Week #1

5th Grade 
This last week the students worked on finishing up their art cubes in their ELO's. When they came back to class we talked about Artsonia and how to use it. We then practiced uploading our cubes. Make sure you check them out... they are pretty awesome.

6th Grade
This week the 6th graders review Artsonia and uploaded their cubes. Then we started working on our upcoming projects... COLOR WHEELS. Students were given a color wheel worksheet and we watched this mind boggling video.

The students will work on making a color wheel of their choosing and then will share them with their classmates. I am excited to see how they turn out.

Wednesday
Our Wednesday classes are working on the art of textiles. The students are finishing up practicing their different type of stitches before they move onto creating an embroidery image. I will share some in-progress work next week.

Artsonia

It isn't a secret that I love Artsonia.

This website provides me with everything I want. It focuses on student safety. It allows my students to write about their artwork. It provides a path for parents, grandparents and friends to communicate with students about their projects. It helps me collect and gather digital artwork quickly and efficiently. I find it is super user friendly for me and the kids.

Finally, it also allows us to raise a few extra dollars for the art room. Sure I might only make a couple of hundred dollars a year but I really don't really push that side of the site (Artsonia sends enough emails for that 😉)

We are working on our first uploads this week. I am excited to see the year off to a great start. 

Getting Back at it...

I am working at getting back into the groove of the school year and back in the groove of blogging. It is my goal to create a place for my students (and their families) to review what we are doing in class each week. I am hoping to do a post of what we are working on, what is coming up and what we have finished.

This week we worked on getting to know one another. I started the year with my "get to know the art room" slideshow and a first assignment. The inspiration for this project came from a post on a facebook art teacher group page. I knew when I saw it that it would be a perfect way to collaborate and start the year off learning a bit more about each other.

Each student got a square and had to finish it in the following way.

We talked about how if everyone does this; we will learn who they are, something from their past and something from their future. If they color it this way we will also create a really cool 3-d looking wall. I am super excited to see what they make. 

This is my finished example. I remind them I have 30+ years of practice on them and then share how awesome it was when Mrs. Glanzer would draw a cake for everyones birthday in Kindergarten and how I dream of seeing the Eiffel Tower in Paris and the Coliseum in Rome. 

Coming Next Week:  I am going to introduce the students to Artsonia and we are going to upload our cube drawings before we install the collaboration. 

Hello Blog World - Hello 2018/19 School Year

So I have set a personal goal to get back to blogging. I really missing seeing what my kiddo's have been up to. We are only in the second week of seeing students so I figured I would share some things I did to get ready for the school year.

#1 Window Upgrade

My room has these awesome windows to the hallway. While I enjoy that people can see what we are doing, it can be distracting to some students to watch the kids walk by. Enter the window covering. Every year I glue something in my window... it is quickly washed off at the end of the year with some hot water and elbow grease. This year I used tissue paper and watered down glue to create this color swatch. The students love that you can only read "create" when the lights are on. 

#2 Classroom Chalkboard Border

I love the green area around my room. It is just paint but I treat it like a chalkboard (washing/repainting as needed). This year I asked the kids to tell me what they think art is on day one. I then took some of the 600+ answers and added them to the green areas around my room. I look forward to adding more next year. 

#3 Elements of Art Cubes

The last thing we are adding this year is not done yet. My 6th graders are reviewing the elements of art (we study them in 5th grade) by creating cubes. Each side focuses on an element of art with the "cube" representing form. As students finish them this week I will add them to the ceiling. 

Well that sure feels good.... the first post in a long time. I hope everyone is off to a great start of their school year. I hope you are getting those names learned and finding your home/school balance. 

Talk to you soon! 

Change

Sometimes your life changes in huge seismic ways... Sometimes change creeps into your life and slowly you become a different person.

A few years ago I feel in love with blogging. I loved reading blogs. I loved writing blogs. It was a beautiful time. Then came twitter. Then came Instagram. Then Facebook.

Then came the day I realized it was all just too much!

I was struggling to keep up my digital presence. My digital world had me looking really good. I was able to teach rock star lessons, take my kids amazing places, cook wonderful food, serve on every committee and do it all. The truth was I was spending A LOT of time making it look that way. Meanwhile my kids were growing up, quickly, and I was hooked to a computer or my phone for most of it.

Truth is, I have only one chance to be their mom and I was missing it! I was stressed out about doing the right things, posting the right things and I was addicted to making sure I knew everything.

