5 Fabulous Books for Art Teachers

As school is starting soon, I thought I would start a new series of blog posts about some of my favorite fabulous things.   I LOVE art books and have so many of them.  Our school library also has a great collection of books I can use.  Here is a list (in no particular order) of books that I refer to frequently when I need a boost of inspiration.  There are many more exciting books for art teachers, but here are a few of my favorites....

1.Keys to Drawing with Imagination: Strategies and Exercises for Gaining Confidence and Enhancing Your Creativity
    I love this book!  It has fabulous drawing exercises and the drawings are exquisite and exceptional.

2.   200 Projects to Strengthen Your Art Skills: For Aspiring Art Students (Aspire Series)  This book is chock-full of fun ideas.  If I have a student that is way ahead of the others in terms of project completion, I will often pull out this book (and the Keys to Drawing with Imagination) for them to pick out an activity for independent study.







3.  A Survival Kit for the Elementary/Middle School Art Teacher (J-B Ed: Survival Guides)
This is a book that I don't look at too much anymore, but when I first started teaching art I used it all the time.  It has many art projects you might start with to build your art curriculum and the book is organized very well.  I would recommend it to a new teacher.


4. Dynamic Art Projects for Children: Includes Step-by-step Instructions And Photographs. 
  This book has lovely, colorful pictures and the projects are innovative.  There are 17 projects in this book... so not as chock-full of content as the other ones listed above, but I found that while looking at the how-to photographs I was able to translate the ideas and techniques into other lessons.  It inspired me to think of things in new ways.

5.   Children And Painting  This book is full of beautiful, colorful examples of ways to teach children about painting.  There are guided activities to teach techniques and allow the students to express themselves in their own way.  I love it!

Book Giveaway!! and an update of sorts..

In honor of the new school year I am giving away two books to ONE lucky person!  To enter, leave a comment on this blog post. 

I LOVE Sark.  So inspirational, colorful and fun!  The first book is called "Juicy Pens, Thirsty Paper" which is about writing.  I picked this up from a library sale, so it is a discarded library book with a little bit of water damage.  I personally don't care if a book has a bit of damage, as long as you can still read it!    Then, there is "The Bodacious Book of Succulence."  This book is in excellent condition.. I think I picked it up at a garage sale or paperbackswap.com.  I want to share the love with you.  All you have to do to enter the giveaway is to leave your name in a comment and I will pick a winner out of a hat next week. 

And.. I am LOVING this blog post about how to organize all of your lesson plans from Pinterest..  Print out the little squares, cut out, sort and organize.  

Next week Thursday we have our first day of teacher inservice and the kids come the following Monday.  Are you ready for school yet?

I've been trying to jam pack as much as I can into the last month of summer break.  This week we went to a farm and here's Daria feeding the goats with a bottle of milk.

I LOVE those eyes!

And, last night I bought an electric piano!  I used to take piano lessons for about 8 years when I was a kid and I've been wanting a piano for about 5 years now.  We got it off of Craigslist.  Love Craigslist.

Fabric Collages

I never posted about these fabric collages that we finished at the end of the year last year.   The third and fourth graders made these.

We worked together to paint fabrics!

We painted with acrylic paints on muslin fabric. We sprayed the fabric with water to allow the paint to spread more easily.

We made graffiti fabrics!

We had lots of painted fabrics at the end.

We even painted over ugly patterned fabrics.

Then, we chose our pieces and cut them up!

Some of the students chose to make a fabric collage with a friend.

We cut pieces, glued them and added stitching!

Lots of colors and designs.

Ribbons were a nice embellishment.

We learned and practiced our stitching skills.

You can still see some of our doodled designs in the cut up pieces.

This project was challenging and we explored many new skills.

What would it be like to be a teacher?

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a teacher?

My mom gave me this old gem written by Yours Truly when I was in 3rd grade.  (My 3rd grade teacher had the initials ABC which everyone thought was really cool.)

Lessons learned:

1. It is very important to let your students write in pen.
2. Make sure you have "neat" ways of doing things.
3. Your students should use Trapper Keepers.
4. Let your students go to the bathroom in the morning.
5. Let your students take their shoes off one day during the week.
6. Make sure to have fun art projects.
7. It would be fun to be a teacher.

Thank You!

Thank you for following my blog.  I checked today and saw that I now have 500 followers.. holy cow!  I hope you are having a fantastic summer.  School starts in 2 weeks, so I will have lots of new art projects to show you.   And here is a reminder for you:

Paper Pulp Pictures

At the end of the school year, we made more PAPER PULP PICTURES.  This is such a fun project.  I wrote all the step-by-step details on my blog last year.  You can see the tutorial HERE.

this girl made a 3-d paper pulp sculpture of a cat!

Tissue Paper Fun

Our last summer art workshop was a fun one!  We decoupaged tissue paper on to glass vases.  The cylindrical ones could be candle holders.  We tore and cut tissue paper and adhered them to the glasses with Matte Medium.  I hate the smell of mod-podge, so I rarely use it.  I get headaches from it, does anyone else?  I figure if I get headaches from it, it probably is not good for the kids to inhale.  This Blick Matte Medium was fine to work with and I did not think it smelled too badly.  You could also use the gloss medium for a shine (I don't know what that smells like.)  The matte medium dried clear and the pieces stuck on.  I would not immerse the vases in water.

For this project, we used contact paper and tissue paper to make a faux stained glass hanging.  Lay the contact paper sticky side up and place your shapes on it.  Then, put another piece of contact paper sticky side down and sandwich the tissue paper in between. 

We used glitter in ours.  However, using too much glitter made it hard for the contact paper to stick together!  There are many fun tissue paper projects online ...  like this one and this one!

Etsy Shop Sale: 35% off!

I'm trying to clear out some of my inventory in my Etsy Shop for the end of this cycle of goods.  Would you be interested in some vintage ephemera?

Or maybe a collage pack?

Or maybe you would be interested in some of my ACEOs?

To receive 35% off your order, type in coupon code:  JulySpecial at the checkout!  There won't be another sale like this until Black Friday.