and quotes where I liked them I cropped some of my quotes and placed them on top of some of the photo so it was overlapping them but not covering them completely. Then when I was satisfied with it I turned it in. The materials that I used to complete this assignment were: my iPad, my apple pencil, then the apps I used were: “Procreate” and “Pinterest”.

The overall design of my assignment was a whole bunch of different pictures and quotes all put together to represent 2020 and all of the crazy things that have happened. The design of my collage helps to show how I see that this year was different from others. Some of the pictures are small and some are big but they were all clumped together to resemble the year. The meaning of the final piece is to show what we have to experience and deal with everyday, the new problems we face today, and and how this situation has affected our daily lives. All of the pictures combined shows the overall year and some of the main things that happened that year.

Claire Modan

Van Antwerp Middle School

For my artwork, I made a collage on the topic of “A Year Like No Other”. I used paper, glue, and photos. For the brainstorming, I first made a concept map where I listed some topics and main events of 2020, then I branched off of those topics and made connections to other things that I related to those topics. For example, if I wrote Covid-19, I might then make connections and write; masks, quarantine, nurses, etc. After I made the concept map, I searched some of those images from my concept map on google and put them into one google doc. Then I printed out those pictures and cut them all out. For some of the pictures, I cut how about their backgrounds, so it would just show the main thing that I wanted to focus on, but sometimes I left the whole picture intact. After I finish cutting them out, I taped two pieces of construction paper together and glued the pictures onto the paper. For some of the pictures, I layered them on top of each other, but for many of the pictures, I just had them stand out on their own. For this project, I chose the events of 2020 that were most important to me and put them together in a reflective artwork. When people see my artwork, they will reflect on the events of 2020 and think about how we can prevent this in the future.

Davina Black

Van Antwerp Middle School

The theme for my artwork was words that represented 2020-2021 around the world. I knew I wanted to do something that involved the world and all the things that happened. So I decided on doing a mask with the Earth on it. The center of the Earth where one of the continents would be is heart-shaped. I chose to do this because I thought that it represented all the love that we need in our world right now. The words I wrote on the mask are based off of the things that happened or feelings that represent things that happened. The rainbow writing represents hope and connected it all because all around the world the rainbow has been the main representative for hope. The materials I used were my personal sketchbook which I drew it in. I also used a pencil to start then colored pencils. The first thing I did was draw the mask and then the Earth. After I drew the mask and Earth I added the words in. The final piece after coloring everything I thought really represented everything that happened throughout 2020-2021.

Madeline Bowers

Van Antwerp Middle School

“Doing art relaxes me and helps clear my mind. I can draw anything I want that comes to mind. Art is an unlimited resource. You can do it anytime.”

Madeline Bowers

My 8th grade school year.

I looked at pictures taken this year and what’s been in the news.

I used color pencils, paper and my laptop.

The overall design is based on events and new members of the family. I’ve stayed at home so much that most of my time is spent looking at memes, the news, doing craft projects and playing with our new kitten, Koda.

Mya Melito

Van Antwerp Middle School

The theme of my art was a 2020 recap. The colors I chose for the human side of the face were blue and green which represented the world. I chose to incorporate the earth colors because on the other side of the head I showed some major events that happened throughout the world in the year 2020. The materials I used were colored pencils and a black marker. It took a couple tries to create and brainstorm something I like but I wanted to add a small group of little drawings of events. My overall meaning was what was going on through people’s heads and what was happening in the world.

Riley Lephart

Van Antwerp Middle School

The theme of my artwork was about COVID - 19. I drew a picture of the statue of liberty with a mask on. My thought process was to make an artwork that really describes what happened this year and one of the main things was Covid. I used my sketchbook and some colored pencils to make the statute and colored it with many shades of green. The overall meaning is that one of the statutes in the America that has a lot of history behind it has a mask on showing that we need to wear them to keep each other safe.

Soren Borger

Van Antwerp Middle School

I made this mask for my year like no other because, well I'm wearing a mask almost all day every other day and while playing sports. The theme of my artwork is I guess just a normal drawing with the theme of many words together on one thing that I wear all the time. While I was brainstorming ideas to do, one came to mind that I liked, that idea was a normal mask I wear all day, with words that described quarantine written all over it, some words I used were, “angry, sad, excited, stressed, long, short, etc: “ These words described my quarantine, because some days were long while others were short, I was sad at times, angry and stressed, but other times I was happy, and excited. To create my artwork, I used pencils and colored pencils. The overall meaning would probably be just words that describe my life style nowadays with COVID 19 and everything that's going on.

