#NAEA2016: the home edition

 

Like many of you, I was stuck at home over the weekend.  Alone, bored, with nothing to stimulate my professional development.  And to make it worse, I swear, off in the distance, I could hear the joyful chatter of the 5,000 art teachers from around the country who got to hang out together for #NAEA2016.  At first I was bummed, but then it dawned on me!  I didn't need to be sad or continue to stare longingly at the photos on Instagram.  I could play NAEA2016, the Home Edition!!!

I've been to my state conference a few times, so I have an idea of what it is like to go and chill with lots of cool art teacher people.  But from the pictures I saw on the internet, this was a whole different ball game.  There were a few special things I needed for my home version of national conference.  So I gathered all the supplies and had a blast going to conference.... all by myself.  

The pajama picture:

Of course, the first thing I needed to do was take a group shot in my art teacher pajamas.  As I was taking this picture, I tried to forget that I originally paid $32.00 for these stupid pajamas, but recently they were on sale at Target for about $8.00.  I had to buy the $8.00 pair too, because I felt like saving money.  I was supposed to save that cheap pair for "someday," but when I went to take this picture the $32.00 pair was dirty.  So now I have two pairs of art teacher pajamas in rotation. 

Don't you hate it when they choose the group photo that you're making a horrible face in?

 

The Art Teacher Swag:

Everyone on the Internet is talking about the awesome giveaways they get from the vendors.  I knew that if I was going to do my home conference right, I too was going to need a bag of free art materials.  I asked my daughter to give me some of her art supplies, because she sure doesn't use them.  Not since she found out that mommy's Prismacolor markers work so much better than her Crayolas.  Anyway, Alice gave me a plastic Wal-Mart bag with a half dead sharpie and a few broken crayons.  Also, when I went grocery shopping on Sunday, the grocery store was giving out free samples of their brand of dish soap.  SCORE!  I put that in the bag too. 

 

That sharpie has something odd glued to the top of it.

The "I know you from the Internet" Selfie:

When you go to conference you get to take tons of selfies (usies?) with cool people you met on the internet.  I wanted in on this, but since everyone was in Chicago and I was not, I had to get creative.  I drew myself an internet art teacher.  Before I took the selfie, I noticed that everyone in the pictures had all these ribbons attached to their name tags.  I just threw some post it notes on myself and called it a day. 

 

She runs a successful blog/ art studio/ and works 70 hours a week. I don't..... Aren't we cute?

The comic con:

Apparently, there was a Comic Con in the same hotel as the art teacher conference.  I had to dig these old action figures of my brother's out of the attic to get this picture.  (Edit: I don't have a brother, these are mine.  Second edit: I didn't have to dig these out of anywhere.  They were right on my bedside table.) 

OMG Star Wars!!!

 

Professional development:

From what I read on the Art Teachers Facebook page and what I saw on Instagram, every session was awesome and amazing.  Kidding aside, I totally believe that.  Also, news flash, being an art teacher is the best job in the world.  Duh.....as if I didn't know that.  Seeing all these people being excited about teaching and exchanging ideas made me want some professional development too.  So while I was washing dishes, where I may or may not have used some of that free soap, I listened to AOE's Art Ed radio podcast.  It was about color theory, and they talked about those shrimp that can see like a million more colors than humans can.  I never thought I would be jealous of a shrimp.  The pod cast was inspiring and the dishes got done.  Win win!

 

I only buy dining ware in cool or warm colors. 

The Van Gogh Exhibit:

There was a big Van Gogh Exhibit going on while everyone was in Chicago.  I love that artist, so I wouldn't want to miss that.  Once again, I called upon my daughter for help.  We created our own Van Gogh Exhibit, using Van Gogh stickers, cardboard and paint.  We had a great time making this and our, I mean her, dolls had a great time viewing it.  It got me thinking about what a cool assessment project this could be for my sixth graders, and then I thought about a Van Gogh project I want to do, and then I thought about how I could tie Van Gogh in with color theory.  BAM!  My brain was making connections. Isn't that exactly what art conferences are for? 

