Vol. 3, No. 71, March 12, 2018

3071 - Salty Bubbles.

Today at Art Club, I had the students draw with glue and cover it with salt. Next time we will paint it with watercolors. For my example, I drew a cow and surrounded it with a bubble background.

Vol. 3, No. 70, March 11, 2018

3070 - Twisted Toast.

Today I kept it simple and photographed my breakfast of French Toast before eating it.

Vol. 3, No. 69, March 10, 2018

3069 - Set Distortion.

Today we celebrate yet another Set Work Saturday. Okay, yeah, you’re right, it wasn’t so much a celebration as a mandatory good time. Either way, it happened and we were starting painting, so I had to be there. I planned ahead and brought some vases with me and before washing brushes, I quickly took my picture for the day. I think it may be one of my favorites so far.

Vol. 3, No. 68, March 9, 2018

3068 - Propped Props.

This afternoon, I was hanging out in the LCT Prop Room, collecting props for the Youth Theatre show, Dear Edwina Jr. As I worked, I came across some clear vases and decided that I could just do my project here instead of waiting until I got home at 9. After filling the vases, I searched for a fun prop to distort, and found a typewriter.

It took some maneuvering and propping to get good reflections, but I am excited about the finished product. I am pretty sure I forgot to put the typewriter away when I was finished.

Vol. 3, No. 67, March 8, 2018

3067 - Orange Ya Glad.

I replenished my orange stash when I bought Oreos, so when I finally got home at 9 PM and saw them sitting on the counter I decided that they would be my subject for the day. I placed the oranges in a blue ceramic bowl that I had made on the wheel last year. I used the flash for this picture which happened to distort the image even more.

Vol. 3, No. 66, March 7, 2018

3066 - Icy Distortion.

Today is National Cereal Day and I planned on photographing a bowl of my favorite cereal. However, as I was walking in the door after school, I noticed the wall of icicles above my head. Melting in the bright sun, the icicles were to beautiful not to photograph. Thanks to the burst function on my phone I was able to capture a picture of a water droplet as it was about to fall from the icicle. If you look closely you can see a distorted view of my garage.

Vol. 3, No. 65, March 6, 2018

3065 - Dissected Oreos.

Today we celebrate National Oreo Cookie Day. I made a special trip to the store to buy a package of Oreos and then used them in my distorted photography project.

Vol. 3, No. 64, March 5, 2018

3064 - Discord.

Today I continued my distorted photography project, choosing a ukulele as my subject.

Vol. 3, No. 63, March 4, 2018

3063 - Distorted.

While perusing Pinterest a while ago, I saw a pin where they photographed objects through vases of water. I immediately loved the idea. Conviently my sister had a collection of clear cylinder vases from her wedding. Since she was coming home this weekend, I asked her to bring me some vases. So this week, who knows maybe I’ll extend it, my theme will be distortion photography.

I wanted to photograph oranges today as on this day in 1792, oranges were first introduced to Hawaii. However, when I went to grab my oranges, I found the bag to be empty. So I searched for something else, finding my flowered clutch from my sister’s wedding.

As the days go on, I will have to play with vase arrangements and lighting, but this is a good start.

Vol. 3, No. 62, March 3, 2018

3062 - Diaper Duty.

Today I attended a baby shower for my cousin and we decorated diapers that can be used to make late night diaper changes more fun. Yeah I don’t understand the concept, but I decorated one anyways. The fact that there were Neon Sharpies made it more fun. I kept it simple and drew a little flower.

Vol. 3, No. 61, March 2, 2018

3061 - Clay Week.

I have always hated doing clay projects with my elementary students. Clay is sort of a touchy material to work with; if you don’t attach pieces correctly, they can fall off; too thick, it can explode; too dry, it can crack. All of these factors make it clay with kids a challenge. I was thankful that I was able to keep clay to one week this year. This made for a very busy, slightly stressful week, but I made it through. Today was the final clay day and I made sure to take a couple minutes to make a project for myself. My Grade 4 students were making coil candy dishes in an interesting shape. I decided to turn my candy dish into a doughnut. It’s definitely not the most creative dish that was made this week, but I was rushed for time; even more so than my students who only got about 25 minutes to actually build with clay.

With all 290 some projects labeled and drying, I left for the weekend. Leaving abruptly (to get to my next school) means that on Monday I have a clay-dust covered classroom to clean-up.

Vol. 3, No. 60, March 1, 2018

3060 - Remember.

Without a theme, I struggled to come up with a project and time to make it. In school I made a couple of talking rocks with my third graders, but in the rush of going from one school to the next, I forgot to take pictures of them. At the next school, I made flower drawings, but how many times can I use essentially the same project? So I got to play practice and was searching Pinterest for an easy project that didn’t require any special materials. With the help of CC, I decided on an origami elephant. I kept it simple choosing an easier model and using a discarded sheet of notebook paper.

