Sheldon describes himself as humorous yet obnoxious, and is involved with many things in and out of school. He says he is quick, and that is the one connection he shares with his character that he created in Colonial Cobblestones, besides the self portrait which represents both him and his character.

To take some of the pressure off of making self portraits, some students used humor in their approaches. Sheldon recalled that his friend made it more interesting by calling the self portrait "A humorous poster for [everyone] to see."  He also took pride in telling the art teacher, Ms. Norton: "You need to listen!", the signature phrase Sheldon has used ever since, as any of his peers will inform you.

When Sheldon was informed his self portrait would be used for the banner, he seemed very happy. "I was surprised, I was like ecstatic,..." he told me, before correcting himself by adding "I was quite happy my picture was out there so other people could see what I attempted to do with my poor artistic skills." Sheldon is an all around good guy and his number one piece of advice to you is "You need to listen!"

Meet Margaret. She is in York 8, and her self portrait is on the banner.

As I began talking to her, I couldn't help to notice the strong sense of pride she has about her piece. It took her, as she put, "A bazillion, bazillion years!" In Margaret speak, this means three months. There were many steps to getting to what you see on the banner, but Margaret struggled most with shading.

"Shading my nose was the hardest." she later elaborated. For her character in Colonial Cobblestones, she had to construct a character from the colonial time period, write and peform a charchter narrative, as well as create the portrait. The person that she used for her narrative and portrait is Elizabeth Bagnell, a woman that was the daughter of a doctor. Though her self-portrait has her characteristics, it also incorporates the colonial feel of her made up character.

When asked how she felt when her self portrait was finished, she said, "I felt relieving completedness." Translated once more, she was both happy about the outcome, and glad that the workload was over. Margaret had a good attitude all throughout making her portrait, and as you can tell, the outcome was great. Though there was many steps to make what you see today, all the practice made her portrait all the more better.

Adding the Background

At the beginning of each year our art teacher, Mrs. Norton, creates a display from a popular summer movie depicting themes from the movie in the context of King Middle School. The background for the King banner came from a 1998 display based on the movie Armageddon.

The three images -- Sheldon's, Margaret's, and Mrs. Norton's -- were put together by our multimedia teacher Mr. Grant using Photoshop.

Incidently, here is this year's movie theme by Mrs. Norton.