Kindergarten Flowers in a Vase

Kindergarten

Flowers in a Vase

These observational drawings were created with watercolor pencils.  Water was added to blend the colors to make a watercolor effect.

Personal Mixed Media Art

Clay African Masks-- 3rd grade

 

For this project, we drew African masks and then constructed them from slabs of clay.  These were painted with acrylic paints and then sprayed with varnish. 

Stylish Blogger Award

Thanks to Laura from http://paintedpaperintheartroom.blogspot.com and Mrs. Hahn from http://minimatisse.blogspot.com  for the Stylish Blogger Award.  Both of these blogs I LOVE to read and both of these ladies are wonderful art teachers.  The recent ATC trade I did was with the mini matisses!  :) 

Stylish Blogger Award

Here are the request of the game.

1. Link back tot he person who awarded you.

2. List 7 things about yourself.

3. Pass the award along to 5 other blogs that you enjoy.

7 Things About Myself--  I have done similar memes before so I will try to think up new and exciting information about myself to share.  

I asked my husband and here are some of the things he said.
1.  I am a creative artist.
2.  I am a dedicated teacher.
3.  I am an excellent mother.
4.  I am an excellent sleeper.  I can fall asleep at the drop of a hat.

(wow, he flatters me so!)

5.  I am good at caring for needy dogs.  We got our dog from a rescue and he was so "broken".  He was scared of people and just depressed. The humane society wouldn't take him because they said he wasn't good with people.  He is very gentle, however, and very obedient.   I really think animals can have strong emotions.  He has become much much more affectionate, but he is still skiddish and scared of sudden movements.  He has come a long long way.



and here are a few more things about me...

6.  I started out learning knitting and now I am moving to crochet, because it is more free flowing and forgiving.  If you make a mistake you can take out a stitch right away instead of worrying about everything unraveling.  I'm trying to learn to read crochet patterns now.

7.  I am addicted to diet pepsi.  It's the caffeine!  I need it!  although I don't drink coffee, so at least I don't have that.


Here are five other blogs I enjoy.  Painted paper and Mini matisse, I of course love.  There are many other blogs I read and love.  They are all listed on the side of my blog. 

Art Journaling as a Creative Process
Art Project Girl  
Art Teachers Hate Glitter
 I like this blog although it's not in English.
The Sketchbook Challenge

So, those are five blogs you might enjoy checking out.  That's not to say the other ones I read aren't deserving of an award.  The other blogs I subscribe to are very inspiring as well, otherwise I wouldn't keep them on my list! 

Giant Weaving

 

We finished the giant weaving.  I had kids in all different classes work on it when they were done with their projects.  I like how it came out.  We are going to make a few more and then they are going to be hung in this large window well that is inside the school. 

Wisconsin Craziness

So unless you have been living under a rock lately (or not paying attention to ANY news) you probably have heard about what has been going on in Wisconsin.  Our governor is trying to pass a bill (and probably will) that will have state workers pay more into their retirement and benefits and cripple unions. 

This is baaaaaad for teachers.

Every day the capitol has looked like this with protestors:

My husband, who is a news reporter for Wisconsin Radio Network, has been working crazy amounts of hours at crazy times.  I really really admire single mothers after basically getting a small taste of it for the last 2 weeks.  Here is a picture that Andrew appeared in that was in the Wisconsin State Journal and Huffington Post online.

He is the one on the right side in the red sweater.  His head looks a bit elongated here because of the angle.

And here is a video I took at a protest this week.

What a crazy time we are living in and what a very exhausting couple of weeks. 

I teach in a private school and Andrew is not a public worker, so we are somewhat insulated from the direct effects of the bill, but of course we are ALL affected when education and public services are cut.

The Madison public schools were closed here for the past four days because approximately 40% of the teachers called in sick to go to the protests.

A cool thing is that supporters from all over the world phoned in orders for the local pizza place on State Street and they have been delivering tons of pizzas to the protesters at the capitol.  They pretty much stopped local business to take those orders. 

The other baby scrapbook I made-- blank pages, no pictures yet

Artist Trading Cards

My 5th/6th graders made these artist trading cards using the African Adinkra carved stamps they made.  Each kid made one or two cards and decorated them with markers.  We are sending them to a school in Minnesota, art teacher Nicole Hahn. 

These are the amazing artist trading cards we have already received!!  I love the shading and coloring on the snowmen prints.  The kids are going to be so excited.  :)  Thanks Nicole!!

One World Winner

The winner of the book is: 

SPIRITMAMA

 

Congrats!!!

Art puzzle

  

Here's a fun little way to get kids excited and looking at an artwork closely.  I printed out small copies of a picture I was introducing to them and then laminated these.  Next, I cut them into little pieces and placed them in envelopes.  Each kid (or pair of kids) got an envelope and had to try putting the picture together as neatly as possible.  If they finished, they put it back in the envelope and switched with another person  (all of the puzzles were cut slightly differently.) 

Collage Suggestion

One fun thing to try is to photocopy your artwork in black and white and then cut and paste pieces of it onto a collage.  Use paints on top to embellish it.

Stage 1:

Stage Two:

 

During the next stage, I am going to lay translucent paper on top and then print out a photo on painted paper as a final layer.  Hopefully that will tie everything together.

Valentines Prints

Here are some of the finished styrofoam Valentine's prints by the 1st graders.  One trick that made these work MUCH better is when I dug out the jar of ink-retarder.  The prints look so much better than the first ones we printed.

Work from my own little studio

 The background is painted with watercolor paints.  I cut out circles from magazines and from photocopies of my own artwork.  Then I glued them to the paper and doodled around them and on top of them with Prismacolor Markers and Paint Markers.  The background is map-like with the blue and green (water and land).  I was reading a book called "You are Here:  Personal Geographies and Other Maps of the Imagination"   which intrigued me. 

Carved Stamps-- 5th/6th grade

My 5th and 6th grade class carved stamps from E-Z Cut and then we printed them many times.  They looked at African Adinkra stamps and then used those designs for inspiration.  We printed them on artist trading cards, a design on paper and then on two large group artworks.  The ones pictured here are our large group artworks.  We are going to put this artwork in the school raffle fundraiser at the end of the year.  I'm also going to see about getting copies made for the school hallway or for greeting cards.  Fun!!