Stress Relief

Last fall when the stress of adding 1 then 2 classes to my schedule along with some other health concerns at home, I picked up my crochet needles. I don't like to follow patterns when I'm trying to relax so I just made square washcloths for Xmas gifts. Liked 'em so much I decided to make more for my classroom...

These are all made out of Lily's Cream n Sugar cotton yarns.

I think my favorite color is the rainbow multi color - bright color-wheel colors! Perfect for the Art room...

After trying out several different sizes & shapes, I think the 5" square or circular shape fits the hand of my cleaner-uppers best. The kids love using the washcloths & I like the fact that they can be washed after a hard day's use (thus becoming germ-free). I use them for quick paint clean-up and they make the tables look like new afterwards...

Gotta Love those Kinders

I'm not one to usually use templates but with kinders I sometimes make exceptions. We were doing a 3 day project that included painting, tracing, cutting with a scissors and gadget printing. I decided to create 3 different fish shapes for the students to choose from to trace on the back of their paintings...

As the kids made their choices, I began to have misgivings about creating 'cookie cutter' art - where every project pretty much looks like every other one. Leave it to the kinder kids to put their own distinct style on tracing & cutting when I wasn't looking...

Gotta love 'em...

4th Annual Mutant Pinata Show

Bragg’s Pie Factory in Phoenix hosted the 4th Annual Mutant Pinata Show during the Art Detour weekend Saturday March 19th and Sunday March 20th. Students and artists from across the Valley here had their work exhibited in their space.

I took some pix of sculptures made by students at another of our district's K-5 schools. There was Little Kitty...

Dora the Explorer...

and some unique one-of-a-kind creatures.

Don't you love the push pin details on this mixed media example?!

This is their teacher's self-potrait version:

Notice her hands? Look familiar?

Check her blog to see more pix of this great work.

Lifelong Learner in the Art room

Although I'm approaching my 2 yr. anniversary as a blogger, I continue to learn something new everyday from my fellow bloggers. Just had to share this recent post, All of My Blogging Advice in One Place from one of my favorite tech bloggers - Free Technology for Teachers in case you missed it...

If you have a favorite tech site, please share!

Drawing lessons

The week before Spring Break was also quarterly testing for us - what a good idea, don't you think? So of course the kids were a bit squirrely by the time they made it to the special area classes. So for those grade levels that had finished their current projects, we did step-by-step drawings rather than starting our next long term project. I used this book for inspiration...

Here are the steps I used so the 1st graders could create an alien monster:

Once the basic drawing was done, it was time for personalized details...

along with foreground and background:

Some classes had time to add color. Hope your kids enjoy the drawing exercise as much as my kids did!

Wabi sabi '12

As soon as I get back from break this week, I'll have to start firing my Wabi Sabi pots...

I have 6 or 7 trays full to go into the kiln...

There are a few standout so far...

You can see examples from last spring in a previous post here.

Ceramic Studio Tour '12, final artists

In my previous posts, I shared the ceramic art of several artists. In this final wrap-up I'll talk about the last 2 artists on the tour.

Susan Risi used slab construction to make unusual mugs and sculptures.

In her demo, you can see how she stamped a variety of textures on the slab before wrapping it into her cylinder shape.

Her pot handle was a curved cone shape, supported temporarily by a chunk of clay until the handle dried sufficiently.

Her totem was a real eye-catcher!

You can see more of her pots here.

Esmeralda Delaney specializes in mosaics. She was working on this piece the day of the tour...

Here are some small versions of her technique.

I thought this small plate was interesting...

but the best part were the 'feet' on the bottom!

you can see more of her work here.

Hope you've enjoyed seeing all the wonderful works on the '12 Tour. Since I only stopped at 3 studios, I know there is much more to see at next year's! I'll have to set aside the entire weekend to have any hope of seeing most of it...

Ceramic Studio Tour '12, last stop: Part 1

One of my favorite artists on the tour was Deborah Hodder (her day job is a full-time elementary art teacher here in Phoenix). Perhaps because I could easily transfer her ceramic creations into classroom projects for my K-5 students. Of course they couldn't compete with hers but her work showed some basic construction techniques that could be reproduced simply.

These mugs were LOVELY featuring simple slab work with fabulous pattern and texture.

The hearts were hollow and again featured her unique pattern and texture details.

Her potrait pots were amazing and started with a simple coil construction. Coils were about 1" thick as was the base.

Once she has the height she desires, the coils (inside and outside) are smoothed/joined with a rib tool.

Then she begins to push and pull out the thick walls of the pot to form her facial portraits...

The finished pots are AMAZING!

See more of her pots here.

There were also portraits that she created out of paper pulp...

I bet some of you jr high and high school art teachers could have some fun with this!