Vol. 5, No. 148, October 13, 2020

5148 - Creative Sprint Day 13.

Busy with work and play practice, creating something got away from me today. So as I was settling into bed, I searched my camera roll for a picture of unposted work. I found a picture of a bun that I created in an actresses hair last night. I was being the teacher as I showed her how to twist the hair around a stick, making it stay in your hair. 

Tonight I used my phone's editing program to turn that picture into a work of art. As I was creating I thought of my past teachers, some of the ones that jumped to the foreground were art teachers. They taught me things like repetition and balance. This completed work probably wouldn't look as cool without the knowledge that I've gained from my teachers.

Vol. 5, No. 133, August 28, 2020

5133 - Vacation Collaboration.

I was lucky enough to get an invite for a weekend away with CC and CAT. On the way up to Grandma's, CC let CAT and me use her iPad to draw. I suggested an elephant. CAT sketched it out and did the initial coloring. Then I went in and did the final shading.

Vol. 5, No. 120, June 30, 2020

5120 - Sharing Sea.

Over the weekend, CC got a new iPad with an ipencil, she was showing it off today and let me play with Procreate. It is a fun art app, but a lot different than using actual art materials. However, I did have fun creating. After almost 2 hours of playing I had created this little seascape.

Vol. 5, No. 083, April 26, 2020

5083 - Cheater.

The next project for my middle school art students is to take a virtual field trip to an art museum. While there, they need to choose am artwork they would like to reproduce. Then they have to make a poster showing the original and reproduction side by side.

I decided to be a good teacher and make an example. I chose "Pies, Pies, Pies" by Wayne Thiebaud. This may look familiar, because I used a picture I had taken and shared back in September. Fortunately, my students won't know.

Vol. 5, No. 064, March 20, 2020

5064 - Monster Sports.

I decided on a graphic design challenge today. I manipulated a photo of my wax house to make it look like a monster of sorts. Then I added a soccer ball and stuck it all on a green background. Thus a monster playing a sport.

Vol. 5, No. 059, March 15, 2020

5059 - Flexible Learning.

In light of the  COVID-19 pandemic, my school has implemented Flexible Learning for at least the next two days. To prepare, I created a Google Slide for my 7th grade students to follow to create art at home. Their first project is to choose a prompt from the list provided. There are a wide variety of prompts to choose from including a llama surfing. Students then gather materials (whatever they can find) and start creating art. When they are finished they have to share their work and write and artist statement. To support my students I will be doing similar projects for the next 3 weeks. However, I am following a different set of prompts than I gave them. My prompts were provided by Julie Soul of soulsparklettes. I found her list on Instagram. You can follow these prompts too. Here is the link: https://l.instagram.com/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.soulsparklettes.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2020%2F03%2F3-Weeks-of-Daily-Drawing-Prompts-for-Kids.pdf&e=ATNyBKVNnPNgGhWhpdqXx0lFPhW7JgLB9eKeWp9NDffKAEsZR4KKuDFtU-Cc6wbVf2FEv_Ssz-XHEFpz&s=1

Vol. 5, No. 058, March 11, 2020

5058 - So Many Dinosaurs.

The Kindergarten dinosaur excavation had been going well. However, after the students were finished excavating, they didn't know what to do next. To make the process take a little longer, I created placemats that show each of the dinosaurs buried in the sand. Now when a student finds a dinosaur, they can look at the chart and identify the dinosaurs. It also helped a little with sand getting everywhere on the table.

To make the placemats, I first had to identify each dinosaur. Next I had to find pictures to go with each dinosaur.

Vol. 5, No. 028, February 2, 2020

5028 - Fortune.

At nearly 40 degrees, the weather was beautiful today. Plus the groundhog predicted an early spring, so my fortune reads "feel it in your heart, spring is coming." I put the words on top of one of my paintings for yesterday. This painting was made using string. If you look closely, the top of each flower looks slightly heart shaped and the “veins” within each flower makes it look like a real heart.

Vol. 5, No. 017, January 17, 2020

5017 - What Do You Stand For?

I chose Smile Always as my t-shirt slogan. The background is the scarf that I painted the other night. I put the design together using PicsArt.

Vol. 5, No. 016, January 16, 2020

5016 - Whatever The Weather.

With hardly a cloud in the sky, it appeared to be a beautiful day, however, it was so cold! Being cooped up inside, my 6th graders got creative and started lining up colored pencils. It looked really cool, so I decided to use it to make my frame. Not wanting to stand outside any longer than necessary, I took the picture from the warmth of my car. I used PicsArt to put the frame on the picture.

Vol. 5, No. 014, January 14, 2020

5014 - We Are Family.

Tonight I attended a scarf painting class with my cousin. I decided to use a picture of my drying scarf as the background for my family tree. If I wasn't feeling the drowsy effects of the wine that we drank while working, I would have made a larger family tree that included my cousin. However with heavy eye lids, I opted for only my immediate family. I used a leaf sticker in PicsArt to adorn my tree.

