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Week Twelve

4/23/2018

Finishing Up with DE

Students in my KCAD 3D DE class are working on their final exam projects as we get closer to the end of the course. With only a week left, students are at different points of progress when it comes to their final works. It has been an awesome time seeing students select what materials they want to work with for their final projects and how they can adapt the skills and ideas we discussed throughout the term into something that is uniquely their own making.

I have been so impressed with the students from this term and cannot wait to see what they land on for their final works. I am also excited to see many of them return as a part of our program and even more excited and proud for those who will graduate and begin their next learning journey at the college level!

Architecture Almost Complete

Students continued their STEAM projects this week that worked at designing an building models based on architecture. Students will finish up and present these works on Monday/Tuesday of next week. I have appreciated seeing students work together in groups for this effort and discover skills and talents using a variety of tools.

These pieces will go on display in the Library of our school for the remainder of the school year and we look forward to keeping some as examples and decoration for our classrooms.

Working on ArtPrize10

Working on our @ByronCenterPS #ArtPrize10 Youth Collaboration piece for @ArtPrize collaboration today pic.twitter.com/YVc7kmdfDC
— Janine Campbell (@campbellartsoup) April 17, 2018

Students were busy at work last week getting the background for our panels painted for ArtPrize10. We are so excited about this installation that celebrates diversity and how we can come together as a community to work on this statement. Now that we have our backgrounds decorated, we need to finish up the portraits on the bottle caps and apply those to the panels along with reflective paper.

It is going to be amazing to see the other schools' work, too. Especially when we put them all together. I am also looking forward to sharing our completed panels at our Arts a la Mode/Empty Bowls/Fine Arts Night celebration on May 22nd!

LOVE the additions students made to our #artprize10 Youth Collaboration entry as a part of the @ByronCenterPS @ArtPrize work. Hoping we will find a venue this year to showcase our work! More to do tomorrow! pic.twitter.com/3NaBoCOBmh
— Janine Campbell (@campbellartsoup) April 18, 2018

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Week Five

2/23/2018

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Working

It was exciting to see student use the smART lab space this past week. I still need to organize items to best fit our needs, but this was a great start!

Students finally began to dive into their first major theme of the semester: You, Me, Everybody. In doing so, they started developing sketches and ideas of what they wanted to create for their work and using the various skill-building exercises, applied the media they deemed most appropriate for the assignment.

This is always an exciting time in the classroom because there is so much happening and so much potential for what can still happen. I am excited to see these works develop over the next week and be submitted to our online gallery for a grade.

Here are some of the works in progress below:

Panels Complete

We finally finished the larger set of panels this week. It was a lot of work to get them completed, but I think the results were worth it. These will now go into the office for display in our conference room.

Miniature Hideaways

In my 3D Design class this week, we glazed our descriptive word ceramic forms and started the miniature hideaway project. We are using celluclay to cover the forms and so far it is working out quite nicely.

I am excited to see these works finish up next week and then get photographed on location.

I am particularly excited to see how students apply the finishing touches and where they decide to photograph their work.

Meijer Great Choices

Finally this week, students were given the opportunity to participate in the Meijer Great Choices Film Festival by creating videos on topic-specific content like Celebrating Diversity and Making Healthy Choices. We had two entries for this year and you will be able to vote for them starting on March 1 by going here.

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Week Two

2/4/2018

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Portfolio Names

Every term, I use the design of the portfolio name as a visual way to learn my students names. It is a go-to project to get students started because it also helps me teach some basics about the design process, formulating ideas and planning in our sketchbook as well as practicing various colored pencil and marker techniques before applying them to our final works.

It was fun to see the student names develop over the week and then be published on our Artsonia gallery. Here are a few of the results:

I really like sports so I used a baseball and a basketball for the letter E's. Three of the letters were some type of plant because I like nature. The letter L turned out really good in my mind because it was the first time I attempted to draw a hand.

