The State ARt Show

I went to the State Capitol today to see the Youth Art Month Art Show put on by the WAEA (Wisconsin Art Ed. Association).  The show includes artworks from K-12 students from all over the state.  Our school has two artworks in the show.  One from the middle school teacher and one from one of my students.  I'm so glad hers got chosen for the show because 1) it is a wonderful painting in my opinion!  and 2) she was very excited to be chosen (which she should be.)  The reception is this Friday afternoon.  If you live in Wisconsin, the show will be up through this coming Friday.  Here are some pics for you.

 Here is my student's lovely landscape.  She is in 3rd grade.   I wrote about this lesson here.  This photo doesn't do the colors justice.  I think it is even more beautiful in person.

Capitol pics! 

Wisconsin Capitol One Year AGO..   Last year, the art show was postponed a few weeks because of the protests over the politics in Wisconsin.  The picture above is my husband at the capitol in the days where protestors slept overnight and he worked crazy long weeks covering the news.

I always take my camera with to get lots of good pictures of all the great artwork at the art show.  It is a fabulous place to get new ideas and be inspired for lesson plans.  Here are some of my favorites from the show this year.

Poll

Any other ideas.. let me know!

Paper Weavings-- Kindergarten

The kindergartners made these lively paper weavings with colored paper strips and paper strips cut from scrapbook and wrapping paper.  Then, I stapled them to a white piece of paper and the students stamped a border with gadgets, caps and random objects. 

After the weavings, the students played with the gadgets and made a design with paints.

Chuck Close

Chuck Close fans... have you seen this story on 60 minutes this week?  It's about people who have face recognition problems.  Fascinating! 

Mazes

When I was gone on my trip to New York for the conference, one of the sub plans I left was to draw a maze.  The instructions were to draw a maze lightly with pencil, then color it as they wished.  They could choose to include a theme for their maze, or just make it artistic and creative.  

I am amazed at these mazes!  They are so beautiful and fun to look at.  

I think I'm going to start drawing some of my own mazes for fun now.

Some kids in this class LOVE Pac Man.

This tiny black and white maze was very interesting.

I think many of the kids enjoyed this project because it was sort of like designing their own video game!

Perspective Drawings-- third grade/fourth grade

Books I'm Loving Now

I love to read.  Of course I do, I'm a teacher.
Here are some of the books I'm loving now!

I can't say enough good things about Lynda Barry's collages and drawings.  They are just so fun and chock- full of inspiration.  She came to Madison recently to do some artist-in-residency programming and I am kicking myself now that I did not get tickets to her lecture.  Apparently, she brought Matt Groening with her to speak!!!  He is the creator of the Simpsons.




When Wanderers Cease to Roam is a delightful book full of lovely, airy watercolor sketches and drawings.


Street Sketchbook Journeys is fantastic if you are into edgy, urban, graffiti art.  I could see photocopying some of the pages for use with older kids at school.  I wouldn't leave the book out for full perusal, but bits and pieces would be inspiring.




Next up, is The Pulse by Seth Apter.  Seth is a really great guy who has participated in many mixed media collaborative projects and has a very active blog.  Seth is also a psychiatrist, which is a fascinating combination of careers.  I think art and psychology go hand-in-hand.  One of his projects is going to be in the Featuring Magazine which I am working on.

Seth had a call for artists and had a list of questions to answer and prompts to create artwork for.  There is a wide array of answers to the questions in the book.  One of my quotes is in the book and my blog is listed in the back, which is pretty cool.  I'm not going to lie, I'm bummed my artwork wasn't selected, but I suppose there was only so much room in the book...  keep trying, right?  Anyways, the book turned out lovely and it was fun to see everyone's responses to the questions. 


And finally, another book I am loving now is Jesus for President.  There are photographs and art scattered throughout the book which makes for a meaningful and interesting read.  If you are a Christian (or want to learn more about who Jesus was) and interested in how politics fits in with his teachings, this is a very interesting book.  How do we live in the modern times when war is ever-present?  What about social justice issues?  The first half of the book is about the history of Jesus and the church and the second half of the book leads into the present day.  I'm not through with it yet, but I'm reading it slowly, savoring and trying to understand each chapter.

A Visit to EPIC-- Part 2

Earlier this week, I toured a medical software company with some 7th graders at our school.  The hallways are decorated very artistically and contain many works of sculpture and paintings.   For part one of my visit to EPIC, go here!

I LOVED this one!

A unique sculpture made of computer parts.  Kind of reminds me of Louise Nevelson.

Fabric art on the wall

This was a celestial hallway.  Yes, this is in the office building!

Also in the hallway... a heaven/hell junction.

This was my favorite hallway.  It was very light and airy feeling.

Wouldn't you love to have chairs like this in a conference room?

pretty flowers.. totally my style

The head of this is made out of a scrubby brush thing.

Can you believe this office building also has a slide!?