I would feel myself getting stressed so I would quit everything cold turkey. No Facebook. No Instagram. No Feedly. No Twitter... and that would feel great but it would only last for so long. Like many addicts I found I couldn't just "check real quick" without getting sucked back into the constant need for info-tainment.

This summer I read a book called "Present over Perfect" by Shauna Niequist and it spoke to my heart in a way not many books have. It helped me see what I had been feeling for a while. The world is FULL of stuff. You have to choose the stuff that works for you. The stuff that makes you happy and fills your world. It is okay to set parameters... and to live by them.

I have realized that I do enjoy being a part of the amazing online community of art educators but that I need balance between being online and being present in my life. So... my posts and photos may be sporadic. They might not be perfectly edited and professionally photographed but they will be me. They will be me sharing the things I love without the pressure of perfection and during the time I have allotted for them. I am sure it will be a learning adventure but here we go.     -Jen

Some great advice

One of the guys who works with my husband was telling me about this artist he loves by the name of HR Giger. He was sharing how he had created all these images for some of his favorite movies.  Honestly I had never heard of him but sci-fi art isn't anything I have spent much time researching.

Today I took some time to look him up. He is a really interesting man and he creates some artwork I know some of my students would LOVE. You can find more about him by visiting his website. There was one piece from his website I knew I had to share. It is an example of a letter that his agent wrote to a person wanting advice. Here it is quoted directly from his website.

"Dear Aspiring Artist:

Here is my advice. Think of it as a five-year plan:

Take whatever courses you find the most interesting.

Study closely the work of the Old Masters.

Stop making art that originates only from your own imagination.

Stay with one technique until you perfect it.

On any given day, always be in the middle of reading a book. When you finish one, start the next. Fiction, nonfiction, biographies, autobiographies, history, science, psychology, or how to build a kite. Anything but go easy on the comic books.

Buy and read the first 6 pages of newspaper every day and also the editorial commentaries. Skip the entertainment section. Su Doku is fine. Do the crossword puzzle. 

Fill up a sketchbook every month with pen or pencil drawings of the world around you, not from your imagination.

Buy a book on figure drawing. It's the only art book you will ever need.

Until you can draw an accurate portrait of someone, you don’t know how to draw.

Stay away from the airbrush. You'll never master it, hardly anyone ever has.

Visit every museum in your city. Often, until you have seen everything in it. Every kind of museum. Not only the art museums but, of course, those as well.

Forget about contemporary art by living artists, at least for the next few years.

Stay away from most art galleries. Go to art auctions. That's where the real action is.

Learn to play chess.

Take a business course.

Talk to you mother or father at least once a week.

Stop going to the movies until you have rented and seen every film on this list.http://www.time.com/time/2005/100movies/the_complete_list.html

Do not watch television unless it’s the news or documentaries.

Do not use an Ipod. No video games, either.

Learn a foreign language.

Learn to cook.

Spend 8 hours in a hospital emergency room.

Save up money so you can travel to a foreign country within the next five years.

Do not litter.

Avoid politically correct people.

Vote in every election or never dare to utter a political opinion. You are not entitled to one.

Buy a digital camera and take photos every day.

If you see nothing interesting to photograph, you will never be a good artist. Keep only one photo of every ten you take. Delete the rest. It will force you to learn how to edit the garbage from your life, to make choices, to recognize what has real value and what is superficial.

Visit an old age home.

Listen to classical music and jazz. If you are unable to appreciate it at least as much as contemporary music, you lack the sensitivity to develop into an artist of any real depth.

Go to the ballet. Classical or Modern, it doesn't matter. It will teach you to appreciate physical grace and the relationship between sound and movement.

Wake up every morning no later than 8 AM, regardless of what time you went to sleep.

Learn to play a musical instrument.

Learn to swim.

Keep your word.

Never explain your art. People who ask you to do so are idiots. 

Never explain yourself. Better yet, never do anything that will, later, require you to explain yourself or to say you're sorry.

Always use spell check.

Stop aspiring and start doing.

This will keep you very busy but it can't be helped.

In my opinion, this is how you might, possibly, have a shot at becoming a good artist. 

Hope this helps,

Les Barany"

I JUST LOVE THIS! 

Such great advice.

Emotional Emoji's

My 5th graders were finishing up a lesson on color when we decided to review shapes, lines and colors with this fun project. I had them select an emoji they loved. They they had to choose a color(s) that would reflect the same emotion. Finally they had to select lines that showed their emotion. We put all the parts together and finished them with oil pastels. I love them!

Crazy

Thoughtful

Sad

Frustrated

Confused

Silently Scared

Tired

You can check out more over at our Artsonia site.