This project was really fun. I chose many things having to do with sports or professional sports teams because that is what I like to watch and do. I also did a pencil because I like to sketch and draw. I liked this project because I got to show the things that I like by writing my name

I put the Fishing pole with a fish because I fish a lot and really enjoy it, and I also put a paintbrush with paint , because I really like to paint. My favorite sport to play is ping pong and that's why I put a ping pong ball and paddle to include the types of sports that I like to play and what I like to do in my free time.

I choose these objects because I like the underwater sea life, drawing, ice cream, and nature.

Logo Designs

So, for the first time, I am actually seeing a group of students for a FULL year as a result of a new STEAM class I am teaching. As a result, I decided to change up the portfolio name to a logo design. This was fun to do because it got students thinking about branding and how logos are developed by designers. Because these students have had me last semester, it was also nice to see how quickly they jumped into the sketching and brainstorming piece of this challenge before setting to work on it.

Here are a few examples:

This logo is Charlie B. Golfing. The C is formed into a golf club and the B is formed into a golf ball on a tee ready to be swung. I picked golfing because I really like golfing and it is very chill and a fun hobby to do during the spring and summer.

In this I did a circle and inside the circle I did a C with a softball stitches in it, To finish the other half of the circle I did a pencil because I love art and lastly in the center I did a volleyball.

While designing my logo I thought about things that might represent me. My logo represents a crown as well as the first initial of my name. This is because I like to consider myself a queen or a princess. I chose to use colors like yellow and orange to represent the gold of a crown, and black to emphasize the letter M.

Starting Photoshop Challenge 1

Students also started their first Photoshop Challenge this week after they completed their portfolios. I have accumulated five choices over the years that students can select to complete as a part of this challenge. They range from beginner to advanced. All focus on the subject of portraits or people.

As we finish these next week, it will be interesting to see which levels students selected to challenge themselves to create and if they continue to elect to use Photoshop as a tool when we get working on our first major Project in the class.

Still Painting Those Panels

We are still working on the WMS panels... hopefully they will finish up this week and actually work out. Right now, we are debating on how to outline the shapes. Do we outline everything, are we selective, or do we just paint over everything and start over?

Adjective Forms

In the KCAD 3D class I teach as a part of our high school's Dual Enrollment program, students worked on their ceramic forms this week that were inspired by adjectives. We were inspired by a variety of contemporary ceramic artists like Zemer Peled before going through lists of adjectives that would help inform the direction of their work.

Students were encouraged to hand-build or combine wheel-thrown and hand-building techniques. It was interesting to see how students developed their sketches based on the words they selected and then translated those sketches into forms.

We will not see the completed pieces until these are fired, glazed, and fired again later this month.

MAEA Region 9 Results

BCPS has a great showing at this year's MAEA Region 9 Adjudication. K-12 students from our district had over 20 works accepted and all will move onto State competition. The work will be on display at the Grand Rapids Art Museum through this month before heading to the next competition.

Here are the winners from WMS:

Oliver Modderman

Tess Bainbridge

Lindsay Mlejnek

Serenity Metzger

I am excited to celebrate this accomplishment with students at the opening reception this Thursday as we also get to enjoy the rest of the exhibit at the GRAM.

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Week One

1/27/2018

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New Semester with New Students

This installation was completed by over 200 students in our school. It encircles a tree that was planted years ago to honor our veterans and is also next to the entrance of our school and flagpole.

Our Art classes run in semesters, which means I get to greet new students after 18 weeks and start over again with them. It is fun to see how this new set of students approach the content already covered by first semester and bring their own experiences to the table to complete various pieces of content and creation.

One of my favorite things about this first week, was getting to finish our installation of painted rocks inspired by the story "The Dot," by Peter H. Reynolds. I have been using this story for at least the last five years with my students to inspire legacy projects in our school. We have made paintings, paper globes, and now these painted rocks as a way to make our own mark on WMS.

Each year I do this, I am usually doing something with my students for the first time and not 100% sure how and if it will turn out. I openly share this with my students and explain that taking creative risks is one of the duties of an artist and it is up to all of us to be courageous in this class with the work we make. I am very pleased with this year's outcome and look forward to seeing what legacy project we come up with for next year.