 

That's my Princess of Power doll, thankyouverymuch.

 

I had a wonderful time this weekend at #NAEA2016, the Home Edition.  I want to thank everyone who shared their pictures on social media.  It was delightful to watch you guys! It is so important to be able to connect with people that share your profession.  Because state conference has always been such a magnificent experience for me, I can't even imagine how cool National conference must be.  Ok, I can imagine, and that's why I want to go so badly!!!

 

  Hopefully, I will be at #NAEA2017, the real life edition!

Independent Students

As I sit here, writing my 3^rd post for the year, I’m already feeling pretty good about blogging in 2015.  Of course it is only February and I have 11 more months ahead of me to go, but I’m optimistic.  Tonight, I’m showing off my independent study student work. 

I’m a big believer in displaying artwork.  I try to hang every project we finish.  Notice I said the word try.  I probably hang about 80% of the work we accomplish.  My real goal is to fill the walls of the school.  I believe it is not only good for the students to see their work displayed, but it is also good for school moral and pride.  When community members come into the building, art hanging on the walls is like a shining light and testament that learning is going on within classrooms.  It is also a daily reminder… that I teach.  In a future post I’ll write more about my theories on displaying work.  Tonight I want to talk about my independent students. 

Student work as far as the eye can see!

I have a few students that work entirely independently from my classes.  They show up to the art room during their assigned periods, and mostly they hang out in the back of the room, doing their own thing.  Sometimes they join in on what the class is doing (mostly when I need experienced art students to help during art show season), but for the bulk of the time, they are on their own.  In formal settings, I call them my “open studio” students. 

Independent clay work

Working at the color wheel table!

 

In informal settings, I call them art rats.  But that’s another story. 

The plastic mice I use for my Mouse Paint  lesson.  FYI, I do not teach this lesson to high school students.

 

Kidding aside, these are my most involved, creative students.  These are people with a deep need to create.  And I was shocked to realize I was doing them a disservice.  I never display their work.  They make it, I grade it, and then what?  Usually they would take it home. I decided that was not going to do for 2015.  I created this huge black banner for independent work to be displayed under.  I wanted to make the sign special, a little bit bigger and more eye catching than normal.  I hung it right in the main hallway, across from the cafeteria.  So far, I have 10 pieces of work underneath.  I’d like to triple that number by the time the spring art show comes around. 

Ignore the glaring light in the corner and notice how much space is left for MORE PROJECTS!

 

We made the sign from black butcher paper, and then used the elison machine to make the letters.  A student suggested using rainbow colored paper for the letters and I said, “heck yea!”  My scrap boxes are over flowing and second semester hasn’t even started yet!

 

Lots and lots of pretty paper...

  On a side note, I was surprised all the different colored paper we had in the art room. 

 

After we hung it, the open studio students were happy with the final product.  In celebration, one of them even drew a rat.  It earned a place on the wall. 

Add caption

A bulletin board is worth 54 comments

It all started with a camera.

Mini photos are the best!



 

Not just any camera.  For Christmas, my mom and dad got me one of those new Polaroid digital, instant cameras.  This was probably the coolest gift I got this year.  If you haven’t seen it yet, it is amazing.  It’s even visually attractive, kinda resembling the Instagram logo.  It’s a real camera, but it also prints tiny picture stickers.  It got me excited about all the possibilities of taking instant pictures.  Example: how cool would it be to use those tiny photo stickers in a visual journal?!?!

Obviously, I received this camera during our holiday break.  While taking tons of photos of my kids, my dog, and my food, my mind wandered towards my job.  I knew when I got back to school I was going to replace all of the bulletin boards.  Good bye, cute holiday scene!  I needed something fresh, something rocking, for the New Year.  I try to update my hallway displays at least every two months.  I hadn’t changed it since October, so I was waaaay overdue. 

Excited about my new camera and the whole Instagram-inspired thing, a seed was planted in my brain.  I started browsing Pinterest for an Instagram themed bulletin board idea.  I saw a few, but most of them were ideas where you posted pictures of students working.  Not exactly what I had in mind. 

That's a big icon.

