Vol. 4, No. 320, November 16, 2019

4320 - If You're Happy.

As I mentioned before, this week, my Kinders have been learning to draw facial expressions. To wrap up the unit, they drew and colored a self portrait. I decided to make an example so they could see how to color. The complexion is off slightly, but I like how the eyes turned out.

Vol. 4, No. 319, November 15, 2019

4319 - Experiment.

Today one of my 7th graders asked how slip was made. I told him I just ground up dried clay and mixed it with water. Then he asked what would happen if you just stuck the dried clay in water. I told him it basically works the same way, it just takes longer, unless you have thin pieces of dried clay. I had some clay available, so I decided to demonstrate. I love how the clay starts to look like a topographical map as it absorbs the water. It is way more fun to look at in person.

Vol. 4, No. 318, November 14, 2019

4318 - No Show.

Today was a creatively busy day. I did a clay flower demo,  drew and started to color a self-portrait, and made some Sharpie art as I was testing the Sharpies. Yet when I got home from work, I had nothing to show for my efforts. So you get a picture of the newly laid floor instead. Over the last week, my dad and I, with scattered assistance from the rest of the family, have been laying the new flooring in the family room. My job is to choose the tile order while Dad puts the tiles into place. Then I inspect the work to make sure that there are no gaps in the tile. The floor is not quite finished yet, but we are getting really close.

Vol. 4, No. 317, November 13, 2019

4317 - Floral Frenzie.

In case you haven't noticed, I like flowers. As my 6th graders were finishing up their Van Gogh flowers, I worked on my own flower, another rose. Looking at it now, I got a little carried away with the white and didn't have enough black worked in.

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. 315, November 11, 2019

4315 - Technology Woes.

Today I was getting ready to teach for the afternoon and saw that SMART Technologies needed some updates. I figured it would be okay to start updating now and if it needed a restart, I could do that between classes or at the end of the day. Well I was wrong! As I was starting my second class of Kindergarten, a notification popped up asking if I wanted to save my files. I clicked cancel, because I didn’t want to restart now and I figured that was stop it. Nope, not only did the file I was using close, the entire app disappeared from my computer. I was frustrated, fortunately my Kinders bared with me as I tried different things like restarting the computer. It didn’t work, so I went old school. Instead of drawing on the SMART Board, I would draw on the White Board. This was working, however, we were drawing emotions, which required redrawing the head over and over again. Then I got smart. I remembered that I had a Doc Cam, I could simply display the worksheet that the students had and make my own hard copy of the assignment. I used the Doc Cam again for the first grade lesson, texture fish. Students used the texture on the bottom of their shoe to make a fish. Normally I just draw the parts out on the SMART Board for students to see. Today, I made my own example in class.

Vol. 4, No. 314, November 10, 2019

4314 - Pancake Petals.

This morning I was assigned to make pancakes for breakfast. I decided to get creative and make a flower pancake. I used a spoon to draw the initial shape. After it cooked for a bit, I filled it in with more batter. Apparently I didn't let it hook for long enough, because the initial lines were hard to see. I sharpened the lines with strawberry jam and used chocolate chips for the center.

Vol. 4, No. 313, November 9, 2019

4313 - Twining.

I wasn't motivated to make art today, and even considered skipping today's project all together. Then Littlest Miller laid down on my lap while I was watching TV and gave me permission to do her hair. With her laying on my, my options were limited, and I just did a simple mini bun. She thought it was pretty cool and decided I should have one to match. She even made sure it was on the same side as hers. Then she asked to take a selfie together. The way we were sitting makes it look like both buns are hers.

Vol. 4, No. 312, November 8, 2019

4312 - Displayed.

Good teachers are always adapting and improving their lessons. This quarter, I decided to have students cut out all of their Van Gogh flowers. They will still put one on the wall for our collaborative collage, the other 3 will be mounted on a background paper. I put together this example using 2 flowers that I made and one flower that was given to me by a student. The student’s flower wasn’t blended very well, so I added a little bit more color.

Vol. 4, No. 311, November 7, 2019

4311 - In Progress.

I've been working on a color wheel creature as an example for my first graders. They painted a color wheel, and then used it as the body of a creature. The next step was to color. Sometimes when the students are coloring, I get time to color as well. This week, I was only able to get the creature colored. My plan is to finish coloring the background soon, maybe even tomorrow.

