Hey, y'all! I'm so excited about this week's Art Teacherin' Book Club meeting. In case you didn't hear, co-author Annie Brock will be joining us at 8pm CST right here! How awesome is that? I was so thrilled when a fellow art teacherin' buddy reached out to me to say that she knew the authors...I was all, "hey, can you hook a girl up?" And she did! Annie will be joining us and fielding any thoughts, questions and concerns we may have about growth mindsets. Even if you are not currently reading The Growth Mindset Coach (um, you really should be), please know that you are welcome to join our chat. Here's all you have to do: 1. Like and/or follow my page. 2. At around 8pm CST, I should pop up in your feed. If I do not, try refreshing your feed or popping by my Facebook page. That's it! It doesn't get much easier than that!
Now, if you've joined a Facebook LIVE before, then you know the comments fly by. And, if the comments are lengthy, they tend to get cut off with a "see more" button. Ain't nobody got time for "see more" when more comments keep rollin' in! So, to keep us all on track and to allow Annie enough time to share her journey, I thought it would be good to establish a couple of ground rules. So here we go: 1. Questions will be answered by us first. You can see a general version of the questions we'll be throwing Annie's way in the first image. We will answer the questions first...and then give Annie the floor. For example, when I ask for an introduction to kick off our chat, I'll want to hear from all y'all. Once we are done introducing ourselves, where we teach, our demographics and the number of years we've been killin' the art teacherin' game, we'll give Annie the floor. This will make it so her comment remains onscreen the longest giving everyone ample read time. 2. Allow Annie's comments to remain. If you've joined our chats before, you might have noticed that new comments push the older ones out. If Annie responds and we flood the comment box then her comments will vanish and she'll have to repeat herself for those who missed it. I'll try my best to read what she has to say...but in case I miss it, let's allow Annie to have the last word. Meaning, once her comment is up, please do not comment until we've all had time to enjoy her words and are ready to move on. 3. Please keep your answers short. Frequent chatters might know why keeping your answers short is important. If you type out a lengthy paragraph, the totality of what you have to say will not show. Instead a "see more" button will interrupt your comment and, I hate to say it, ain't nobody got time to "see more". So, keep your answers short, on point and we'll be able to see them. If you have a lot to say, simply break it up into bite sized bits so we can see it all. I am THE WORST at following rules and directions such as the ones I've laid out for y'all. My therapist says I have issues with authority (I thought I was paying him to tell me I'm right!) That being said, I think laying these ground rules will make it so we can get the most out of our special guest, Annie Brock, and enjoy our chat. Big shout out to Annie...we are so excited to "meet" you and chat about The Growth Mindset Coach with you. We are thrilled to bring your ideas to our art rooms! See you on Wednesday, 8pm CST right here!
My sincerest apologies for the very end of this clip (well, for the whole thing, really). I meant to edit out the part where I spin the camera around to turn it off. So, if you're prone to vertigo or dizzy-fainting spells, skip the end, kiddies.
Hi, cats and kittens! I hope that y'all have decided to join the Artsy Book Clubbin' Party because it's a-gonna be just that, a par-tay of epic book clubbin' proportions (cuz you know those book clubbers, they loves to party). Just so I can wrap my pea brain around who's in on the fun, I'd love it if you'd take a hot second to answer the poll on the right (sorry, smartphone readers, I believe the poll only appears if you are on your craptop). Remember!You can join this party any ole time, no pressure here. Shoot, I'll probably stop reading these books and completely forget about this whole thang in a matter of dayzz so, there's that. (Just kidding! Unlike my LAST Artsy Book Club book, I do hope to make it at least half way through these bad boys).
So, if you were brave enough to watch the above clip, I suggested that if you are reading Printmaking Unleashed, why not aim for 3 printmaking techniques a week? The reason I started this book club was so we could share our ideas and thoughts...so I'd love it if you'd share what you created on the Artsy Book Club Facebook page! This way we can learn from each other as well as the book. To get the ball rolling, I toyed around with 3 processes from the book this afternoon and thought I'd share 'em with ya here.