Vol. 3, No. 59, February 28, 2018

3059 - Happy Heart.

I am so excited that I am finally at the end of my month of hearts. I have decided that using the same theme for an entire month is too much for me. So from now on, my themes are only going to last a week.

To celebrate the end of Heart Month, I decided the enjoy the 40 degree weather and head out side to play in the snow. I walked a path drawing a human heart. Turns out it’s hard to make large drawings on the ground super accurate. It was also unfortunate that there was a shadow across the heart, but I knew if I waited for it to move, I'd loose the light.

Vol. 3, No. 58, February 27, 2018

3058 - Almost Finished.

In line with Keeping It Simple, I created hearts from the flowers that I was drawing with my 3rd and 4th graders today. I drew 4 flowers with each class. The ninth picture is of some patterned circles that I drew at the beginning of the school year and I decided it was time to erase from my board. I drew the design, then traced a heart on top and erased everything outside of the heart.

Vol. 3, No. 57, February 26, 2018

3057 - Fan Fun.

Today art Art Club, I had my students trace a high contrast black and white picture with Sharpie on a coffee filter and then paint it with watercolors. It could have been a lesson on positive and negative space, but we really just did it for fun. As cool as these look, I think my students had more fun holding their completed art to the fan for drying than they did actually creating the art. To stick with my heart theme, I decided to draw an actual heart for my artwork today.

Vol. 3, No. 56, February 25, 2018

3056 - Experience.

Today I got to experience the Crayola Experience with the Miller Littles. This meant about 4 hours of drawing, painting, sculpting, and chasing kids around. It was tons of fun an I came home with tons of art. I couldn't decide on just one picture to post, so I created a collage. As I created art today, I made a point to include hearts in my artworks. I think that my favorite station was the Melted Crayon Painting. The collage shows a dancing bat, digitized fashion, molded and labeled crayons, photo coloring page, melted wax painting, fairy coloring, Melted Wax Spin Art, painted "foam" finger,  and a puzzle.

Vol. 3, No. 55, February 24, 2018

3055 - Battle Hearts.

I spent a couple hours this afternoon playing Battleship with my sister. She won every time. I took a break between games to create a heart with the pegs. The design didn't quite fit on the grid.

Vol. 3, No. 54, February 23, 2018

3054 - I Tried.

I still had painted paper scraps sitting in my recycle bin at school so I decided to try a new craft with them, woven heart baskets. I had seen the idea multiple time, but I have never made one, I guess technically, I still haven’t. After much time spent getting the paper the right proportion and shape, I began to weave. I took me a couple tries to figure out a good order to begin weaving. I finally got a hang on the technique and was on my second to last strip, when it ripped out. I figured I could still make it work. Then as I shifted the woven strips down to make room for the final strip, the whole bottom ripped out, thus destroying the basket. I am pretty sure that a large part of my problem was that with the paper being covered in a heavy layer of paint, it was too thick to bend in the necessary way to be woven.

So in the end, the project was destroyed and went back to the recycle bin. But hey, at least I tried!

Vol. 3, No. 53, February 22, 2018

3053 - Julia Did It.

As I completed 2 more classes worth of seahorse collages and saw my recycle bin overflowing with paper scraps, I decided to do my own recycling. I salvaged a pile of scraps to bring home. Then I used my heart paper punch to cut out a bunch of paper hearts. Then with the help of my friend Julia, we folded the hearts in half and glued them together to make little heart shaped flowers. I added a stem to each and popped them in a vase.

Vol. 3, No. 52, February 21, 2018

3052 - Horse Hearts.

This week I am working with my Kindergarten, first and second grades to assemble their painted paper collages. This is a follow along activity, which means that for every class, I am also making a picture. Today after school, I lined up yesterday’s completed projects (two classes worth) in the shape of a heart. It was fun to see all of them together; just imagine what it would look like with all 14 classes.

Vol. 3, No. 51, February 20, 2018

3051 - Pointed Patience.

I started this project a couple weeks ago. It is a project example for pointillism Valentines that my 4th graders were making. I used this one as my demonstration, completing a little with each class. Today was the last day of the project for the last class, so before I cleaned out the paint trays, I decided to finish my project.

Vol. 3, No. 50, February 19, 2018

3050 - Minted Hearts.

Today we celebrate National Chocolate Mint Day. I had a Peppermint Crunch Andes Chocolate Mint on my counter left from Christmas, so I pulled out a knife and started carving. I was able to make three small hearts from the one candy. Two hearts are shown top side up and one is flipped to show the red bottom.