Vol. 5, No. 012, January 12, 2020

5012 - Positive Shelf-image.

I decided it would be fun to use a photograph of an actual bookshelf as my starting point. To make it more fun, I arranged a rainbow of books on the shelf. Using PicsArt, I blurted out the original titles to make room for my own. Every book is something that I want more of in my life this year.

Vol. 5, No. 002, January 2, 2020

5002 - Give It Away Now.

I created Sketchbooks for each of my 150 Kindergartener's. Today we began our Jungle Animal Drawing unit and the sketchbooks provide a space for each student to keep track of their animal sketches as they learn to draw each animal. Today's animals were a cat (they could make it look like a leopard and/or a tiger) and a lion. I had several students who were gone today; to keep them caught up, I drew their sketches for them. I returned their sketchbooks to their class folder, where they will be "found" next week.

Vol. 4, No. 316, November 12, 2019

4316 - Improvements.

For the last year and a half, I have been teaching my Van Gogh flower lesson using a how to draw flowers worksheet that was made for a Georgia O’Keeffe flower project, where the flower petals go off the edge of the page. I decide it was time to update my worksheet, so I set to work designing the worksheet. With the help of my elementary school light table, I drew the flowers in each box. I can’t wait to make my packets for next quarter with the new worksheet.

Vol. 4, No. 308, November 4, 2019

4308 - Seated.

I spent the morning in meetings with a splitting headache. After lunch the drugs finally kicked in and I could focus on my work. My biggest task of the afternoon was seating charts for my new classes at the middle school. I decided to try something new. I laminated the blank seating charts then printed the students separately so that I could tape them to the chart making them moveable if the initial chart doesn't work out.

Vol. 4, No. 293, October 20, 2019

4293 - It’s Your Story.

I wasn’t excited about today’s prompt, so I put it off. Ultimately, I chose a picture I had taken during my Miller Time hike yesterday. The peaceful nature picture seemed like the perfect background for a stressful title: Putting Off Till Tomorrow What I Should Have Done Last Week. Working on a lesson plan for an observation that I have this week inspired the title.

Vol. 4, No. 287, October 14, 2019

4287 - It's A Funny Thing.

I had an extremely long, busy day and I didn't have any down time to even think about my project. So tonight I decided to take the easy way out, prolonging going to bed a little bit longer, by making a Venn Diagram circle. I made a Venn Diagram on the computer, then rotated it to create the cool circle shape. It reminded me of doing Spirograph's, only not as fun. I realize this isn't humorous in anyway, but exhaustion has won and the humor is all gone for the day.

Vol. 4, No. 245, September 2, 2019

4245 - Dotty.

Nothing like waiting until the last minute, but I am a world class procrastinator. This afternoon, after taking all weekend off to enjoy the final days of summer vacation, I scrambled to complete my lesson plans for tomorrow. One such page of lesson planning was a worksheet for my 7th graders to use to design a circle that will be displayed as part of a class mural in the hallway. It would probably have gone faster to print the worksheet with just empty boxes and draw in the patterns myself, but why take the fast way when you can make digital patterns?

Vol. 4, No. 141, May 19, 2019

4141 - Ready Or Not.

With only 6 days until Jessica’s wedding, our house has been bustling with activity.  During our “bachelorette” weekend, my sisters, mom and I started on the wedding party favors. We packed the gift boxes assembly style and due to limited time, I volunteered to tie the ribbons around the boxes. After tying the ribbons, I had to make the name tags for each box, as they will be used to tell the guests their table number for the reception. I designed, printed, cut, and hole punched all 200 tags. I haven’t actually attached all of the tags yet, because the boxes have different color ribbons and we want them to look orderly on the table. Therefore we will attach the tags after the boxes are laid out. I decided to use my own tag for the picture.

Want to know what's in the box? Well you'll have to be a wedding guest (or ask a wedding guest) to find out!

Vol. 4, No. 137, May 15, 2019

4137 - Missing.

As soon as I walked into my classroom this morning, I noticed something was a miss, there was a table out of place. I looked around the room, only to realize that the table was nowhere in sight. Thinking maybe the custodian had taken it to fix something on it, I just went about my work. I had two hours until students would show up, so I decided to wait it out. By 11, I was starting to panic. With classes of 23 students and tables that seat a maximum of 4 students, I couldn’t have class with only 5 tables. Between classes, I asked the other art teacher if she knew anything about my missing table. She didn’t, but suggested that I send out an all school email with the request that the table be returned before my class at Noon. So that’s what I did. However, being creative, I couldn’t just send a boring email, I had to make a Missing Poster as well. With the help of the Canva app, I whipped out a quick poster and got it distributed. Within 5 minutes, the custodian came down the hall pushing my table. I decided not to ask any questions, and just thanked him to the table’s prompt return.