Here are some thoughts from the students on their work:

Avery: For this project I created a rock that displays an abstract pattern of dots. I decided not to focus on a specific pattern in order to incorporate the Dot story. The Dot story talks about about how all artists work is unique and anyone can create art. My piece, and all the other rocks created in class, are different in order to represent diversity and beauty in art.

Gage: This is like in the story the dot because we started with one dot and we began to do more. Also it represents that anyone can be creative. Finally, it was the first project of the year.

Brady: I made this amazing piece of art because of the book, The Dot. I just made one dot and went on from there. This rock was made from a bunch of random dots and then I made more.

Katie: In this artwork, I started with one big dot--the sun. It popped into my head as soon as we started. This connects to the book because starting with one dot made a bigger thing called art. It connects to real life because we are leaving this artwork behind just like we will have to leave other things behind as in our legacy.

This is a more complete view of the work.

Empty Bowls

For years, I have engaged students with clay on the first day. This semester, I switched around some activities and actually started with paint and waited until our third day together to work with clay.

When I informed one class that we were going to work with clay, it was greeted with a "Woo Hoo!" I know that not all of my students will choose art as a career, but I do hope that they will continue to create and appreciate art as grow up and react with a "Woo Hoo!" during those experiences.

It was fun to see students work with clay in this way and for 7th graders to create bowls for our annual Empty Bowls night. Even better will be once these are fired and we get to glaze them in a variety of colors.

Henna Hands

Something new was tried with my 8th graders for our first clay experience. Instead of making bowls like they did when they were in 7th grade or the leaves like last semester did (because it is January in Michigan and there are no leaves), students created Henna-inspired patterned hands.

Inspired by this post and henna-painted hands, I decided to try this out with student and see how they turned out. For the most part, there has been success so far (only a few repaired fingers along the way). In the future, I would probably have students keep their fingers closer together or use the slab roller in order to avoid some of those issues.

I am excited to see how they finish out and what happens when we apply a glaze treatment to them. This was a great alternative to the leaves and students seemed to really enjoy the process of creating patterns.

Collaboratives

Collaboration is something I am passionate about in my classroom. I feel strongly that success in team format is much more powerful than individually. It takes much more skill and understanding to work with others and find common ground than it does to go it alone.

For the first day of our STEAM class, we brainstormed ideas that show what we value at WMS: Academics, Arts, and Athletics. These symbols were then drawn by students on canvases with WMS on them and a grid. Every time a shape changes on the grid, so does the color (keeping cool colors for the backgrounds and warm for the letters/objects).

We are more than half-way to our end goal with these works (once they are done they will be showcased in the office) and we hope to complete them next week. This is my first time teaching STEAM as a class, so it will be a learning experience for both my students and me this semester!

Can you see the WMS?

Drawing in Space

For our second collaboration in 3D, students had the opportunity to explore the concept of drawing in space by using wire. In teams of two and three, students selected an object and then sketched out the object using contour lines. After, they turned that line drawing into a sculpture using wire.

It was interesting to see that multiple groups selected cameras as their object. Below are some process and final images of particularly successful attempts.

#FirstMillion Funding

On January 25th, our latestDonorsChoose.org project was funded thanks to the matching funds from #FirstMillion, celebrating the first million funded projects on the site. I am so thankful for the additional materials we will now have due to the generosity of others.

If you are interested in helping fund a project, I recommend visiting their site and seeing a variety of opportunities to do just that!

Woo Hoo! Thanks @DonorsChoose #FirstMillion pic.twitter.com/DK8mBl6Wbv
— Janine Campbell (@campbellartsoup) January 25, 2018

This week was really packed with a lot of amazing things. I am so thankful and excited that I get the opportunity to be a part of all of it.