Vol. 3, No. 49, February 18, 2018

3049 - A Nerd’s Heart.

For Valentine’s Day, I received a large box of tri-colored Nerds. Today I spent time separating the colors and then created 2 heart mosaics; this one was my favorite.

Vol. 3, No. 48, February 17, 2018

3048 - Sectional Sets.

Today was the first Set Work Saturday of the season. In the gym across the hall from the theater, the Section 6A Gymnastics Meet was taking place. While sitting in the theater pretending to help with sets, I grabbed a scrap of wood and a knife and carved a little momento for one of my favorite gymnasts. I enscripted the back with her name and events.

Vol. 3, No. 47, February 16, 2018

3047 - Heart of Cheese.

Today as I wondered Target, I walked past the Marconi and Cheese aisle. I decided that Mac and cheese sounded really good, so I bought a box for supper. As I served it up, I carefully shaped it into a heart. In case you were wondering, it was as delicious as it sounded in the store!

Vol. 3, No. 46, February 15, 2018

3046 - Aftermath.

What do you do when you get a stack of Valentines from you students? Make a collage of course! Unfortunately, Valentine messages tend to all be very similar. Which means that there isn't a wide variety of words to choose from. I was able to  make it work though, in a fortune cookie sort of way.

Vol. 3, No. 45, February 14, 2018

3045 - Ashen Heart.

Today we celebrate the rare occupancy of Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day falling on the same day. To celebrate, I burned some old palms that I had at home and then used the ashes and a Q-tip to make this heart design.

Vol. 3, No. 44, February 13, 2018

3044 - Heart of Man.

While it feels a little like cheating, I am using it because it fits my criteria: keep it simple. So here is my complementary color man made from hearts, that I made last week and forgot at school.

Vol. 3, No. 43, February 12, 2018

3043 - Beautiful Batik.

Today for art club, I taught the kids about batik, a wax-resist fabric dying process. We made our batik style pictures using crayons, paper and watercolors. I’d done the project before, but couldn’t remember if I liked it. After seeing today’s results I know that I didn’t and I won’t be doing this particular project again.

To continue my heart theme, I did my example as a butterfly with heart-shaped wings.

Vol. 3, No. 42, February 11, 2018

3042 - Playwright.

Today I had the honor of attending SPLaSH!, a short play showcase, featuring plays written Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota students including my baby sister. After the show, I used her bio page in the program to make an origami message heart. When the heart edges are pulled out, her bio is revealed in the middle. Unfortunately, I was on a time constraint, so I didn’s quite get it centered and her name is cut off.

Congratulations Margo! I can’t wait to see your next play!

Vol. 3, No. 41, February 10, 2018

3041 - Be My Valentine.

I went out for some Miller time today and when I arrived I was ushered to the car for a Walmart run to get Valentine Box supplies. I ended up spending about an hour helping Middle Miller create his Vending Machine Valentine Box for school. It was really hard to give up control of the puffy paint lettering to a 6 year-old.

While I was working with Middle Miller, Mom was helping Oldest Miller with her box. This left Littlest Miller feeling very left out, and desperately wanting her own box. She was going to be making a box at school, but I decided to give her a little fun today as well. After the vending machine was done, I folded an origami box for Littlest Miller and helped her decorated it, making sure to throw in at least one heart. Fortunately for my mental state, she couldn’t manipulate the puffy paint well enough on her own to do the lettering, so she let me do that part.

Vol. 3, No. 40, February 9, 2018

3040 - Rose Hearts.

Today after mixing my last complementary color combination of the year, I used my paints to make a rose inside of a heart cutout. It looks a lot more rose like from far away, but it’s still pretty close up. The funniest part of this project is that just like yesterday, I forgot to take a picture of it before I left school. Fortunately today I remembered before I left town, so I was able to go back.

Vol. 3, No. 39, February 8, 2018

3039 - Revised.

Today I painted a cute little heart man at school and then I forgot to take a picture and left it on the drying rack. I won’t be back to that school until Monday, so I had to come up with a new project for today.

Tonight was Litchfield’s last regular season home gymnastics meet, so while sitting there, I sketched 3 silhouetted gymnasts creating hearts with their bodies. They didn’t turn out great, but it turns out bodies and heart shapes don’t mix very well.

Vol. 3, No. 38, February 7, 2018

3038 - Born With It.

Today is the beginning of Congenital Heart Defect Awareness Week. My baby sister has a Congenital Heart Defect. Due to CHD and other health issues, most of which are all connected, she has endured more surgeries and doctors visits in her 20 years than many people do in their entire life. So for My sister and others touched by CHD, I am continuing to make hearts.

