I just discovered two new blogs-- 2 posts from them

Paint Chips!  What a cool way to use PAINT CHIPS!  I might just use this next year when my kindergartners design castles.


Face Jugs!  I did a lesson very similar to this when I was student teaching.. we called them Face Vases.  I should try this lesson again. 

Stats

Does anyone else look at their stats and become confused by them?  One of my pages, the Clay Viking Ship lesson was viewed about 800 more times than any of the other lesson plan pages.  I didn't realize clay viking ships were so popular!  :)   Of course, the blog directory was a big hit, receiving the most page views. 

Superheroes on Canvas

In my summer art class, we painted superhero canvases.  The kids decided what superhero they would like to be and drew these on dry wax paper with markers and colored pencils.  Then I used gel medium (on the backs of the paper) to adhere their images to the canvas board.  Then, they used paints to paint a background.  I love them!!  There is a link to the dry wax paper at the bottom of this post.  The ages of my summer class was K-4th, mostly K and 1. 

The drawing has been glued to the canvas.

Starting to paint the background

Painting canvases

A superhero that can turn things into animals!

Bomb dude... ok, so this one is a bit violent.

Below is the wax paper we used.  As you can see it comes 2 boxes, 500 ct. each box, so this would last a LONG time.  I found out about this stuff by reading Art Projects for Kids.. she uses dry wax paper a lot.

Yay, Summer! Yay, Blogs!

I'm at 185 followers now!  So exciting.  Anyways, once I reach 200, I'm going to do a book giveaway.  This summer I need to have a garage sale and sort through all my books on my book shelf.  I, of course, have oodles of art books to get rid of, so I think I will offer a couple of them up here for a random follower!

Please also sign up for my ART TEACHER SHOWCASE.  Just send me info about your blog for these posts.  Don't be shy!  What YOU do is important and we can all learn something from each other.  The replies don't need to be long, and even just answering a couple questions will be fun for everyone.

"Summer months are slow in blogland for teachers.  Most art teachers are taking a break from teaching all day.  Some are doing art camps or personal travels, but I know that in the summer months, not as many teachers post ideas, since we're not teaching full time now.  However, summer free time is a perfect time to research ideas, look at art eye candy, experiment and have fun!  So, what I would like to do to help you out in this summer is to feature different blogs.  Maybe one per week (or more if more people respond).  This will be awesome in several ways.  First, you will be able to get a taste of everyone's favorite art projects and visit new and different blogs.  Second, YOUR BLOG could (and will, if you submit a response to me) be featured and more people will visit you and see all the wonderful things you are doing.  We all make new friends and get new ideas for next year!  Sounds great?  Well it will be!!  So I need your help.  If you want to be featured on my blog, then answer the following questions.  Please email them to me at marciadotcom@yahoo.com.  Don't comment on this post with your answers.  If you do email me your answers, you will give me permission to post a couple images from your blog to include in the blog post (with of course, a link to your blog).  If you only feel like answering a few questions, that is fine too.  I would also be happy to feature your own personal artwork.

1.  The name and URL of your blog
2.  A brief description of your blog and why it is awesome.  Tell us where you live and work, what you do, etc. 
3.  An example of a tried and true art lesson favorite that you have taught. (could be in a workshop setting, school setting, or just with your own children or yourself, no exclusions here!)  Give me a link to a post about that lesson, so I can include a link and photo.
4.  A favorite, must-have art teacher or art technique book.
5.  Your favorite product for the art room.

So, what are you waiting for? Email me today about your blog!!"  And because I can't have a picture-less post:

Art Camp Sketchbook

Art Teacher SHOWCASE!!

