One of my favorite blogs!

Here's a link to one of my favorite Art Education blogs, Deep Space Sparkle.
http://www.deepspacesparkle.com/
She's got so many great ideas, and I LOVE that she adds images!
Check her out!

Fall & Spring drawings

One of my favorite things to show the kids is their progress with their skills.

The first day of Art this year, I had EVERYONE, kindergarten through 5th grade, fold a 12x18 white drawing paper in half to make 4 "pages" and do 4 drawings: a design with their name, a self portrait, a shoe, and a flower vase.
The challenge is that they have 5 minutes at each station and they have to do all 4.

Now, the fun part is we're doing the exact same thing on the last days of school!

The first thing kids will say is "We've done this!"

(I hate this comment. My response is always "Have you done it today? With me? Well, then you'll be a professional!")

The kids get into the same routine, and the results are amazing! They have grown so much, physically, emotionally, and creatively.

Check out the progress!

*One bit of advice: Do the Spring drawings about a month before the end of school (or risk student's excitement for the end of the year making their drawings poor.)

Just has to be yours?

You may be wondering what this means...

2 years ago, I had a 5th grade boy student who was super frustrated w/ his drawing. He just couldn't get what was in his head onto his paper.

The girl next to him saw his frustrations growing, and said to him "It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be yours."This was PROFOUND. And, it came out of the mouth of a 5th grade girl!

Something in me needed to write it down and tell everyone. (I do this often if something strikes me!)

When I tell people I'm an Art teacher, they say 2 things:
1. "Oh fun!"
2. "I can't draw to save my life."

I hate when people say #2. It's not about how good you are compared to someone else, but it's about doing something that makes you happy and you enjoy.

No matter if it's a realistic drawing of Neil Diamond or a stick person snowman, "it doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be yours."

Fabric Designs with 3rd & 4th Grades

Looking through my "junk yard" of a supply closet, I see that there is a plethora of unused fabric scraps. I think "Let's use that up and make room for more junk!"

Dilemma of the elementary Art teacher: just because there's materials for a project doesn't mean there's enough for 100+. At my school, there are ~25 kids per class, and we have ~4 classes per grade = 100+ kids.

Parents are very generous about saving their styrofoam plates, plastic cups, and yarn scraps, but the problem is finding a creative way to use them with an entire grade level of 100+ kids (or more.) I will usually tell parents that if you don't have enough for 100 kids, thanks, but no thanks. It's just too hard to make different projects for each class if there aren't enough of something.

For this "reusing" project, I had students use fabric scraps, yarn, and any other "junk" to create a picture. They could make a person, place, thing, or even an abstract patchwork design. I suggested they make a simple design as small details can be difficult to make with fabric and scissors.

They loved them!