Welcome!

My name is Rachael Van Dyke, and I have had the privilege and joy of teaching K-12th grade art and design for over 13 years.

I would love to share with you the exciting, real-world projects my students have completed over the years! This site is mainly dedicated to 9-12th grade art and design. If you would like to view elementary art please visit my elementary and middle school art teaching site:  http://www.teachingelementaryart.com

Numbers

In 13 years of teaching my students and I have achieved:

• 1 -$14,000  and  3 $10,000 Kendall College One Day Art Scholarships  placing in  4/5 competitions
• Dual-enrollment with Kendall College of Art and Design
• 2 Merit 4 year scholarship to Kendall College of Art and Design
• 7 Portfolio scholarships to Kendall Art and Design
• Scholastic Art Competition: 2 Silver NATIONAL, 2 American Vision Awards, 27 Gold, 23 Silver, 18 Honorable Mentions, 1 Gold portfolio and 3 Silver Portfolio Awards
• $1500 and $500 1st and 2nd place GREEN the WAY Sculpture Competition winners
• Development of Ann Arbor STEAM Logo and Mascot
• Spot on NPR’s STATESIDE with Cynthia Canty
• 5 – $100 Savings Bonds for local art competitions
• 2 Congressional Honorable Mention Awards
• Art and Design Freshman of the Year Award at Grand Valley State University
• 4 Grants from the Arts Council of Grand Rapids
• Over $5000 in-kind matching grant funds
• 3 Large-scale sculptures for school grounds
• 40+ visiting artists and designers
• 30+ field trips
• 7 years of “J-term” visiting over 30 art studios and design firms
• 7 publications in area newspaper
• 3 news broadcasts
• 9 years of K-12th Annual Fine Art Exposition
• Starting a brand new STEAM school in Ann Arbor, MI

Revelation 4:11 “You are worthy our Lord and God to receive glory, honor and power, for you created all things and by your will all things were created and have their being.”

Via Design Critiques Final Exam

Students at NorthPointe Christian High School had the real-world experience of presenting their finished design boards to interior designers at VIA DESIGN in Grand Rapids, MI. Via Design designers, Emily and Ann, gave feedback and hosted a tour for my students.

Progressive Architecture Hosts Critique

Students in Design II presented their architectural renderings, floor plans and Google Sketchup! designs to Progressive Architecture. Progressive AE has been very generous to host either tours or critiques over the past five years for NorthPointe Christian, making a real-world connection for my students. Here is a short video of the critique and an article in the Cadence Paper for GRPRESS, MLIVE.

Real-world Logo Design

Two recent alumni remembered NPC’s Graphic Design department’s quality work and requested that my students take on the real-world project of designing the logo for their new venture -a private chauffeur company for Grand Rapids. Excited to take on this real-world project, I invited Joseph Naimo of Nimo-studio to co-teach with me. Students chose creative directors to lead 5 different “ad firms” and are currently researching for product mood boards. Here is a 2 minute presentation that the young entrepreneurs gave to my students. Students spent a week researching and developing target audience boards and presented them to the client for feedback. By doing this step, students were able to hone in on what the client is really looking for. Students also had the real-world experience of public speaking by presenting their work to the client, shown in this video clip. Here, students are led by their peer “Creative Director” in a team critique of brainstorm ideas. Students then had a photoshoot for the web site they created for GR BIMMER.

Guest Artist, Julie Quinn

Drawing and Painting I students have enjoyed the instruction of real-world abstract artist, Julie Quinn . Students have reflected on passages from the Psalms and created spiritually inspired works.