Art Teacherin' 101: Episode 24

Let's face it, we can't always be "on" for each and every kiddo and each and every art class. And that's okay. It's perfectly fine to every now and then be the World's Okayest Art Teacher.

The key is to realize that being an "okay" art teacher is only okay if it's temporary. You can only scoot by at level 3 for so long before you and the kids start to lose interest. That's when you gotta punch that art teacherin' energy level back up to a 10 (okay, let's be honest, a 8.25 will do).

In all seriousness, if you are feeling meh, try not to beat yourself up over it. Just the fact that you are aware of it means you care. If you are experiencing guilt-free meh, then, yeah, you might wanna hang up the apron and call it a day. I remember I used to come home and tell my husband that I felt like I wasn't doing my best, that I was doing a disservice to the art education of my students. He said that even on my worst days, what those kids are getting is better than no art at all. 

So on those days that you are feeling just okay, you might wanna focus on accentuating the positive at both the beginning and end of your art classes. Like I said in the video, I start each class with that little "Hello, my most amazing artists!" call and response. I also love ending it with a little "I love you" send off. It helps to bookend my classes on a happy note even if what happened during our art time was just okay. Listening to this song, a fave of mine, always lifts me outta my okayest funk. Because you ARE awesome, bringing creativity and light to your students!

I hope y'all have a wonderful Thanksgiving! Know that I think you are much better than Okay, but seriously The Best. 

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In the Art Room: Royal First Graders

Brace yourself. You're in for an overload of First Grade Fantastical Cuteness in the form of Royal Self-Portraits!

Like, riiiiiight?! I can't even, y'all. These selfies are so sweet it's like a lollypop dipped in Fruity Pebbles dipped in milk chocolate and covered in sprinkles (guess who has a strong sweet tooth? GUESS). My fab-o first grade artists completed these just in time for me to get them shipped off to Artome for their frames. And I'm so excited for these are totally frame-worthy. 

I don't often repeat projects but when I was dreaming up a self-portrait unit for all of my classes, I knew I wanted to give this lesson another go-round. I did have to alter the lesson quite a bit as the format of the Artome frames is half the size what I usually have my students work. Lemme tell you how we created these bad boys, er, royal dudes and dudettes. 

I'll break the lesson down for y'all...keep in mind that my classes are 30 minutes in length. This project took us about two weeks to complete. On the first day, the kids were given a 9" X 12" sheet of white paper and tasked to paint that paper the color of them. Before doing so, we read this great book:

In the book, a young girl paints portraits of her friends mixing up their unique skin color. The kids were given brown, black, white, red and yellow paint. We chatted about tints, shades and mixing up a variety of flesh tones. The kids painted their sheet of paper their unique skin tone. 

The following day, on that sheet of painted paper, the kids traced a head template in the middle of the paper and added two vertical lines for the neck. This was done independently and in pencil. Once complete, the kids met with me on the floor for a little guided drawing. We chatted about the proportions of the face and facial features. We drew together in oil pastel. When using oil pastel, I always stress to the kids to use black last and never to wipe their paper as it can smear the pastel. That was completed on our second day.

During our third art class, we cut our portraits away from the painted paper and glued it to a new sheet of 9" X 12" paper. We had a nice chat about painting hair: mixing the right color and creating texture. Once the hair was painted, the kids put those on the drying rack and worked on their crowns. For that, we used gold painted papers and crown templates. I had cut pieces of metallic paper (I found some metallic origami paper to be just the thing!) and the kids added jewels to their crown. I did chat with them about symmetry and balance when it came to the placement of the jewels. It's always good to pack as much educational punch into those lessons as we can!

Our fourth day, crowns were attached to heads and clothing was created. For our clothes, the kids were given a rectangle for their shirt and two squares for their sleeves. These were decorated with my favorite florescent oil pastels (really, where have these BEEN all my life?!) and attached at the bottom of the paper. 

Finally came the background! We used Crayola's water soluble oil pastels for that. The kids could use either warm or cool colors for the background before adding water to paint. 

Ta-da! You might have noticed that some of my fancier friends added coffee filters for a ruffly collar to their shirt, sparkly earrings and more jewels. They really had a lot of fun getting all kinds of royal for their selfies. 

Finally, they had to come up with a title for their piece. "Princess Cutie Cute" will forever go down in history as my favorite title for these precious masterpieces. I cannot wait to see them framed and in our Artome art show! Love to hear about your favorite self-portrait projects, y'all!