 

Well, after brainstorming for a bit, I had the great idea to put a quote next to a giant Instagram logo.  This year in my art room, I have been stressing the idea that anyone can make art.  Who cares if you can’t draw well/ paint well/ collage well?  Everyone can make art.  A good part of my students get so paralyzed over the idea “I can’t draw,” that they don’t even try.  So what I did was put up the saying “Art isn’t Instagram.  Art is more than pretty pictures.”  Under that, I wrote out the following hashtags--- #your ideas #yourlife #nothingsperfect #whocares #makeart.  I was pretty proud of how the entire thing turned out. 

Back in my day, # was a number sign.

#nothingsperfect  Like my paint stained bulletin board.

One of my advanced students added a hand!  I was so impressed. 

 

As luck would have it, the week we came back to school not only did students have a half day for staff development, the next day we also had a two hour delay due to cold weather.  That was two days in a row where we had 20 minute classes.  Yuck.  I don’t know about how your class runs, but by the time my students get their materials out, it would be almost time to clean up.  So instead, I found a cutout of an iPhone on the Internet and assigned my classes to draw an Instagram photo inside of it.  So simple, yet they really enjoyed it.  I was preheating their brains after a long vacation. 

 

Big trucks are a giant inspiration to my students.   

Thinking there was a deep personal story behind this, I asked my student if there was anything wrong.  His reply?
"I can't draw eyes."

The blog is called "cultured cows."

Here’s where the story gets exciting.  After I had everything hung in the hallway, I snapped a quick picture and posted it to the art teacher’s facebook page.  I just wanted to show off my crafty art teacher skills.  I also wanted to tell an amusing tale between me and a 6^th grader when I was constructing the darn thing.



 I wasn’t prepared for what happened next.

People started commenting.  Some people got what I was trying to say, but some people didn’t.  Nobody was cruel, like telling me my board was crap, but people were wondering if I hated Instgram and/or photography.  The art teachers' FB page is a wonderful place for feedback, and they gave me something to think about that I hadn't thought of. Is Instagram art? 181 likes and 54 comments later, I believe I explained myself the best I could.  Or people just got bored with the thread and moved on to a new topic.  Either way, I really listened to everyone on the thread.  A few people made the suggestion to add the word “just,” to the bulletin board.  I agreed with them, but everything was already glued down, so I did the next best thing: a door decoration.  Ta Da!



So here is my completed work.  I also found this article on the Internet, which connects to the entire discussion.  What do you think?  Is Instagram art?  Is it a tool?  Should I requisition a ton of instant film for next year’s art classes?  Let me know in the comments below!

Holiday Art show...The Grinch!

Art shows are the only reason I have to write in this blog.  At least that's what it would seem by my posting history.  I'm going to blame my lack of posting on the end of the school year.  And then, uh... a busy summer.  And then...  Oh, all right, I admit it.  I've been lazy.  But I'm going to stick with it this time.  I hope. 

 

                Enough of the promises.  Let's get to the art show.  This year our winter/ holiday concert and art show had the theme of the Grinch.  The chorus sings songs from the movie, the band plays the music, and a representative from the English department reads the book.  I have to say, this was our biggest and best show to date.

                Of course, I was all about the Grinchy art.  The Grinch is one of my favorite holiday books.  It was hard to come up with a Grinch themed project for each class, but it was incredibly easy to think of giant Grinch themed sculptures.  We always do giant sculptures to go along with our themes.  One year we made a train to go along with our Polar Express themed show.  In my last blog post, I talked a little about the giant Ndebele hut that we made for the art show last spring.  We tossed around all kinds of ideas.  One was doing a large sized model of Whoville, complete with Mount Crumpit.  Another was doing the inside of a who house (after the Grinch had visited) and even contemplated a who house with a window that you could look in and see little Cindy Lou Who fast asleep. 

                Those were the rejected ideas.  We settled not on one, not two, but three different ideas.  Three.  Different.  Ideas.  We created a tree, a sled (complete with Grinch and Max), and the "Welcome to Whoville" sign.  We did this because we like to really pile on the pressure right before Winter Break. 

