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!?

A visit to EPIC-- Part One

This week, I went on a field trip with some 7th graders at our school.  We toured the EPIC company which makes medical software for hospitals and clinics.  The company has three different locations in the Madison, WI area.  The campus we visited had about 13 different buildings.  Each building has a decorative theme.  There was TONS of artwork from local artists around the buildings.  It was amazing!  There was so much to take pictures of, that I only took pictures of my favorites.   I will tell you about the tour in two blog posts.

Here's me next to a Dr. Suess style sculpture.

This was a sculpture attached to a picture frame.  The guy is super realistic looking and it kind of creeped me out when I looked at it up close.

Here's part of the outside courtyard.  The 13 buildings are connected by indoor walkways.

Look at the paintings on the wall.. this was a New York themed area.

more NY themed decor

the campus

Look at this set-up in the hallway!

Greek Vase Chalk Drawings-- 4th/5th Grade

The fourth/fifth graders have been working on some lovely Greek vase chalk drawings.  We learned about overlap, proportion and shadows, as well as how to use and blend chalk pastels.  This class studies Greek history in their social studies class.  The students also had the chance to make little pots out of clay or sculpey.  Sculpey does not work so well for coiled pots.  Have you found that?

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?

Architecture Collages-- Kindergarten

This was a project the kindergarteners did last week.  They first glued down popsicle sticks onto tagboard.  Then they added paint to color!  I let them use markers in places if they wanted. 

We read this book:

3rd/4th grade Clay Projects

My 3rd/4th grade class made clay pots.  We looked at the Mimbres pottery of the Southwest Native Americans, but I did not require them to use any of the imagery in their pottery.  They could choose to add glaze designs however they wished.   These are all coil built pots and glazed with Amaco Stroke and Coat glaze.

My trip to the NAEA conference!

Here is a slideshow about my trip to the NAEA conference in New York!

NAEA No Video



I also submitted a student artwork to the Artsonia Big Screen Plaza exhibit, which is shown in the video below.

Inside-Out Designs-- First Grade

This is a favorite project of mine, because I love how the designs look!
I have written about this project before and you can see the tutorial HERE.