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Week Seventeen

1/12/2018

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Finishing up the Semester

As we near the end of the semester, students were asked to go through their portfolios on Artsonia and select a piece they would like to revisit in ways that would help them show growth over the term. This is a variation on a project I ask students to engage in annually as a way to pause, reflect, and react to the learning that has happened during their time in the art classroom.

It is very exciting for me to see students use this project to show what they have learned. It is also interesting to learn why students select the works they want to revisit. For some, it is because it was their favorite thing; for others, it was something they struggled with at the time and this is their chance to do something better. Regardless of the reason, I am thankful that students had a chance to do this and I really enjoyed reading their statements that went with the work.

Ashlynn: I did this flower because in fifth grade I did a water color flower, and for something old something new I decided to take the techniques from the fifth grade art work and make it better. So I colored my flower and used water color paint, just like I did in fifth grade.

Kennedy: For this projects I decided to re-make a shoes drawing i did with pastels in 5th grade. I started out by looking at my shoe and drawing out the outsides and the lines, then i colored it in. I did the same thing with the other shoes, only using pencils instead of colored pencils. For my background I used water color to make a splash pattern by blowing on it.

Serenity: I decided to recreate my watercolor flower painting from 5th grade. In the original I didn't make it look like a flower very well. The flower was too zoomed in. However, in this piece I zoomed out and made it look more like a flower. I made a new work that focused more on the content of the painting. The original also had colors that were not blended and causing the work to have poor craft. In this piece the colors that I used were blended together more, causing the work to have good craft. This art work helped me personally by helping me show the improvement I have made not only as a artist, but as a person. I wanted to revisit this project because I honestly thought it looked bad when I original created it in 5th grade. I wanted to take this opportunity to recreate it and make it look better.

Finn: My new project shows improvement in creativity because before I just grabbed a bunch of images off of google and placed them inside my profile, and in this project I made the background inside my face, made the planet, and I made the stars. I also improved my craft. I did this by spending more time on the quality of the components in this project, and in the other project my background was just made out of a bunch of random colors and scribbles. I made this piece the way it is because I love the way galaxy or space things look and also how greens, purples, reds, and blues look together.

Jackson: In the old water color abstract I had diferent clear sections which looking back on I didn't like so with this one its more non objective. Also in the old one I had random scribbles through out it making it worse. I feel like this one was a lot more crafty because in the old one it was just crappy and scribbly but with this one it actually took time. The composition on this one was a lot better too because it used a wider variety of color. I don't really have a personal connection to this artwork because it was "Non objective". I wanted to revisit this because in my last one it was awful and I didn't like it so I thought of this as a retry.

Evie: I remade a piece I made in 5th grade, the year I came to Byron Center. It was a portrait of what I looked like back then and it was supposed to be realistic. Remaking it, I took everything I've learned and made it in a style I draw with more. I decided since this was a remake from an old drawing, instead of keeping the drawing of me in 5th grade, I'd make it how me and my friends draw me currently. I'ts like a persona in a way, it's something my friends have helped me with and I am very grateful for their help. I also made it digital instead of traditional. I took the circles in the background from the last drawing and made it a ball type thing with words my friends have called me and use to describe me. The art remake is very important to me, it shows how much I've grown with people and especially with art. I used far more shading and took aspects from the last drawing (circles and words) and made them into something new and even combined them! I'm far more content with this piece and I hope to learn more in art.

Khiem: This art is the continue of the last art in 7th grade challenge 3 treasure or trash. Some of the thing that I change is the way I chose to color it. In the old art I use the different color but in this one I chose to use My old fashion way, pencil. Something new that I do is the point of view. The first one is up looking down but in this one I chose to look from a wall. The first C is creativity is that I use shading pencil instead of markers. Another C that's different is the content I chose to take a different point of view from the original. This my room that change a little by using my imagination like the fish tank.

Mary: In the revision of the autobiography I did last year, I wanted to re-do my attempt at 'anime' and wanted to improve. I was honestly horrified at the older version, so I just had to redo it.I am also remaking this character; putting in more depth and such.I hope you enjoyed this piece, I cannot wait to make more like it!