                The first thing I'll talk about is the sled.  It was entirely student designed and built.  The middle school children helped paint it, but its design was executed completely by my independent advanced students. 

                The second thing we built was the tree with the whos dancing around it.  The tree was made by studio one students, with the ornaments made by 7th graders. 

 

                Lastly, the sign was designed by advanced students and painted by pretty much any warm body that happened to wander into the art room the week before the art show.  This thing looks amazing, but it was hard to hang up.  What made it so difficult to assemble was that it consisted of three separate pieces of cardboard.  I wish we would have made it one piece, but we were afraid it wouldn't fit through the door.  I think it would have been easier to put up if it was all connected.  Ah, that's what we call a learning experience my friends.

Notice the Grinch dress?  I made that!  I also made the Cindy Lou Who costume!

 

                The rest of the art show was amazing, of course.  I was totally impressed with all the work the students did.  I really love how their personality comes out in their art.  This year, we hung over 700 pieces of work for families and staff to look at.  We also created a huge sign that featured pictures of our students at work.

 



TAB Grinch projects.

 

 

                I have to say, it was an incredibly successful event.  My administrators were impressed, my students were proud, parents got a better understanding of our program, and I felt job satisfaction.  Life can't get any better than that! 

 

Art show, part 2

In my last post, I showed off some pictures of our Spring Concert and Art Show.  In this post, I'm going to explain a few of the project and talk about the inspiration behind them.

 

In this picture you can see the ceramic houses that one of my studio one classes created.  They were suppose to look like Ndebele houses.  This was my first ceramic project that I developed from my head.  (Although since we made them, I have seen other Ndebele ceramic huts on the internet.)  I had never touch clay until I was hired at my school--a school with a giant kiln and a ceramic studio.  Talk about pressure!  I'm slowly getting acquainted with clay.  The houses turned out ok.  My idea for them was to make them into little jewelry like boxes, but some students added a door and not all of their roofs sit on the houses correctly.  I don't think we will be making these again in the future.  It was to fit in with the theme of the concert and art show. Behind the Ndebele huts you can see the 3D Ndebele huts that a different studio one class made.  They drew the huts on paper, cut them out, painted a background, and then used cardboard to make the houses come out a bit.  For a final touch, they glued straw to thatched roof.

 



 

What you are looking at here is a giant paper mache pair of shoes, complete with wings.  Now why ever would we make flying shoes in art class?  Well, I'll tell ya!  These shoes were made by a sixth grade class that was reading the book Percy Jackson and the Lightening Thief.  One of my biggest goals teaching art is to connect to other classroom teachers.  I find students really like it and it makes our students have a productive and cohesive experience.  Each student made one shoe and had to work together to design the shoes.  This pair was my favorite.  Behind the shoes you can see another Ndebele 3D drawing and a watercolor based off a Klimt painting. 

 

Here is an oil pastel based off the book, Why the Sun and the Moon live in the Sky.  It is a traditional African folk tale and was one of the books we gave away.  Originally I found the story on line and read it to the students.  This was a lesson that I started, but let the students finish with a sub.  Sometimes that can be iffy, but this time turned out fine.  I did this with both sixth graders and seventh graders.  It was based off this pin. 

 

And here is this little guy.  My seventh graders made traditional Mexican pinatas.  They are fully functional.  For the art show, I hug them up and down the hallway.  People thought they were so cute.  I did too.  Unfortunately, they were up for less than 24 hours.  Our cafeteria is right across from where we hold the art show and I didn't want to tempt anybody into hitting them.  I was tempted, even though I knew there was no candy in them.  They went along with foreign language week.  We didn't quite make that deadline, but they were still wonderful for the Art Show. 

Here are the "choice paintings" my advanced students painted and hung up.  Due to having scheduling conflicts, sometimes I teach studio one, two and three all at the same time.  I let my older, advanced students do a choice based program.  I guess you could say I flirting with TAB.  I love all these paintings.  The advanced students hung them themselves, which was nice for me because by the time we got to this place in the hallway I was about ready to go off the deep end!