If you are (also) reading Teach Like a Pirate, there are no "activities" (unless you count adding "arrr, matey!" after every sentence when reading the book). But I thought I'd throw some discussions questions out there. This week, I'm going to aim to read 1/2 of Part 1: Teach Like a Pirate! In Part 1, Dave Burgess breaks down the word PIRATE and gives meaning to each letter. I plan to read the "P"assion, "I"mmersion and "R"apport sections. I'd love to hear your thoughts as you read though these chapters. Whatcha say we chat about this:
* The author is a high school history teacher (I think, I've not gotten that far!). Does this change the way you approach this book? Meaning, do you think that what he is presenting will not work in your classroom setting? Can you somehow make it work?
* Dave Burgess begins his first three days of school without presenting rules, routines (well, not in the normal way) but by capturing the hearts and minds of his students. Has this gotten you thinking about a different way you might approach the start of your school year? What might you do differently with this in mind?
I'm so excited to hear your response! I do hope you'll take the second to drop a line...even if it is to say "PUH-lease don't make any more video clips. Ev-errrrrr."
Now, let's chat Printmaking Unleashed. Y'all. I'm a little, I don't know, bummed. I mean, I like the book a lot and the projects have me excited but...has anyone else had trouble rustling up the resources? I mean, the very first project called for Teflon sheets and I ain't got a clue where to get my kitten mittens on those. The projects after that also called for stuff I didn't have on hand which is saying something being that I am: 1. An Art Teacher and 2. A World Class Hoarder. That being said, I settled on three projects that I did happen to have the supplies for (well, mostly).
Now, before we chat about this project, I have to tell you that I've decided to print on muslin instead of paper. I really have this idea in my head that the kids should create their own fabrics this year so that's why I'm on fabric and not paper. This first project called for lace and fiber paste (um, no clue) which I substituted for fabric paint. I first decided to use the lace like a stencil using a makeup sponge as my pouncer-thingie (what is that thing called, y'all?) and the results were pretty suck-tastic, if I do say so myself.
In the book, the author recommends using an embroidery hoop to hold the fabric taunt so I gave that a go...
And, again, suck-gasim.
On a whim, I decided to try this very thin and flimsy spider web lace I'd had left over from Halloween. I just knew this wouldn't work because I thought the paint would simply blob all over the fabric. Much to my surprise, it worked great! I really love the effect, don't you? And I think that the embroidery hoop is a great idea when doing this with the kids. So, even though I didn't have fiber paste nor did I go about this the way the author suggested, I think it turned out pretty cool.
Next up, gluing rando stuff to cardboard and making printing plates. Nothing really new here although the author did glue a buncha raffia and other odds and ends to her cardboard. I'm in the middle of a wacky weaving project (post to come!) so I happened to have all this fun leftover yarn for the cause. I hot glued the yarn onto the cardboard...
And decided to use a stamp pad to ink them up. This worked great as it applied the color evenly, unlike brushed-on paint...
Yeah, not so much. Not only that, but moving my brush around caused my yarn design to get all jacked up. And don't nobody like a jacked up yarn design, y'all. If I were to do this with the kids, I think they could glue their own design with yarn scraps (regular glue would be fine) and use large stamping sponges. Then, when finished, they could cover their designs with foil and create a cool repousee-esque piece.
Now, this last idea is an alteration of what is presented in the book. The author has this really cool idea of creating a designed surface with puffy paint. Her idea is to allow the design to dry and then use that as a rubbing or printing surface.
Recently, on one of my fave blogs, Alisa Burke used puffy paint to print with so I decided to give that a go. I thought the effect was fun...but you do have to be gentle as the puffy paint does spread considerable when pressing on the back side. You can see Alisa's idea here, it's fantastical.