3Doodler Fun

This was an exciting end of the week in our classroom as our latest funded project from DonorsChoose arrived! Thanks to generous donors and the matching funds from 3Doodler, we were able to get 6 3Doodler pens for our classroom!

Students spent today experimenting with the pens, even completing some of the projects from the booklet. I am so excited to be able to use these in the classroom and cannot wait to see what students make next with them.

Week One of DE

For the past seven years I have been able to reconnect with my former middle school students as high schoolers in the Kendall College of Art and Design Dual Enrollment program. Each Spiring, I teach a course in either Color, Photo, or 3D. It has been an awesome experience and one that I look forward to each year.

This week, we had our first class in 3D Design. It was fun to see students I once had years ago and meet new students, too. We started out this week with collaborative work, creating sculptures on the first day out of styrofoam cups and some drawing exercises on the second day to prep for some relief paper sculptures based on the work of Heather Hansen.

From what I have seen so far in this short period of time, I know we are going to have some stellar work made by some stellar students over the remaining 14 weeks of class.

Next week, these drawings will be translated into paper relief sculptures (one symmetrical and one asymmetrical). It will be interesting to see how students use 2D images to inform the 3D work they make. This is my first time approaching this project in this way and it was amazing to see how engaged students were throughout the drawing process (one commented that they would like to do more of this kind of work on their own).

Part of my job as an art teacher is to teach the fundamentals of seeing and making art; the other part is to instill the idea that there are multiple ways to make art and that anyone can do it.

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Six Left

4/26/2017

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KCAD DE Complete

One of the biggest events of this week were my students finishing their KCAD Dual Enrollment class and presenting their final projects. After fifteen weeks of learning various manual settings, editing techniques, and how artists use both of those things to make compelling images, students worked on their final presentations on a topic of their choice.

I was impressed as students explained their ideas and presented their final series. The difference between this assignment and the ones previously done is that the work must tell a story both individually and as a group of images.

Here are the results:

Elise: Shine

Elise's final series focused on the use of glitter to gloss over images we may not notice or want to see. She used glitter to capture ideas of greed, jealousy, hope, and wonder within her final eight images. She is planning to submit her series to Scholastic in the Fall.

Kathy: Made in the U.S.A

Kathy's final series explored her heritage by using her friends and family in the Vietnamese market where they do their grocery shopping. She explores how she views herself through the items she captures and the development of her personalized definition of an American identity.

Krista: Life Cycles

Krista's work goes through the exploration of self though the use of water, paint, skulls, and how the model for her series interacts with those objects. She is planning to submit her series to Scholastic in the Fall.

Anna: Childhood Dangers

In Anna's series, she resisted her grandparent's basement where she was greeted by old toys and memories from the past. She decided to pair the well-worn objects with dangerous items and severe lighting to get an effect that shows a darker side to your once loved friends.

Emma: Double Vision

Emma finished out the term with this series using her sister as a model and various special effects through light, prisms, and overlays to create a surreal feel with the portraits. Emma used the visual language of her drawings to inform the ideas behind these works as well as the color story woven throughout.

Kennedy: Dark Shadows

In her final series of images, Kennedy was interested in capturing fear and anxiety through images of what lurks just beyond the frame or in the shadows. Her images use some objects we encounter routinely, but dramatize them through placement, light, and shadow.

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Start of 4th Quarter

4/16/2017

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Back from Break

In addition to motivational messages written on my whiteboard in the hall to meet students that included "It's the beginning of the end" and "Be like the Patriots this 4th Quarter," I welcomed students back from break with some quick creations that exercised their understanding of a variety of media.

I thought this would be a good way to ease back into the swing of school after a little over a week away from the grind and it would help students focus on successfully completing the skill-building tasks and use that to springboard into a successful 4th quarter and end to the school year.