Sullivan Graham

Van Antwerp Middle School

The artwork I made for the Year like no other assignment, was sort of a tribute to important things that happened in 2020. Like the black lives matter movement, and I also put a tribute to some celebrities that passed away the past year, like Chadwick Boseman, the actor that played Black panther, and also i put people like Kobe and juice world and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. My brainstorming process when making the artwork really was just. Putting a lot of big impactful things that happened in 2020 into the artwork. To make the artwork I just used things like colored pencils etc. And the meaning of my artwork was just to show the impactfulness of 2020, whether that be the bad and sad things, or the moving and powerful things like BLM.

Annalise Ramsundar

Van Antwerp Middle School

The theme of my artwork was BLM (Black Lives Matter). My brainstorming process was to get images that are meaningful, and symbolize the message that j was trying to get across. I found images on Pinterest and put them all into a collage. The overall design is a collage and I thought a collage would be good because you can see all of the images and words. Also when you are looking at one image it can lead to another. I also feel as though images are a great way to express/show something. Because you can write paragraphs and paragraphs about this topic but you can get lost and almost feel bored but I feel that images can show how bad things really are, and you will never get bored looking at pictures. The meaning of this peace was to spread awareness about BLM. A quote that I chose to put in was so true and I felt as though it should be heard it was, “ George Floyd isn’t a “wake-up call.” The same alarm has been ringing since 1619. Y’all just keep hitting snooze.” I thought this quote was so inspirational and so true because black lives have been harmed but there are some who are not lucky enough to be filmed. But even though it has been going on for so long I feel like George Floyd has really woken up everyone from their sleep and 2020 has brought out how important Black lives are, and I think 2020 was a very bad but good year but it showed us all of the problems we need to fix to be equal as one.

Cody Hafensteiner

Van Antwerp Middle School

The theme of my artwork is Minecraft because the bee I created was going to be based on Minecraft. I was thinking of making other ones but they did not work so I decided to do this one. I used paper and some colors to make the bee. The design was to make it square like shape because Minecraft is a square type game and you can do what your mind thinks.

Elyse Gerstenbluth

Van Antwerp Middle School

The theme of my artwork was everything that was important in the past year such as Black Lives Matter movement, the 2020 election, Covid, global warming, and wildfires. I also included stuff that brought me joy, like skiing. I also included something that affected me and also affected most of the world which is COVID-19. The brainstorming process was mostly just what brought me joy, what was important in the year, and something that affected me. I did a collage of printed pictures. I added pictures of everything I stated previously. The meaning was what really made me grow and learn. All of the things that I put on here were things that helped me grow and learn as a person. I learned some new techniques in skiing, and more.

Isabel Irizarry

Van Antwerp Middle School

My brainstorming was basically thinking about what big things happened this year. The first things that came to my mind were, the pandemic, all the BLM protest, politics, and one of the first big things that started 2020 off, the Australian wildfires. I was imagining a female in a mask and I wanted her in front of all the things that happened so I used photos from all those things and collaged them before putting her in front. It basically means to me that all these things that happened were huge and important and we all need to recognize them.

Lily Splendido

Van Antwerp Middle School

The theme of my artwork was black lives matter. The goal for black lives matter is to inform people of the injustice in the black community. I wanted my artwork to advocate for justice of lives that were taken that shouldn’t have. I wanted to incorporate lady justice in my artwork due to the fact that she represents justice. Next to Lady justice are victims of police brutality and discrimination that deserve justice. Above Lady justice I put the last few words of the pledge of allegiance “Justice for all,” to show that even though that is in the pledge, we do not really follow through with it all the time. I decided to make the names and the “Justice for all” part red so they can stand out, that is why I made the rest black and white. I hope my piece shows that victims of police brutality and discrimination should have the justice they deserve.

Luke Splendido

Van Antwerp Middle School

The theme of my artwork if everything that has happened within the past year. When making my artwork, I knew that I wanted to capture key moments that have made up 2020 and 2021. The election, Covid 19, Black Lives Matter, The wildfires, the Capitol Riots and even the Murder Hornets. A lot of these moments have been crazy but they are now always going to be part of our life. Some resources I used while creating my artwork was something called ProCreate. I put a collage of important pictures in the back of the artwork that also captures everything that has happened. I put the person looking forward in my artwork to show that we always have to keep moving forward.

