It's that time of the year.....Summer!!!

When the doors at school are locked and there are no classes going on, I switch to my summer blog:
My Students have art on their hands, too to post project ideas that are easy to do at home during those summer weeks.   Today marks the official first day of summer vacation for me.  I just finished a few days of Professional Development and have no plans of going into either of my school buildings again until late August.  Every year I pledge to post one new post a week on the other website: My students have art on their hands, too!  Most summers I fall a bit short in my goals but today I am off to a good start with my first post.  It might be a bit of a cheat because it is not a great project idea from me.  Instead it is the announcement from Carla Sonheim that she will be running a free Art week in late July, the 25th - 29th to be exact.  Here is the Class Itinerary

Lesson 1: Paul Klee Name Paintings (Crayon & Watercolor)Lesson 2: Dubuffet Figures (Crayon & Watercolor)Lesson 3: Motherwell Paper Bag Collages (Collage)Lesson 4: Hundertwasser Houses (Markers)Lesson 5: Picasso Dogs (Collage & Crayon)

So jump on over to my other blog:  My students have art on their hands too! and check out the posting that included the link to jump over to Carla's site.  I've taken classes through her site before and highly recommend the experience.  

As far as my posting this summer...I promise to try really hard to do my best!!  Happy Vacation!

Watercolor Floral and Ink

Students painted a visually balance work with a focus on analogous colors.  Their flowers were to be recognizable and realistic in nature.  Negative space was accentuated through the process of tracing the lines formed by the paint colors.  This was to create depth and improve the impact of the design.  Thanks go out to Mrs. Kain from Lenox School District for sharing this lesson with teachers at our State Conference this fall.

"Spot the Panda"

As a sequel to my last post, I wanted to share with you some of the "spot the panda" work from my students.  Unfortunately, not many of them finished on our last day of school.   A few of them returned to the art room at the end of the day to quickly post work they had worked on in their spare time.  This was a fun project that created a great deal of enthusiasm for the process.  I'll try it again next year but earlier in the school year so we will have more time!

spot the potato

spot the person with a missing nose

Spot the dog

Quiet and Efficient Pencil Sharpener, you say?

stubby pencils from this school year

As the year winds down, I am looking at a bucket full of stubby pencils and reflecting on just what that translates in to.  So here is the Math,  180 days of school times 36 pencils used in the Art Room every day, sharpened twice per day minimally.  So that is 72 sharpens each day times 180 days (minimally) equals 12980 times my sharpener turns around a pencil in a single year.  You need a really efficient pencil sharpener to handle that wear and tear and I do have my favorite sharpener for the job.

Sharpening 6 baskets or 6 pencils 2X a day

My Classroom Friendly Sharper has been my go to for a few years now and it does an absolutely terrific job!  Just check out that pencil in the photo above and the point that it makes every time I sharpen.  The best thing about my sharpener is that it is still going strong and I have sharp pencils every time I turn that crank!  No dull pencils in my art room!    I've even run raffles for them on this blog in the past.  I am SOLD on this super quiet, super efficient and not to mention really cool looking pencil sharpener.    I'll be putting it away to rest in a few days but it will be back in service come fall.  This will probably be the last pencil sharpener I will ever buy!!!

Spot the Panda...thank you Gergerly Dudas

Spot the Egg

You've most likely seen these "Where's Waldo" type photos all over Facebook and other social media links over the past year. They are created by the Hungarian Artist Gergerly Dudas.  You can find more of his work on his Facebook page, here.  With just two more days with many of my classes, I was stuck for an idea to carry my third grades classes through the end of the year but also be something they could reasonably finish.  It occured to me that I could incorporate the work of Dudas and empasize repetition and the concept of Space for an end of the year review.  I started by searching and printing out several of the images.  I projected them using my document camera as I introduced the artist with a little background information about his work.  I couldn't find much because he is a current artist and I only found a twitter account and a facebook account for him.  The kids were so excited to search for the hidden items in each picture.

Spot the Panda

Here are a few of the images that I used.   I told the students we would be creating our own "Spot the Panda" project.  They were so enthusiastic and creative in their thoughts.  I will share some of their work next week once they have completed them. Today they drew the images, next week they add color.  Just a few simple instructions...use overlap, keep your image simple and easy to repeat and hide something.

Spot the cat

Lilacs in Spring

student work

student work

 I always scan through the weekly lessons when they are updated by Artsonia.  A few weeks ago there was a post by Patty Miner of Winding Creek Elementary in Oklahoma called Purple Flowers that I knew I wanted to adapt for my students.  It so happens that I have a fragrant Lilac bush growing just outside of the art room in one of my schools.  The flowers are beautiful and of special interest to many of the 3rd graders because their classroom teacher loves Lilacs and the students pick and bring in the blossoms for her daily when they are in bloom.  I was sure I could adapt Patty's lesson for my 3rd graders and it would be a great hit.  I went out and cut a few blossoms of the Lilac for the art room as the first step and we talked about how the flowers were formed on the stems.  Week one, students used watercolor to create a background wash for the bloom.  Week two, oil crayons were used to add the stem, leaves and an insect.  Most students drew a butterfly of their color choice.  With the drawing complete, they began to finger paint first with purple paint and while it was still wet, overlaid the color with white finger prints allowing the two colors to mix.  They turned our rather nice.  If it weren't time to take down the bulletin boards for the end of school, they would definitely be on full display!  Thanks go out to Patty for the inspiration and thanks to Artsonia for a terrific program.

student work

student work

student work

student work

Charley's quilt

I've noticed a lot of purchases by one of my student's families this year on Artsonia but I couldn't figure out what they might be buying.  When attending a recent district wide PD recently, another Art teacher from the northern part of our county shared a photo of a beautiful quilt one of the women who worked in her school had made.  She went on to share with me that the woman was the grandmother of one of my students and was encouraging her to participate in the Artsonia program because the family was so thrilled to see the work of her grandson.  They were the family, it turns out, that were making all the purchases on Artsonia and they were purchasing the quilt squares.  Check out this amazing quilt they have made using Charley's art.   I ask for permission to share this photo with my readers.  I am really thrilled to see a family so pleased with the Artsonia experience as well as delighted by Charley's art!  Isn't this the greatest quilt  you ever saw???  What a wonderful way to capture a period in time with a timely quilt.