 

And here is my last set of projects I will be showing you.  The first one is a Klimt cat, made by seventh graders.  I found the lesson on the Internet here.  Although it was done with first graders, I modified it so it would be at a seventh grade level.  We finished it right before the semester switch, so it was a nice art history based wrap up.  The project next to it was a flower box.  We made some egg carton flowers and then glued them on to a painted background.  To finish it, we glued Popsicle sticks and then stained them with brown watercolors.  The final project I'm going to talk about is the Mondrian duct tape "painting."  I got this idea out of Dick Blick or United Art and Education, I can't remember which one.  Basically, you take a square of cardboard and cover it with duct tape in the style of Mondrian.  Not surprisingly, this project was a hit!  I enjoyed it, but there were a few surprises to go along with it.  It only took my high school students a day to finish.  Second, it took a lot of duct tape.  Not a very cost effective project.  I'll probably wait a few years to attempt to do it again. 

 

 

Lastly, here is me wearing my "Starry Night" dress from modcloth.  It was perfect for the night and I got a ton of compliments on it.  Behind it, of course, was our hut.  Until next time!

Spring Art Show, 2014

Our district art show and music concert was held the previous Tuesday, almost one week ago from tonight.  Last week at this time I was still trying to get everything ready, frantically ordering students around and sticking projects to the walls.  The high school students always say I’m so pleasant the days before a show.  Hey, they have break ups and regents.  I have art shows.  We all have drama in our lives.  Mine is just brightly colored and comes the same night as our district budget vote. 

Tonight, I’m a million years away from all that stress.  I am calm after a relaxing long weekend.  I can actually look at the pictures and not shutter or blame myself for all of the stuff we could have done. I think most art teachers are perfectionist.  I know I am.  I know my elementary counterpart, Mrs. B, is.  We spent Monday and Tuesday calling each other up, talking about all these wonderful last minute ideas we wanted to do.  Some we got to.  Some were pipe dreams.

A small sampling of what we did. 

Our art show and music concert had an African theme to it.  We did this for a variety of reasons.  One, our 7^th graders read the book A Long Walk to Water.   I’m guessing many of you have heard about it because it is required reading for common core.  Another reason we had the themed that we did is that everyone in our school, grades 6^th through 12^th, got to hear Gabriel Bol Deng speak this spring during his presentation, Hope for Ariang.  If you haven’t heard about this, I highly recommend listening to his story.  He is located on the Internet, here. 

Notice the hanging pinatas?  Yeah, so did the 9th graders on their way to lunch.  Grrrr.

 

 

Our chorus and bands did a wonderful job, but I’m here to tell you about the art.  All of my classes learned a little about South Africa this semester, focusing on the Ndebele tribe.  We especially took time to learn about the highly decorative houses the tribe is famous for.  Several classes did projects featuring these houses, but our main one was our hut. 

An adult could stand up in the middle.  I know, I tried to hide in there. 

 

 

We displayed that in the front lobby.  The rain sticks inside were a last minute addition and were made by 5^th graders. 



Missing from the picture: three African folk tale story books.  Also, cookies and water. 

 

The table next to the hut was for cookies and water.  It also held our door prizes.  The art department always sponsors some giveaways.  Mostly we hand out student ceramic work and picture books to go along with the theme of our show.  This year we gave away a bowl set and a coffee cup (both made by students) and a set of three story books, all African folk tales.  In addition, we also gave away a piñata shaped like a giraffe.  You can see it in the picture. 



The sign was painted on cardboard pallets.  I wish I could get my hands on more of them!

 



 

Students also made the sign that explained the significance of the hut.  We encouraged people to go into the little cardboard building.  If it’s on display, people will want to touch it.  I say, go ahead!  It’s not like I’m seriously considering moving in. 



 

 

 

Across from the hut we displayed giant drawings of animals.  The elementary students did the small ones and my high schools made the elephant and the giraffe.  It turned out amazing!



 

 

All in all, our show turned out far better than I could ever imagine.  Sometime this week I am going to post a little bit more about the actual projects featured in the displays.  Until then, happy art making!