Maria Trahan

Van Antwerp Middle School

The main concept and theme of my artwork is the virus. You can see this because in my artwork the biggest thing on the page is the world with a mask on and that represents the virus. My brainstorming process for this wasn’t that complicated. I thought of 2020 and the things that happened in the year. After that, I tried to think of a main drawing and I thought of the virus. I created the artwork by drawing it. I used markers and colored pencils to color it. The overall design of the artwork is the world thinking about all the things that happened. The meaning of my artwork is positive and negative messages. It shows some positive and negative things that happened.

Tessa Furgeson

Van Antwerp Middle School

The theme of my art work is a summary of the year. With all of the events that happened in 2020, I thought the best way to capture it was to do a collage with newspaper headlines, news articles, and pictures. I flipped through magazines to find pictures and headlines, and I printed more important topics that I thought needed to be included. The person in the middle represents an overwhelming feeling, because of the inundation of news and events in 2020.

Aliyus McCloud

Sun Rise

Van Antwerp Middle School

The picture shows that the sun will always shine and there's always a tomorrow. My brainstorm process was easy; I wanted to make something about better days. The overall point of this picture is that the sun always shines so there will always be a better day.

Aryeh Korevarr

Van Antwerp Middle School

My artwork, “A Year Like No Other” is based on how the year 2020-2021 was a year like no other. Dominating most of the artwork are swirls alternating between red and grey (Van Antwerp colors) and words or events that “define” this year so far. From the left to the bottom, the swirls with words are based on Covid-19, the good things from this year, and the bad/sad things from this year, respectively. Then, in between “2020-2021” and “A Year Like No Other” there is a tunnel that starts off dark and ends with light. This represents the saying “light at the end of the tunnel” to show that things like COVID-19 will eventually go away and “there will be light at the end of the tunnel”. The main thinking as to why I chose this design was because I wanted to incorporate things from this year, but have space to have a title, the US flag, and the VA letters. I used watercolor paint for the red/grey swirls and for the VA symbol. I used markers for the flag and light coming out of the tunnel. In addition, I used sharpie for the words and outline of the tunnel itself. In conclusion, the meaning of this piece is that there were good things and not so good things that happened this year, but there is hope for the light at the end of the tunnel.

Brianna Dieckmann

Van Antwerp Middle School

My “a year like no other” piece was one of my favorite assignments this year. In the creation of this piece I wanted to add everything from 2020 but my main focus was the Covid-19. I chose Covid-19 as the theme because this really was “a year like no other”. In my piece, I included pictures of Covid and used different fonts for all of the different events that happened. As a part of this piece, I included powerful words that all reflect different memories. In this artwork, I designed the piece with colored pencils and a black marker. The overall effect this artwork should leave with you is different things that happened over this very distinct year.

Chase Geib

Van Antwerp Middle School

Coumba Ndiaye

Van Antwerp Middle School

My theme is a flashback on 2020 and the eye is looking forward into 2021. My first Idea was to use a words and like make them into the numbers 2020-202l. Either that or I would’ve drawn like someone stepping into a mirror that was leaving 2020 and was going into 2021. Then I decided I just wanted to draw an eye, and that I would use words that represented 2020 as the eyelashes. The materials I used were colored pencils and a pencil. Since I wanted the shading to look good I used a cotton swab to blend the pencil. I used black and red for the color of my drawing because they reminded me of V.A. I’ve always wanted to draw an eye and I thought that it would look cool. On the drawing I also put big events like online school, face masks , BLM, and the election.

Hasini Ryali

Van Antwerp Middle School

I create my artwork by striking a bunch of newspapers and magazines. I used newspapers and magazines for my artwork. I did a collage of using the year 2020 newspapers and magazines to create my artwork it means a lot things such as the American bushfires and Covid and election, etc and lots more incidents.