Photoshop Challenge 2

Before we left for break, students spent time with on a Challenge and STEAM collaborative that both looked at spaces and places as their subject. I decided to welcome students back from break by continuing that subject into four possible Photoshop Challenges for students to select and complete over the course of two days. Students had the opportunity to create a landscape, perspective drawing, altered graffiti name, or space image and in the process learn more Photoshop tools and experiment with ideas and their understanding of how to create images digitally.

Here are a few of the results:

Ruby: My work is of one part of Mount Everest, in the background you see snowy mountains, and in the foreground theres a part of the mountains without any snow. The tools I used was only the brush tool. I used a lot of the different textures to create shading and make it look more realistic.

Sophia: In my artwork I used a picture of this hallway in our school and I used the pen tool to trace over all of the lines. I also used the gradient tool to create the color across it. I like the work I created because I think it challenged me and it ended up very cool with the colors and all of the lines.

Arianna: The style I did of my graffiti name is I chose the Kodiak style off of graffiti creator and my name ended up looking like this. I decided to use bright colors like lime green, hot pink, and turquoise. I also decided to put 3d bubbles and make them yellow to make the letters pop even more. In the end I put it on a brick wall and turned down the opacity so it would look more realistic in the picture. I also decided that was not enough and I could do more. So then I figured out I could add a shadow holding a spray can that made the graffiti and then I also turned down the opacity on the shadow so it wouldn't be so bold.

Riley: it is a picture of two planets that rotate around each other and will eventually merge. also they are separated by a star belt.

Observational Drawing

The middle of the week transitioned from digital work to more traditional drawing methods. We spent one class period this week simply working on our observational skills and thinking about how our eyes work when we are using them to help us draw from life. One of my favorite exercises if to just simply walk students through a looking/seeing process and verbalizing how to really examine what is in front of you before you start to draw it.

Observational skills are important and can be fostered, just like any other skill can be. During our day of observational drawing, we practiced non-dominant hand drawing, dominant hand drawing, and abstraction through enlargement. Students used their shoes and strings to do this and then worked on turning one of their smaller drawings large on a bigger sheet of paper for our Mixed Media experimentation. This is a great lead into our next challenge, where still life can play an important role.

Mixed Media Speed Dating

As I did with students last semester, I set out materials at each table group with introduction cards to using collage, watercolors, ink, pastels, and sharpies/gell pens with stencils. Students then rotated in 5-7 minute increments around the groups until their observational drawings had each of the media processes on it.

It is a really fun way to introduce students to new media (or even old media in new ways) and they ended up with a work that many enjoyed as a finished piece. I think the best part of this process is that the emphasis is really on experimentation with media and the end product is secondary; however, many students will use their experience to help formulate choices for their upcoming project Challenge that brings the focus in on objects.

Here are some results from the process:

Chloe: We used observational drawings to first draw our shoe and then we tested out different mixed media. We tested out watercolor, chalk and oil pastels, different types of ink, different sharpie ways, and then collage. My favorite was spraying the watercolor everywhere for the background.

Ella: With this piece I fell in love with all that we got to do around the room. I was new to calligraphy but fell in love with the way the pen moved and the way in which if you added more pressure you got thinker lines. This project was short but fun to use all the new types of materials in which we got to used chalk pastel and a ton of stencils. It was amazing to watch all the connections come together that I have never tried before. I would do this all year long if I could.

Oliver: In the art I used for the first time a Quill and Ink to make stitches on the shoe.

Ashtyn: In this piece of art I used multiple things I have never used before like the quill, the blow technique, oil pastel, and paint. But out of all of those the one I liked using the most was the quill, I liked the quill because it was just easy and fun to use. I also liked using the oil pastel and the paint.

Light and Shadow

My Dual Enrollment students focused on Light and Shadow as a subject matter for their 4th assignment in our Intro to Photo class. It has been really exciting to see students advance their understanding of how to adjust the settings on their camera and how to frame their images to get a variety of effects.

Here are a few of their solutions to capturing the idea of light and shadow:

Kennedy

Anna

Elise

Emma

Kathy

Krista

There are only a couple of weeks left before Dual Enrollment is over and I am very excited for what students have been working on for their final thesis. It will be fun to share what their solutions and ideas were as we close out the term and I look forward to seeing what my 7th and 8th graders do as we finish the 4th quarter strong!

