a completely unproductive productive day!

I love my Wednesdays...

With our schools schedules I am blessed with 3 plan periods on Wednesday... because I don't have full plan periods any other day.  They are my rockstar days when I get so much done (which is awesome since I feel more behind than ever this year).  This morning I walked into the house from my 5:15 a.m. exercise class and my husband met me with, "J is puking and I have that huge job lined up today." (translation: you are going to have to take this one.)  So I called the sub service, ran up to school and got everything ready.

My day was awesomely productive at home (a sick 8 year old doesn't require much work... just some peanut butter toast and tea from time to time).  I did 4 loads of laundry.  I pulled wallpaper off 1/3 of our bedroom wall (whomever put it up really liked their wallpaper paste).  I cleaned one of the storage closets (this house has like 4 of them) and started putting things away.  I made lunch, supper and kept a 2 year old entertained.

My school day was absolutely unproductive (note 2 year old from above).  I am working on catching up from home and will head in early tomorrow morning but I thought I should share what the sub did with my kiddos' today.  Thanks to Artsonia's Classroom I was able to see what the kids were completing and uploading throughout the day.

The sub (a former student teacher) was introducing them to atmospheric perspective and they were to use changing values and details to create an image on the paint program.  Here are a few of  what I was expecting:

and a few of them I still love even though I think they could use a little more detail in the foreground.

Anyone else thinking of a lava lamp...

this one makes  my eyes go crazy...

This students artist statement shared that this one makes her think of the Lion King when they enter the elephant graveyard... love it!

I am trying to decide what is up front... and I love that!

Check out more of them at Artsonia.

COLOR WHEELS

or is it 

colar wheells 

or

colerwehls

or 

coller weels

Wow!  I am so glad I am not an English teacher. I have spent the last two days creating color wheels in the computer lab with my 5th graders.  Part of their assignment is to upload through artsonia and write an artist statement.  We talked about what they should look like and I showed examples of good and bad artist statements.  But I wasn't prepared for what I was about to get:  

holymiss.pelled run one sentences batman! most of mystudents must knot hve listennned about punctuation capitaLization or that fact that u is not a word and i am important enough to bee a I. 

Don't get me wrong, we have AMAZING English teachers in our district but I can see how texting and spell checking have affected our writers.  

But onto happier news. 

The color wheels are turning out awesome.  Some of the kiddo's are struggling with the yellow orange, orange, red orange transition but most are rocking them.  

You can check out more of them (and my somewhat spell checked artist statements) at ARTSONIA

...and you can try to guess what I demonstrated during class.

(It was the 6 pointed star)

A fun one to share...

Yesterday was the first snow of the year...

it was the wet, clumpy, slushy sort of snow that was on rooftops in the morning but gone by 9 am.  

Today is just the cold, damp day after.

Therefore we are making BEAUTIFUL, LONG LASTING snowflakes today in art class!

I stumbled upon the Make-a-Flake site 

and knew it would work perfect for those kiddo's who finished their Bruce Gray images early.  

my example

The kiddo's love making them, remaking them, cutting more and exploring this project.  It is a really neat site!

I am having the kiddo's upload them artsonia (using their awesome artsonia.com/class).

and I am thinking they could make a fun project for exploring picassa... look at what I created in a few clicks and a few minutes. 

Shape Monsters on Facebook

One of our earlier projects was to create monster collages using a minimum of 3 geometric shapes and 5 organic shapes.  The kids had a lot of fun designing these creative creatures. I was proud of how hard they worked on their collages.

They did some really great things...

I love how this monster has only one arm... just like the student who created it!

I love that they used tracing paper to make their monster look like it was under water.

this is a close up.. had to share the fringe detail on this coat!  

and one flying  a 3-d plane!

When they were done talking about shapes we moved onto forms.  I had them redraw their monster as form... focusing on using shading.  They did this by creating a facebook profile for their monster.  I loved reading all about their monsters facts. 

Here are some side by sides...

Tackling the Clay!

I won't lie... I have a love and hate relationship with clay.
It is a magical and it is messy.
It is amazingly fun and absolutely tiring.
It is everywhere but everyone loves it.

So once again it is time to tackle the magical medium.  This year I am super excited to use the slab roller I was able to purchase using artsonia money from last year's snap my art fundraiser!

And since I am all about giving kids a little bit of choice... I showed them how to create a clay

pinwheel 

or 

trivet

I demo'd in class but some of the kiddo's were gone and others may have questions so I made this video demonstration that will play in a loop during class tomorrow.  I won't win any Oscars (and the music will drive you crazy... hit the mute) but it will serve my purpose.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmktpULhr70

Makes my day!

I love studying living artists as it helps students realize that they really can make a living doing what they love.  It makes me think of students like Baden who told me, "I am either going to be a professional football player or a professional artist." Students see professional football/basketball/soccer players all the time but rarely see a professional artist.  I also love that you can interact with them.  A while back we looked at Ben Heine's work and chatted with him via email.  Today I sent an email to Bruce Gray and heard back from him!  (insert giddy face here)  I can't wait to tell the kiddo's on Wednesday.

I also love days when you see a special kid who has made HUGE progress blossom.  When Alex started in my class he spent most of the time bent over under the desk.  The iPad was the only way I could get him to interact with me.  Fast forward 2 years to today when he was able to handle a class demonstration, music during work time and come up to share with me his clay project sketch.  Gotta love this smile!

One Awesome Kiddo!

and a close up of his sketch...complete with wind!

Inspired by Bruce Gray

I saw this picture by Bruce Gray online last year...

and thought it would be an great inspiration for a paint project on the computer. 

So I looked up Mr. Gray and found he has a website filled with images.

He also has an awesome video tour of his studio.  

We start the lesson by watching his video and talking about what we see.  We talk about what sorts of artwork we see and we look for his paintings.  Focusing on his paintings, we discuss his use of unity and variety (repeat one shape but change the colors).  Then I demonstrate how to use the paint program on the computer to repeat a shape over and over.  Then we discuss filling the shapes with different colors.  Then they get to work and I love how they turn out...

check out more at artsonia