This animation is just so clever. I’ve just received an awesome gift that should make creating projects like this a snap- a flip mino camera. I’ll post some samples of the video soon- so far I’m finding that it’s a great little tool that my students will love using.

I was lucky enough to attend a day of the November Learning Conference yesterday, which was an inspiring experience.  After hearing some of the fabulous ideas at BLC08 today, I’m impatient to start planning for this coming school year.  Unsurprisingly, one presentation that made me wiggle in my seat thinking about new possibilities was Joyce Valenza’s allegory of Pandora- where she challenged her audience to open their boxes, to ensure that all of these new tools are available to learners, that we invite our students into the teaching process, and do it all while practicing ethical use of information and media.  It’s funny, I must have had what was similar to parental pride while watching my mom present, observing the excitement and admiration of the crowd. She was fabulous.

One issue I’m expecting to encounter is the wait, however.  It seems that sharing our work is a “no no” in my school right now, while we decide as a school community what our policies are for online media.  I find myself trying to think of ways to get around parental and administrative concerns through things like audio podcasting, which was beautifully illustrated in Bob Sprankle’s Room 208 Podcasts. How do you skip around the safety and anonymity concerns in your school while still sharing and collaborating with these wonderful new tools and strategies?

^{© David Shrigley}

I love this guy.
Simple, clever, funny. There should be more artists like him.

^{© David Shrigley}

Javan Ivey, a student at Pratt Institute, created this video using the “Stratastencil” technique, which seems like a great, yet challenging, project to do with a high school group. Unfortunately, difficult is an understatement for elementary students; a ton of X-Acto knife blades in the hands of reckless 12 year-olds, strict attention to detail, and the patience to continue without instant gratification. Who am I kidding? These are problems that I’d have doing this, too.

Ivey explains the process in great detail on his website, amongst many other projects to get inspiration from. (BTW-The audio track on that particular video is not kid-safe due to language)

There is no end to my longing for a computer lab in my school. Oh, the magnificent things we could create! I should research the grants available for this…

Here are a few more sketches of mine:

Yesterday, I experimented with two upper elementary students to make drawing tools out of things we found laying around. Some of the most useful tools were:

• feathers, their plumes uses as brushes/stamps, their quills used as pens
• beads glued to string and dragged across paper
• hot chocolate as ink
• long dowels attached to just about anything
• burlap dipped in ink
• paper rolled in tubes and used as brushes
• our feet!

I’m still going strong on my drawing-a-day challenge, and will post some new images soon to prove it! My students and colleagues are doing a great job keeping up on their own challenges too, I feel quite proud.

Sarah Haskell has just arrived at Kingsley to begin her Artist-In-Residence weaving for the month of February. The students at the preschool building went wild for the new loom and the colorful materials we’ll be using.  It’s always exciting to see very young students dive into an array of bright, textured mixed media materials… despite the minor chaos that ensues.  I enjoyed making little clothespin people with the elementary students and watching the details they chose to add. One student gave her clothespin person a mohawk made of felt, another made a shirtless boy with a fishing pole, and one even made a  scooter out of pipe cleaners and shirt buttons for her clothespin person to ride.

I started a time-lapse video of the whole process, and will be slowly compiling two movies, one for the preschool building and one for the elementary building. We’ll see if I’ve got enough gigs on my laptop to continue this for the next two and a half weeks! If I can pull it off, it should be a lot of fun to watch, although I won’t be able to share it on the web, for the privacy of my lovely students.

I love to paint self-portraits, obsessively, as a form of introspection, a way to express what I want the world to see, almost a dissection of my face. Great, you say, so what’s the problem?

As an art teacher the subject has to seep it’s way into what I teach sooner or later, and can have mixed results. Most notably, it is difficult to draw the face, and HARDER to make it look like someone in particular. I struggle with getting a likeness of my face that I’ve been drawing for over 20 years. How do I share this love of self-portraiture with students who can be unsure of their abilities, and more importantly, how can I give them a successful experience when some students would rather not look at themselves in the first place?

Self-portraiture is inextricably linked with our egos and how we feel about ourselves, so the lesson becomes more about self-acceptance than mere proportions, observation and drawing techniques. I begin to share what I think are my own flaws with the students, laying it all out on the carpet in front of them and then I twist it around into a positive.

When I taught an 8th grade self-portraiture class, a student could not begin. He had become overwhelmed by staring at the acne he saw in his reflection. I sat down next to him and I wiped off the concealer on my face. “Everyone has pimples” I said. And he began working.

As teachers, I hope we’re all showing our students our proverbial pimples. They need to see them once in a while.

I love introducing Hundertwasser to students who have never seen his work before.  Without fail there are awed “ooohs” and “ahhhhs” throughout the room.  These oil pastels, however, give me the same emotion.

I love looking at these, the combination of saturated color, black background and gold highlights is so rich!

For full sized images, check out the flickr gallery.

Check the flickr link to the right for more work!

I’ve neglected this blog for a few reasons, the main reason being that it’s tedious to record your progress and ideas to a seemingly empty audience. So, instead I focused myself on making a kick-ass curriculum and pushing our art students in ways they never expected. I am excited by the work we are creating together, and now I feel the urge to share with the world again, whether or not it is listening.

On January 31st our entire school community- students, parents, faculty and administration – are invited to challenge themselves to be creative for 15 minutes each day for a month. This can be keeping a sketchbook, writing in a journal, making a collage, or any other artistic endeavor that can be collected throughout the challenge. At the end of the month, anyone who chose to participate can show their work at an exhibition to celebrate.

I’ve chosen to keep a small sketchbook and do observational studies on my subway commute home from work, which has been an interesting project so far! A student has already approached me to mention she they will be making a crocheted rose each day, and at the end of the month piece them together to make an assembled garment. A colleague mentioned that he will be taking a photograph each day. It is energizing to get immediate and enthusiastic responses from so many here at my school.

(Here’s a link to a great list of prompts for those who need a little help acquiring inspiration.)