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Week Four

2/16/2017

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#WIP

Students really started applying all of the demonstrations we went over last week as they made final sketches before diving into creating the work for this Challenge. The theme this time around is Biography/Autobiography. It has been fun to see the different people students have selected to highlight in this work and the narratives they have shared and created to turn their ideas into concrete works of art for others to see.

Here are some of the highlights as students make their work this week:

I even got in on the fun and was able to bring in elements of a piece I have been visiting for the last two months and finish it. I enjoy demonstrating my process to students so they can see how I struggle through solutions and work with a variety of media to figure out exactly how and if something is done.

Working side by side with my students is something I just started doing in the past few years (really since I adapted a choice-based or TAB studio). As my students were encouraged to become artists in their own right, I found it was more powerful if I did the same. This helps me practice what I teach and it helps students

Artist of Interest

This week, we watched the TEDx clip of Austin Kleon's talk, "Steal Like an Artist." I show this to students to encourage them to gather ideas and use them to make new work. I even took part of one class period to do some independent research and writing about artists using Scholastic Art Magazine.

I love using this resource in my classroom because it is easy to get students to use it and the content is so rich for our subject area. It is always fun to see what students select as being the work they want to write about and why. My hope through doing activities like these is that students will be able to "Steal Like an Artist" and use the ideas offered in ways that make sense in their own work.

Here are some of the responses given:

Movement

The second assignment in our DE Intro to Photo for Non-Majors course is all about capturing movement. Students worked on various methods and means to capture motion with most of the focus being on controlling the aperture and shutter speed.

Here are some of the highlights from their work with this challenge:

Kathy

Krista

Kennedy

Elise

Do What You Love

February is tough. At least it always seems to be for me. I wish I could say it was easy because it is so short, but it is not. I think that is why it is a shorter month. And although everything is starting to come to a fever-pitch with competition deadlines and notifications, it is nice to come back from lunch to a note like this on my board.

I love what I do and am so thankful I get to go it. I cannot imagine anything other than being an Art Teacher to children, even when it gets a bit tough.

Share The Love

I love to share what we do in the classroom with others. I talk to my students all of time about how their work is being viewed by teachers from across the country and that they are really the thought-leaders and models for what great Art Education looks like.

This weekend, the sharing continued as I participated in The Art of Education Online Conference. I shared how I transitioned my classroom to choice and I really cannot imagine a better decision I have ever made in my career.

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Week One

1/29/2017

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Start by Making

As I have done for years now, I started the first day of the new semester with new students and with clay. It was great to share past Empty Bowls experiences with students and get their hands busy with making right away. I look forward to our event to raise food and funds for our local food bank later this Spring. I will post more details on that as we get closer to the date.

Setting the Tone

One new thing I tried with my students this week was a scavenger hunt. I was inspired by other art teachers out there who shared their ideas about getting students familiar with the room and materials through something like this and found this resource as a great help to doing it for my students. I of course adapted it to fit our needs and space, but it did not need much adjusting to work wonderfully in my classroom.

I feel this activity really has allowed students to see themselves as a resource and to rely on their ability to work together in order to get things done.

The Dot

One of my favorite ways to start out the first week is to use Peter H. Reynolds' "The Dot" as a springboard for my students to get working with materials. And since we did the scavenger hunt, they knew exactly where all of the materials are kept!

I have a three year plan for these spheres before I consider the project complete. Last year we made medium sized ones and this year we made smaller ones that were tiered on each other. Next year, I plan to make LARGE ones that will hang in the middle of the installation. Then I will need to move onto something else, I suppose.

In order to make the sphere you need 20 circles that you fold into triangles. You then glue two sets of five as shown above and then a row of ten that makes up the middle. It is very quick and easy to put together and students are always impressed with how quickly the flat shapes morph into a a 3D form.

Here are some finished pieces before they were folded and made into spheres.