Summer months are slow in blogland for teachers.  Most art teachers are taking a break from teaching all day.  Some are doing art camps or personal travels, but I know that in the summer months, not as many teachers post ideas, since we're not teaching full time now.  However, summer free time is a perfect time to research ideas, look at art eye candy, experiment and have fun!  So, what I would like to do to help you out in this summer is to feature different blogs.  Maybe one per week (or more if more people respond).  This will be awesome in several ways.  First, you will be able to get a taste of everyone's favorite art projects and visit new and different blogs.  Second, YOUR BLOG could (and will, if you submit a response to me) be featured and more people will visit you and see all the wonderful things you are doing.  We all make new friends and get new ideas for next year!  Sounds great?  Well it will be!!  So I need your help.  If you want to be featured on my blog, then answer the following questions.  Please email them to me at marciadotcom@yahoo.com.  Don't comment on this post with your answers.  If you do email me your answers, you will give me permission to post a couple images from your blog to include in the blog post (with of course, a link to your blog).  If you only feel like answering a few questions, that is fine too.  I would also be happy to feature your own personal artwork.

1.  The name and URL of your blog
2.  A brief description of your blog and why it is awesome.  Tell us where you live and work, what you do, etc. 
3.  An example of a tried and true art lesson favorite that you have taught. (could be in a workshop setting, school setting, or just with your own children or yourself, no exclusions here!)  Give me a link to a post about that lesson, so I can include a link and photo.
4.  A favorite, must-have art teacher or art technique book.
5.  Your favorite product for the art room.

So, what are you waiting for? Email me today about your blog!!


_________________________________________________________________________________
Here is my example.
The name of my blog is Vivid Layers, because I tend to use bright colors in my artwork and I love the look of layers in art.  There are many layers of learning in education and art is an important layer in a child's foundation of knowledge. 

I teach at a school for academically gifted and talented students.  It is a private school in Madison, WI.  I love teaching at this school and the kids are wonderful.  I work with grades K-6, although the school goes up to 8th grade.  My students have art for 40 minutes, twice per week.

One of my favorite art lessons this year was the Pacific Northwest Coast paper mache masks.  with the 3rd and 4th grades.  They were so much fun and the kids LOVED it.  We got so many compliments on these masks.

A favorite art product for Crayola Color Switcher markers-- the kids love them and they look awesome!












A favorite art book of mine:  Beautiful Oops!

Art Camp 1st Day

I am teaching 2 days of art camp in the afternoons this week.  On Monday, one of the projects we made were sun tiles.  I picked up some glossy ceramic tiles from the hardware store.  They looked at a few pictures of Mexican clay suns and they sketched their sun idea on a piece of paper.  Then, using pencil and sharpie markers, they drew their sun on the tile.  On the back of the tile I superglued a picture hanger.  I also sprayed the pictures with a sealant, but I think you could probably leave the sealant off.  The ages of the kids were mostly Kindergarten and 1st grade, with a few older kids as well.  I love these!  A perfect summer project.

Sketching the sun

Ceramic Sun Tile

Picture of a Mexican clay sun

Picture hanger glued to back

Magazine Covers

 You may remember my last post about the magazine covers.  Here are some that the students created.  This was an end-of-the-year project and we didn't have as much time to devote to the project as I would have liked.  I think these turned out cute though! 

So it's summer!

So it's summer time!  I'll still try to post a bit here and there. What are my plans?

1.  I'm doing a mini art camp next Monday and Tuesday for 2 1/2 hours each day at school. I have 10 kids signed up!  I will post pics of some of our art work.  I have a TON of fun stuff planned.  It's going to be focused more on personal expression and creativity and the kids will have choices.  I think I'm going to have some stations set up for the kids to pick from.

2.  RELAX!  of course, I definitely need to relax!!

3.  PLAY with this precious girl.

4.  We are signed up for a toddler-parent art class on Friday mornings.  I'm also taking a watercolor painting class on Wednesday mornings.  I can't wait!!

5.  I'm going to make lots of my own art!

Third Grade Silhouettes

We looked at the silhouette portraits of the early Americans as well as the paper cuttings of Hans Christian Anderson.  The students drew with white colored pencil on their black paper, and then cut out their designs.  Then, they flipped these over and glued them onto white paper (thus hiding any remaining white pencil lines.)  This book below is a must-see for this project!  We also looked at a book by Dr. Suess which features awesome silhouettes!!  I happened to stumble across this book in a thrift store when I was looking for books for my baby.  The copy I have is a tiny book, so I enlarged the pictures on a color copier to show my students.