Spotlight On: Millennium Middle School Vinylmation Project Series

The art portfolio students and teachers at the Millennium Middle School in Sanford, FL are back again to share their latest works of art. Over the past school year, students at Millennium Middle School lead by Visual Arts Teachers Melissa French and Brandon Specht, worked on a series of projects that used Disney's Vinylmation as the inspiration. Take look...

Vinylmation Series Poster Art
Students were asked to create the artwork for an entire Vinylmation series. Each student was asked to create a design for nine 3" figures and two 9" figures that represented their theme. In addition to each design representing their theme, every Vinylmation had to fit into a subcategory: 3 Disney designs, 3 Urban designs, 3 artist inspired designs, 1 Minimalist design, and 1 design of their choice.

Vinylmation Plush ( from series)
Students were asked to choose one design from their series poster that they would like to turn into an 9 " plush. Everyone now had to design a back for their plush, challenging them to think of how their two dimensional sketches would look in a three dimensional form. We designed these plushes using canvas and paint, sewed front and back together with fishing line, and stuffed them with fiber fill.

Vinylmation Painted Plaster Cast
To create these plaster casts, Mr. Specht filled our Vinylmation ice cube trays with plaster. Each student painted a design from their poster onto the plaster.

Vinylmation Class Set
Since Vinylmation is such a big part of our curriculum, we wanted a way to keep it in our classroom all year. We decided to create a class portrait. Each student had to create a 3" Vinylmation representing themselves while each teacher created a 9" of themselves. We display them mounted together as our "Class Portrait"!

Vinylmation Series Box
Each student created 5 unique designs incorporating the Vinylmation artwork from their series poster to decorate the sides and top of a self- created box. The box is meant to act as both a piece of art advertising their work and a portfolio for their Vinylmation creations.

Vinylmation Artist Trading Cards
Over the course of our Vinylmation unit, each student was assigned the task of creating three Vinylmation Artist Trading Cards. This project replaced our smaller trading card project (since Disney did away with trading cards- so did we) and allowed the students to explore other ideas they had that might not have fit into their poster series.

Custom Vinylmations and Boxes
(as seen in the last spotlight!)

Vinylmation Project Unboxing Video
To share their designs and incorporate technology into our curriculum, every student created an "Unboxing" video in which they explain their series and the projects they created. All 40+ videos can be seen on our YouTube channel- mmsartportfolio

We tried one other project.... We attempted to created carved Vinylmation clay slabs. Our slabs were too thin and, although some made it, most slabs ended up in pieces. We have reworked this for next year and hope for a much better outcome!

If you want to see more, we documented our way through these projects on Instagram! Follow us @mmsartportfolio.