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In the Art Room: Sandra Silbertzweig Inspired Portraits by Third Grade

A couple of weeks ago, I shared with y'all a video I created for my third graders. The video (seen below) introduced my kids to the colorful work of Sandra Silbertzweig and allowed them to explore creating a colorful and abstract self portrait. This lesson is currently  one of my faves! Check out how stunning these beauties turned out. All of my students are currently creating a wide variety of self portraits for our Artome fundraiser...and I daresay, these just might be my faves. 

For this project, we used:

* 9" X 12" black or dark blue construction paper. I would have loved to make these bigger but that is the size of the Artome frames.

* Black glue or black puffy paint. There are a couple of ways to create black glue. My friend Ginger creates black glue with a mixture of Elmer's All Purpose glue and India Ink. I created mine with a one part mixture of paint to two parts glue. The key is to use Elmer's All Purpose, not the school grade stuff as it's runny. Also, I had some students use black puffy paint which worked great. Another alternative is to use glue on black paper as it dries clear and will leave behind a kind of transparent line that the dark paper can show through. 

* Chalk. I'm a big fan of Koss Brand chalk which can be found on Amazon. It's pricey but GREAT. 

 This project took us two plus art classes to complete. On the first day, we watched the video, learned about Sandra and did a little guided drawing. If you watch the video, you'll see I left the drawing portion open to many levels of drawing alternatives. Once the drawing was complete, the kids traced their lines in glue. From there, if time allowed, we watched a bit more of the video as a kind of sneak peak to the following week. 

The real fun came with the chalk. In the video, I really stress how to use the chalk properly...and we do a whole lot of chatting about analogous colors. I really felt like this lesson was a wonderful exploration of color theory. 

 Here is how each table of four children was set up: a laminated colorwheel that I found online and two bowls of chalk, one warm, the other cold. Students were to use the colorwheel as I did in the video. Many of them took the time to pair up and lay all of their chalk out on the wheel. This way, they could easily see what colors were available to use. I love that they were so into picking the correct colors for this project. 

After the second day, several kids were not finished. This was fine with me...I mean, look at those results! The following art class, as they wrapped up their drawing, we chatted about how their artwork was going to be hung like work in a museum. I had them get a notecard and create a label for their work. On their label, they were to write:

Artists Name
Title
Medium
Process or Description

The information from this card will be used as both an assessment and also info for their Artome paperwork. 

 Once all pieces were complete, I blew off the excess dust and sprayed them liberally with Aqua Net. I did that three times to insure the chalk particles were attached. I'm hoping hey remain as vibrant and colorful when they are framed. 

Because of our small format, I decided to opt out of having the kids add designs to their work. I had a feeling it might have gotten a little muddy if we did. If the pieces had been of larger format, I think that would have worked well. 

I'm so looking forward to this winter art show. All of the kids have been creating beautiful works of art! I'll be sharing the work of my other grades soon. 

Until then, have a bright and colorful weekend!

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In the Art Room: #K12ArtChat Tonight!

 Hey, y'all! I'm so excited to be hosting tonight's Twitter chat with the #K12ArtChat kids. We'll be starting this evening at 8:30pm CST and I do hope you'll join the fun. If you've never joined in on a chat before, hold on to your hats! They are so much fun. Here are some tips for you:

If you've never joined the fun of a Twitter chat, here are a couple of things you should know:

*  To join the chat, simply search #k12artchat in the search bar. Starting at 8:30 pm, you'll see the chatter starting with questions from me. To chat a preview of the questions, just scroll downeth. 

* To add to the conversation, begin your tweet with the hashtag #k12artchat and an A for "answer" and the number of the question you are responding to. For example, "#k12artchat A1: I first discovered my love for art at summer camp!" 

* Know your abbreviations. Because of the limited amount of characters, folks will often respond with abbreviations which can be a little confusing. Just think of it like reading a text and the shortened words will make sense. 

* Hold on to your seats: these chats are often only 45 minutes in length. With a half dozen questions and a bunch of folks responding, it can get VERY busy. My first time joining in on a chat involved me just taking it all in. Relax and enjoy the ride.

Another reason I'm thrilled to host the chat is because I'm one of the keynote speakers for the TAEA conference next week! The theme of the conference is Passion and that's one thing I do love to chat about. While at the conference, I'll be talking about my journey of finding my creative and teaching passions. I'll also be leading a needle felting class of 75 folks AND doing a fun Q & A session. All of those things will go down on Saturday at the conference. I can't wait to meet my Texas friends!