Today’s heart is another complementary color tree project demonstration from school. I had a tree with heart-shaped leaves, so rather than painting on extra paper, I decided to paint this tree today. I chose red and green as my complementary colors.

Vol. 3, No. 37, February 6, 2018

3037 - Negative.

As my heart journey continues so does my complementary color lesson. I planned ahead today and taped a heart on to my demo paper today. When I was finished with my classes, demonstrating how to mix complementary colors (today I choose blue and orange), I removed the heart leaving the negative space behind. I outlined the heart with Sharpie and called it a day.

Vol. 3, No. 36, February 5, 2018

3036 - Britto Beauty.

Today at art club, I introduced my students to the work of Romero Britto. We made our own sunrise heart pictures using watercolor wax resist designs.

Vol. 3, No. 35, February 4, 2018

1. 3035 - Superb Owl.

Tonight my family sat down to our traditional Super Bowl meal, Taco Bar. I “decorated” my taco with a heart design.

Vol. 3, No. 34, February 3, 2018

3034 - It’s Electric.

I kept it simple today. Well actually it was slightly challenging. Yesterday, unsure of what I was going to do for my project, I took a picture of a drawing I had made that will be used for a grade 4 pointillism project. Later I changed my mind and did a painting project. So today, I decided to go forward with the drawing. I used the contour drawing as a digital coloring book page. Turns out it is pretty challenging to color something on your phone.

Vol. 3, No. 33, February 2, 2018

3033 - Complementary Heart.

Some of my students in grades 3 and 4 were painting trees using complementary colors. I demonstrated how to mix the complementary colors to make more neutral colors. When I was finished, I realized that my demo paper resembled a heart. So I cut it out and took a picture.

Vol. 3, No. 32, February 1, 2018

3032 - Snow Cold.

February is American Heart Month, a time to bring attention to heart disease. My family has been hit with heart disease in multiple forms, so this month I am focusing on hearts.

Today, I took a break from laying in bed battling the flu, to go outside and quickly shovel my sidewalk so that it was ready for when I leave for ,work in the morning. I wasn't planning on making my art out there, but the light dusting of snow was too pretty not to draw in. So I grabbed a stick and quickly drew out a heart complete with some interior patterns.

Vol. 3, No. 31, January 31, 2018

3031 - Celebrate!

Unfortunately, I was fighting a fever all day today and didn't really feel like celebrating. So my project today was setting up a display of grade 3 quilling projects. In the state I was in, this was a huge accomplishment.

Vol. 3, No. 30, January 30, 2018

3030 - Your Turn.

As an art teacher, I create creative challenges for students everyday. One of today's challenges was given to Kindergarteners and First Graders. They were challenged to paint a piece of paper using cool colors. The biggest part of the challenge was to not rip the soaking wet paper. Most of the students were successful, completely painting their paper and not adding any rips.

The picture shows a pile of the painted papers waiting to be sorted back into folders. One of the papers was completed by myself, the others are student artworks.

Vol. 3, No. 29, January 29, 2018

3029 - Rewind.

I decided to redo day # 11, try something new. Last time I really struggled coming up with something new, today however, it sort of fell into my lap.

My local library was hosting a Jewelry Stamping class. As soon as it was advertised, I knew that I wanted to go, unfortunately, by time I remembered to sign-up, the class was full and I was put on a waiting list. As today dragged on without a call, I was beginning to worry that I wouldn’t get in. Then at 3:30 I was notified that someone couldn’t make the 6:30 class. I was excited, but I had to rush to get cleaned up after art club in order to make it.

Turns out I’m not a huge fan of Jewelry Stamping; mostly because I’m not great at spacing. However, I was glad that I got to try it, and now I have a new wine glass charm!

Vol. 3, No. 28, January 28, 2018

3028 - No Place Like Home.

I’ve done this one before...My hometown is Darwin, Minnesota, which is home to the World’s Largest Ball of Twine Made by One Man. I’ve actually designed official postcards for the Twine Ball Museum a couple of times. But it would be cheating to use one of those so I recreated one, pen on paper. As I was packing up our hotel room to head home, I came across a pad of paper and a pen from the hotel. Knowing I was going to spend a lot of time in the car today, and not wanting to do my project on the road, I decided to do a quick blind contour line drawing of the Twine Ball “Park”. This postcard isn’t going to be selling for millions, but it was a fun challenge.

Vol. 3, No. 27, January 27, 2018

3027 - Gifted.

My sister got married today, so there were many strangers around, but little in the way of art materials and time. At the reception, after I gave my toast, I used the paper my speech was on to make an origami ball. At the end of the night I gave it to the bartender as an apology for sort of flipping out on him when he carded me for a second time.