Jim Dine Inspired, 1st Grade

I don't remember where I have seen this but I think many art teachers use this idea for Jim Dine and February.  I love how different each piece is and kids love the resist of watercolors and oil pastels.  

Winter Birch Trees

I've done this project before with my 4th graders and just love it.  Got this idea from:  www.artprojectsforkids.org/search/label/winter Use liquid watercolors and kosher salt for the background, tagboard for trees marked with pencil and glitter.

2012 AND THE CLEANUP BEGINS

Got started on my art studio.  This is now in my upstairs hall.  Took an idea from another blog to hang up my artwork that is being worked on.  This helps out because I don't have much room.  The green piece I bought last year, it was red at the time.  I keep receipts, wire, small tools, snaps, glitter and small scraps of paper in the drawers.  

Cleaned out my plastic drawers and re-organized them.  Labelled the fronts so it's easier to grab things.  I keep bags, tissue paper, notecards, glue guns, staple guns, pens and pencils, cut paper, watercolor cards, plastic sleeves, mailing labels and blank cards in these and they slide under my work area.  

Back to school tomorrow for the end of the quarter/semester.  Will be busy grading, cleaning up and preparing for the next quarter.  Also have a bunch of artwork to photograph for Artsonia.  

Creativity

Have you ever checked out the Converse website?  My son love's his converse.  He needed a new pair and you can design your own, so this is what he designed.  You can choose pretty much everything:  color, lining, laces, stitching, tongue color.  This was one of his Christmas presents.

Here he is with his other present.  A new bass guitar.  He has blisters from playing.  So glad he enjoys music and art.  He is way talented(well I'm his mom), planning on graphic design in college.  

Getting Organized

Recently I moved my studio space from my basement to my upstairs hallway.  I have half the space I had before but feel things are in a better environment on the 2nd floor of my home.  Our basement is finished but it gets very damp even with a dehumidifier.

I need to go through my things and get organized.  I have the pictures of things I have purchased for organization and am hoping I can make the space work for me.  

Love all my art magazines.  When I need inspiration I pull a bunch out and disappear for a while.  

These are great for copy paper.  These will probably stay downstairs on the desk by the printer.

I am obsessed with ribbon.  I think I have 8 of these and still will need some other options for ribbon storage.

My other obsession is paper.  Have used these plastic containers in the past for decorative papers.  Am thinking I may use these for in process work?

Have this and love it!  Just needs some clean-up.

More storage boxes.  Seems there is never enough.

Have used these slide out shelves to store small artwork on.  Will probably keep them for that.

Boxes that fit inside of each other.  Not sure yet what will end up in these.  Maybe yarn?

I have the long weekend so hopefully I can post pics of my newly organized space on Monday.

Winter Wonderland

Well, we don't have any snow outside but in art we have plenty!  The first week I taught 3rd graders how to draw evergreen trees. We created distance by making our trees smaller in the background.   We used crayons for color.  This week we used white tempera paint to winterize our pictures.