Oliver M.: The meaning of "The Dot" is about how she din't think she was good at art but truly deep down she had a determination/inspiration for art and how she thinks of it. I did my dot because I really like to make make landscapes. I hope to inspire other people to try out to make different types of art.

Ella P.: The dot story means and shows that anyone can make anything and turn it into art, it connects to my dot that I made because I have been fascinated with Mandalas since I saw them. They have so many cool designs and shapes that make up this flower.

Avery Z,: The dot story represents the will to try and not to worry about the outcome. This deeply affected what I put on my dot for this project. Spelled throughout the dot is the word 'try' to remind people to do their best and try.

Marie B.: "The Dot" is a story about how you can use art and any type of talent to inspire others. This piece of artwork relates to "The Dot" story because it inspires people to live their life colorfully. As you might see the art piece represents a piano. Usually piano's black and white. Generally pretty boring. But by adding colors of the rainbow to the piece it shows that we can inspire people to add color to anything boring or bad in their life. Living a colorful life means to add happiness and interest to your own life.

Dual Enrollment Assignment One Done

Students in my Dual Enrollment class finished their first Photography Assignment and presented their work to the class Thursday. The first assignment's focus was on changing perspective and seeing things in ways that is not your typical view. It was fun to see what subjects students decided to focus on for this assignment and to put their new understandings of the manual camera settings to work. Here are some of the results:

Kathy

Elise

Krista

Anna

Kennedy

Emma

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Back to it

1/26/2016

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This week marks a fresh start in Art Teacher world. A new semester means class changes and new groups of students, most of whom have never had me as a teacher before.

Last week, as we finished up the semester, I was so thankful to have volunteers stay after school to help me accomplish a massive labeling task! As a teacher who lets kids loose with materials, I have learned that there is no such thing as being too organized. The response from students have been nothing but smiles when they see the neatly organized areas shown:

This week marks a fresh start in Art Teacher world. A new semester means class changes and new groups of students, most of whom have never had me as a teacher before.

So far this week, we have worked with clay on the first day, signed up on Schoology, and started getting our portfolios in order.

I also started a new class with my Dual Enrollment students this Spring. I have been teaching for KCAD in the Dual Enrollment for about six years. This is the third time I have taught Color because we alternate offerings for our students each year. This is also the first time that all the students enrolled have had be as a teacher in the past - many as a part of my After School Art Class.

It has been a delight to start again with these guys and see how they have grown in their talents. I am especially excited to see them develop their understanding of color through skill based drills into more creative expressions.

After School Art students are also hard at work with their class banner. This year they decided to use Emojis for their #classof2020 sign to hang in the cafeteria.

And finally, I want to thank all of the readers out there who have been stopping by to check out our work. Thanks to those who voted, this blog just got a 3rd place finish in The Art of Education Blog of the Year contest.

I started this blog as a way to reflect and share - it has really become such a fun five years of writing and posting!

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Finishing Up with DE

Architecture Almost Complete

Working on ArtPrize10

Working

Panels Complete

Miniature Hideaways

Meijer Great Choices

Portfolio Names

Logo Designs

Starting Photoshop Challenge 1

Still Painting Those Panels

Adjective Forms

MAEA Region 9 Results

New Semester with New Students

Empty Bowls

Henna Hands

Collaboratives

Drawing in Space

#FirstMillion Funding

Finishing up the Semester

3Doodler Fun

Week One of DE

KCAD DE Complete

Elise: Shine

Kathy: Made in the U.S.A

Krista: Life Cycles

Anna: Childhood Dangers

Emma: Double Vision

Kennedy: Dark Shadows

Back from Break

Photoshop Challenge 2

Observational Drawing

Mixed Media Speed Dating

​Light and Shadow

#WIP

Artist of Interest

Movement

Do What You Love

Share The Love

Start by Making

Setting the Tone

The Dot

Dual Enrollment ​Assignment One Done

Archives

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Light and Shadow

Dual Enrollment Assignment One Done