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.  

Yearbook Photography

I have taken on the middle school yearbook this year.  I really didn't know what I was getting myself into.  Time is ticking away and I need 50 pages complete by the end of this month.  It's hard being the only adult taking care of this.  I have a great group of kids but never any time to meet with them, a disadvantage of teaching at both elementary and middle school.  

The one thing I am enjoying is taking pictures with our school camera.  Now I want a new camera after seeing how clear these photos are.  The cello shots were taken at our Christmas concert and the basketball shot was our girl's  first game at home last week.

 Love the reflection of the floor on this shot!

Transformation, 8th Grade

This was a new project this year.  It went well and students worked hard and seemed to enjoy the process.  They were to take images from a magazine and transform them.

Student could choose 3-6 images from a magazine and cut these images into 2x2 squares.  They created a 2x2 grid on their paper and glued the pictures to the squares wherever they wanted to.  From there they could re-draw the image and square by square transform the image.  They could use color, shape, line and texture to accomplish this.  Some took two of the images and melded them together.

They could choose to use pencil, markers, colored pencils or crayons.

A Few of My Favorite Things, Kitchen Edition

Chicken Marsala

So, ONE of my favorite things is this meal.  I was going to put the recipe on here and realized that every time I make this it is from my head.  I guess I need to take the time to write it down before it changes into something else.  I'm one of those cooks who just throws things together so writing a recipe will be difficult.  I digress.  A few more of my favorite things.

TWO

Eden Wild Rice.  Cooks up so well.  I mix it with brown rice and use half water and half chicken broth. 

THREE

My Wusthof knife from Williams Sonoma.  Love it!!  Yes, it was expensive but definitely worth it.  I bought mine last year with some gift cards I had gotten.  

FOUR

My sis-in-law's garlic.  She grows and sells organic garlic and it is the best I've ever had. Has twice the flavor of any grocery store.

FIVE

My Cuisinart pots and pans.  My favorite of the set is the deep dish fry pan.  Love that these can go into the oven.  

So, there is a partial list of my favorite things from the kitchen.  I'm sure I can come up with more.  Will save that for another post.

Kindergarten Cardinals

I just love Kindergarten!  It's taken me a long time to say that.  When I first started at the elementary school I had such a hard time coming up with lesson plans for these 5 and 6 year olds.  Now I set up stations to keep them moving and busy.  They have a short attention span and are still developing their fine motor skills.  For these cardinals I demonstrated a step by step drawing and also gave them a step by step handout at the drawing station.  They outlined everything with crayon to create a resist for the watercolors at another station.  I set up two other stations, one with a coloring page and the other with puzzles.   Every bird is unique just like my students. 

Happy New Year!

"Creativity is inventing, experimenting, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes and having fun." - Mary Lou Cook
So here we are.  Another new year is upon us and I can't help but think of making some changes and having a better life experience.  I know we all do the new year's resolutions but I think we all need a reason to start something new.  There are things we cannot change like our age and whether our job is secure but there are so many things we can. 
Here is my list of things so far to accomplish in 2012:

 1. Follow the quote at the top of this post and be creative everyday.  
  

 2. Produce a yearbook that is well put together, makes       a profit and the students like. (It's my first year doing this)

 3. Organize my home. (add more color to my wardrobe, too.)

 4. Follow a gluten-free diet and try new foods/recipes.

5. Exercise!!!!

 
 6. Get into the Bible daily.


So, what's on your list this year?