 I love hearing about the passion-seeking journey of others. You can share that and more via Facebook or Twitter. 

It's also not too late to submit any questions you might have for me! I'll do my very best to answer them at the conference. And, if you see me there, please be sure and say hello! I love to chat with fellow crazy art teachers (note: we're ALL crazy!) and you know I'm never shy about taking a selfie. So be sure you snag me and say hello!

Until then, I look forward to chatting with all y'all this evening! See you at 8:30 pm CST. 

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In the Art Room: Art Conferencin' in Illinois!

Y'all, I'm just back from another incredible art conference this time in the great state of Illinois, a place I called home for many years. I had so much fun presenting (I was one of the keynotes, eep!), teaching and learning that I just had to share. The art educators of Illinois really know how to make a girl feel welcome and put together a FABULOUS conference to boot!

I kicked off their conference with a chat in a lovely renovated theatre in downtown Normal. I was thrilled that so many folks made it out to hear me chat, I thought for sure they'd be sleeping off their Cubs win. I really enjoy speaking with other art teachers, they truly are the best crowd!

Almost immediately after that, I lead a two hour needle felting session. I love teaching hands-on classes at conferences as it feels like hosting a craft night at my house. Just a bunch of soon-to-be friends, sitting and relaxing all while learning something fun and new. I was so inspired by what folks were creating!

My friend Heidi made this super cute Starry Night inspired hair clip to go with a dress of hers. If you aren't familiar with Heidi's blog, you need to check it out! 

 I love that folks were all set to needle felt on their clothing. Check out this sweet scarf that got a lovely flowery update!

 Amazing art teacher Jen Baker was my BFF at the conference as she made sure I was where I was supposed to be, doing what I was supposed to do at all times (and, with a flake like me, that's a pretty tall order). In all seriousness, Jen was BEYOND amazing as I was witness to her working her tail off the entire conference making sure that EVERYONE was happy and having a great time. She needle felted this sweet little palette on her sweater!

Sue at Back to Back Fiber provided the supplies for our workshop. She sent us beautiful sheets of prefelt that we also used to create wee masterpieces with. 

 Of course we had to make Palette Hair Clips! It's how you know you are officially Needle Felt Certified! 

We even had folks needle felting over holes in their sweaters or dreaming up the cutest of motifs. 

I mean, look how stunning!

For realz tho, my fave part of art teacher conferencin' is making new friends, hearing about their art rooms and learning from them. 

 And even if we aren't talkin' art, we are ALWAYS having a good time!

It was such a wonderful group to sit and stab stuff with. Thanks, ladies, y'all are the best!

Because I just can't get enough of all things fibers, I attended a class by the Fibers Queen herself, Natasha of Ester's Place. Not sure if Natasha knows it or not but she's kinda like my fibers BFF. I love hanging out with her. We had the best time at the conference!

We made these amazing wet felted flowers. I'm not a lover of wet felting...but Natasha is changing my mind! Full details on these projects soon. 

After a wee break, I joined several dozen art teachers for a relaxed and informal Q & A session. That was so fun! We shared ideas, stories and laughed a lot. The best part was we had a very wonderful group of college kids in our group who were fun to share our thoughts on art teacherin' with. 

 

 This here is one of them! Pleasure to meet you, Samantha!

 Buddies from way back. Always fun to see Kris and make new friends.

 I was super excited to finally meet Deyana in person. We've been internet buds for years...so it really was like chatting with an old friend. She's the owner of Socks and Souls which you should really check out. They have some GREAT art themed socks. I scooped up several. 

 Making friends from my old stomping grounds was so cool. My buddy Nora teaches in Joliet where I grew up!

Jen and I managed to stay out of trouble late into the evening with a group of other art teacherin' types. 

 The next day, I was back hanging out with Natasha again. We made the world's biggest felted collaborative piece. Can you believe this beauty?! I will DEFINITELY be sharing a complete blog post on this with video included. It was so much fun!

Illinois, I had a blast! I was so excited to speak and share with y'all as well as LEARN from some of the best art educators I've met. I was so thrilled to speak in this theatre that I had Jen snap my photo under the marquee...it wasn't until the photo was taken that I realized the movie they were showing. Idiocracy. How fitting!

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