Quick Tip: Making Time for Art

How do you make time for your own art?  

Do you spend time making your own art?

Quick Tip:  Keep an art journal where you can try out techniques for your teaching. 

I had been trying out all sorts of techniques for Gelli plate printing and I made lots of samples for my 5th/6th grade class.  When I had all of the papers painted, I took some pieces home and arranged them into a collage for my art journal. 

Art Teacher Blog Directory

Are you looking for more ART IDEAS?

Did you know there is an Art Teacher Blog Directory on Art is Basic?  There are currently 263 art teacher blogs listed.  You can spend hours just looking through these links and seeing all the wonderful things happening in art classrooms around the world.

Have you added YOUR blog to the directory?  I know there are some new bloggers out there who have just started writing about their classrooms this year. 

And because I can't write a blog post without a picture, here is a postcard I made awhile back.  I love how this one turned out.   I made a bunch of postcards for an art swap earlier this year.  It's pretty typical of my style.. bursting at the seams, an abundance of colors and imagery, a bit messy with some child-like imagery.  We decorated our daughter's bedroom with a yellow duck theme, so ducks seem to show up in my art from time to time.

NAEA Session Handouts

Are you bummed because you didn't get to go to the NAEA Conference this year?   Did you go to the conference and miss a session you wanted to see because you were busy scoring free samples?   Have you never heard of the NAEA conference and want to know what kinds of things go on there?  

The session handouts are up on the NAEA website.  So, if a presenter uploaded their session powerpoints or handouts they are there.  It's a great way to get new ideas and see what you missed!

You should be able to see them without logging in.

Have a great Spring Break (to those of you who are on Spring Break now)  and don't forget to spend some quality "you-time" making art of your own!

Recent artwork by Me!  (Cabinet of Curiosities #3, February 2012, Marcia Beckett)

Blog Directory

Do you know that there are over 200 art education blogs on my art teacher directory?  Have you added your blog? 

Have you made art today?

Have you found a way to spark your creativity?

Be Inspired!

Art teachers:  Do you take time out of your busy week to make your own artwork?  Do you make it a priority?  Even though I'm not creating gigantic masterpieces, I really try to squeeze in some of my own art journaling and playtime.  It keeps me inspired to teach art.  It keeps me happy.  It relieves stress. 

So pick up your paints and markers and make something that is not just a classroom example.  Make something that is just for YOU! 

It's all good...

It's all good...

Even though my car got totaled this week....

Yes, that's totaled.  Even though it doesn't look like that much damage, apparently the cost to fix it is more than the car is worth.  The other person did not have insurance.. or even registration for the car... or matching license plates...

Monday I stayed home from school because our daycare provider called in sick.

While I was at home with my daughter on Monday, 5 firetrucks zoomed down the street and a house a few doors down and across the street apparently had a small explosion in their basement and started the house on fire.  I couldn't even tell what house they were going to, but when they busted open the front door, smoke came pouring out like crazy.  Apparently that was $50,000 in damage to the house.  So, when I feel sorry for myself about my car and my problems, I need to remember that things could be worse.

It's been a crazy week, but that's ok. Things will work out right?

Think.

I realized I hadn't shown some of my personal artwork in awhile. 

I make art-like things.  A lot.

Here is a reminder for you.  It's very important to do this:

Also,  I want to say this to you,  for reading my blog:

Sunflowers are my favorite flower of them all.  How about you?

I really really love doodling.  with watercolors.  doodling with paint is just the best. 

 

Is your heart full of:  ?

If not, you need to go paint more!  draw!  doodle!  play with colors!!

This was a public service announcement sponsored by Art is Basic, Inc 

in cooperation with Dabblings and Co.

Paintings from my watercolor class

I've been taking a watercolor class this summer, which has been very useful in learning new techniques and basically how to approach painting.  Here are a few paintings that I made this summer:

I think it will be useful especially when I teach the lesson about American Landscapes.

Personal Artwork

I've been busy making lots of personal artwork... Here are some journal pages and greeting cards:

If you want to see more of my artwork, check out my other blog.

Girls Night Out

The other weekend, I went out for a Girls' Night Out at our local paint your own pottery place.  They also do glass fusing, which I excitedly tried for the first time.  It was a blast!  We were able to bring our own wine and snacks and we all decided we were going to go back for another night out.  This is something we could actually do at my school with our kiln.  I just have to figure out temperature controls and buy some glass cutting tools.  There is a way to pre-cut the glass and melt it into little pieces, so when the kids use it the edges are rounded.  Have any of you art teachers done this before?  Do you have any tips for this type of project?   What we did at this store was assemble our designs with little pieces of glass, using tweezers and glue.  After it was glued together, they fired it and we picked it up a week later.  Here are mine!

The duck on the left I made because Daria's room is decorated in ducks.  This pendant I'm keeping for myself.  The other two pendants I'm going to give for gifts for Mother's Day.

How many blogs do you follow?

Did you know google reader has a maximum number of blogs you can follow? Did you know the maximum is 300 blogs?  I reached 300 blogs that I'm following and had to cut some out.  So, anyone who doesn't post frequently unfortunately I had to stop following.  Google reader makes it so easy to follow blogs and get them in a nice straightforward feed.  How many blogs do you follow?

It is Spring Break now!  My baby Daria is sitting here coloring with crayons and eating pretzels.  She's trying to color with the pretzels too. 

And because an art teacher can't post a blogpost without a picture, here is a picture of one of my art journal pages.

What I did for this page, was take a colored photocopy of one of my previous watercolor paintings, then sketch a giraffe on the page.  Next, I took black acrylic paint and painted around the giraffe.  Then, using paint pens and oil pastels crayons, I doodled on top.  The white splotches are gesso painted areas.  Before it dried, I took a pencil and drew into the wet gesso to make patterns.

And here is a book that I recently purchased.
 
I really dig Sarah's artwork.

New Art Blog

So I decided to separate out my personal artwork from my elementary art teaching pictures.

If you are interested in checking out my brand new art blog, here it is:

Personal Mixed Media Art

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

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.

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.