Helena Reihs

Van Antwerp Middle School

Leiaiel Gadia

Van Antwerp Middle School

I made a collage of content creators that basically shelter the world around me to be a safe and open place, it made me less worried about something that will eventually take some lives away and it highly affected things that happened around the place and it also affected how I dealt with this current pandemic, it made me less worried about the outside world, it let me focus on the things that are sheltering me from the world outside and it really helped me laugh during some dark times about worrying about other things like how am I supposed to do something that will end in a tragic way

The process was rather easy, I already had a broad idea of what I was going to do. I had to 100% include all the major things that were happening in the content creator community. I was just going to include the Dream SMP content creators, but I remembered there was a certain channel that I was watching from the very beginning of the channel, UNUS ANNUS, it was something that I hold dear to my heart, it is weird to say that because the content is far from heartwarming. The channel had left the face of the Earth at 3:00-3:01 am EST one November 13-14 2020; I wished that I watched all 365 videos all over again, but I can’t cause it is all gone from the internet.--- anyway so I was initially going to draw everyone that was one the dream SMP, then I realized that I didn’t watch everyone from the dream SMP during my free time, so I selected a few of them that I know I watch, even if it just a few hours of watch time for some and there are some people that I may have left out unaware of who tho I left out, some of them are just people that I enjoy watching popping up in some streams from time to time. These people all helped me understand that the world is in danger but also at the same time shelter me from the danger by making me not long to go outside, it just made me want to stay home with my family and watched them do things with their friends and enjoy everything I’ve got. That was one of the important messages that Unus Annus taught everyone, even after one of their funniest videos, they remind us that time is ticking and you can not stop the clock, all you can do is life and enjoy what you have.

Lily Canada

Van Antwerp Middle School

I would say that the theme of artwork is everything that happened in 2020, mostly focusing on the political side of things. I brainstormed this project by making a list of all the things I thought were the biggest and most important parts of 2020-2021. Some of those things were the 2020 presidential election, George Floyds death, the Australian bushfires, and the Capitol storming. I created my artwork by picking out pictures that I thought represented the topics I chose and then putting them on a google doc and printing them out. Then I glued them into my sketchbook and added the picture of the 2020 balloon on top. I used glue, paper, and a printer for my project. I would say that the overall design really shows how crazy 2020 was and how it really was a year like no other. The meaning behind this piece is no matter how bad things are they can always get better.

Safiya Petrushenka

Van Antwerp Middle School

Sara Cartoon

Van Antwerp Middle School

This year has been filled to the brim with ups and downs. For some this was the worst of best year of their lives. Before creating this piece I wanted to do 2020 justice. For all of the good things it brought and all of the bad things. I couldn’t just focus on politics. Politics was just a small portion of the much bigger issues facing this world right now. In my artwork, I included mentions of Covid-19, the deadly pandemic that has swept the earth and has taken the lives of over 400,000 people in the US alone. I included mentions ft the Black Lives Matter movement. This movement took the world by storm and gave a voice to those who did not have one before. This movement showed that America was fed up with the police brutality and racism facing people of color in this country. The death that got the ball rolling on this movement was the death of George Floyd. You can see some of his last words painted in big bold black letters “I can’t breathe”. This signaled global protests in honor of all of the African American people who have lost their lives to police brutality. I mention politics a little bit when I put a picture of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Kamala Harris is making history today (the day I am writing this is January 20th), by becoming the first women, first southeast Asian, and African American women to hold the vice-presidential position. I was swelling with pride when she got elected because finally there was a women in that high of a position. An important person who fought for women's’ rights her whole life was Ruth Bader Ginsburg. A personal hero of mine, she died September 18th, 2020 at the age of 87 years old. Because of her, I want to become a Supreme Court Justice when I grow up. And lastly, I mention the monstrosity that happened at the United States Capitol on January 6th, 2021. A dangerous and deadly mob of Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol and threatened our democracy. I didn’t want to give the people there any attention however this was such a historic event I needed to include it. Before I created this I wanted to include different feelings and things I observed during 2020 and 2021. I found images on the internet and printed them out. There was a lot of white space between the pictures so I wrote frequent words and feelings that were used to describe 2020. I wanted to put all of my frustration and anger with 2020 into this piece and I am really proud of how it came out.

Maarten Fletcher

For my piece I thought of what people would or liked to do before Covid, and then I thought about what Covid did and the effects it had on everyday life. The theme for this artwork is kind of locked away, or behind a glass wall because every social activity was limited or outright banned. I made my piece in a photo editing software because I like graphic design and editing and I’m not very good at drawing.

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