Vol. 4, No. 310, November 6, 2019

4310 - A Little Fishy.

One of my Kindergarten students was gone today, on the last day of our Mouse Paint Color Wheel project. Students mixed paint on day one and painted raindrop shapes. On day two, students cut out the shapes and glued them to form a color wheel, then they added pink circle ears. On the final day, students were drawing eyes, whiskers, tails, and noses. I finished the project for the absent student, because the way our curriculum is set up, there isn’t much time for make-up projects.

Vol. 4, No. 309, November 5, 2019

4309 - Happy Holidays.

Tonight as I was watching The Little Mermaid Live, I pondered what to do for my project and I remembered the cork from the bottle of wine we had with dinner, still in the corkscrew. I used a paring knife to carve the cork into a heart shaped stamp. The only stamp pad I could locate was green, so I grabbed an envelope and started making green hearts. As I looked at it, I decided the shape was more leaf like than heart, so I flipped the envelope over and tried again. This time I made a small forest. The trees seemed lonely, so I used a Sharpie to create a stipples background. The finished scene looks very wintery, I think this is because I was subconsciously inspired by all of the Christmas commercials I was seeing on TV.

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. 307, November 3, 2019

4307 - Too Fast.

I can’t believe that Eleanor is already 6 months old. She has grown so much. I was able to spend the afternoon with her for another photo shoot. Unlike her newborn photo shoot, she was awake, but we did have to stop for frequent snack breaks. Eleanor really enjoyed playing with/trying to eat the pumpkin, even though mom wouldn’t let her have the seeds. In the rabbit picture, we asked her to give the bunny a hug and she put her hands up instead.

Vol. 4, No. 306, November 2, 2019

4306 - Dancing Daisies.

Today the Miller Littles invited me to their dance recital. I gladly accepted the invitation and decided to quickly make flowers for them for after the recital. I used dandelions that I had previously made for the center of the flower and attached left over Halloween candy for the petals. I made flowers for Oldest Miller, Youngest Miller, and for S, F, and N who were also in the recital. All 5 girls danced beautifully and I was so glad I went. The girls were excited to get flowers as well.

Vol. 4, No. 305, November 1, 2019

4305 - Catching Up.

Early in October I took senior pictures for a friend, however, I was so busy I had been putting off looking at them. Now with the play over, quarter grades submitted, and a relaxing Hulu date with a friend, I had time to start for sorting, deleting, and editing. Here are a few of my favorite shots.

Vol. 4, No. 304, October 31, 2019

4304 - Reflections.

I like the Creative Sprint and having a prompt that often challenges my creativity in some way. However, today I was excited that I did not have a promotion to follow as it meant that I could do whatever I felt like doing. I was inspired by a curl of hot glue that dripped down onto my desk. It reminded me if a lizard tail, so I used more hot glue to create the rest of the lizard. I decorated the lizard using melted crayon and sharpie.

Vol. 4, No. 303, October 30, 2019

4303 - Celebrate.

I celebrated not only the completion of the Creative Sprint, but also the last day of finger painting! For my trophy, I stacked all of the cups of finger paint and squished them together, causing the paint to ooze out. It looked kind of cool, so rather than throwing it out like I had planned, I left it on a shelf to dry.

Vol. 4, No. 302, October 29, 2019

4302 - Do Over.

I asked Becca which project I should revise. She was so quick to respond that I don't think she even had to look at my work before choosing paint pouring. The day I did the paint pour was Day 10, combine two things you wouldn't normally put together. For that project, I accidentally split a gallon of paint on the floor and used sawdust to soak it up. When it happened, Becca thought that I should have put the paint of a canvas. I was too focused on cleaning up the mess to do that. So today I split more paint, this time on purpose, which makes it more of revision of Day 8, spill something and create something from the mess. Either way, I had some fun with my paint pouring.  I plan to use them to make greeting cards. The smaller paintings were poured. The larger paintings were prints made from the paint pour mess in the sink.

Vol. 4, No. 301, October 28, 2019

4301 - Gift of Gratitude.

This thank you goes out to anyone who has ever taken time to enjoy a sunset with me. I love sunsets, especially when the skies are partly cloudy, as that is when sunsets are the most beautiful. Sunsets are even more special when you have someone to share it with, so whether we were inside or outside, together or apart, know that any sunset we’ve shared is held close to my heart.

This photo collage was made using a picture I snapped of the sunset on my way home from work tonight.