Nightmare! Then, Not So Much

Have you seen that project that has students making ancient-Greek-style vases out of paper and then putting them on paper columns?  I don't remember where I saw it, but I thought it would be fun and easy for my students (HA!)
The first class to make the columns STRUGGLED, it was awful.  I needed octopus arms to help them all, and I, unfortunately, don't have octopus arms.
Here's what the first group's looked like after the first day:

Note the randomness and how most are unfolded/unglued.

Obviously, that wasn't working, so I made a how to video for the folding part:

It was easier with the remaining two groups, but still challenging.  Here's a comparison to the first students (these students had the benefit of the video):

I think everyone but one student got theirs folded and glued.

For the vase part, students designed their own (folded the paper, drew and cut them out).  They did their design with pencil, traced with ultra-fine Sharpie and used colored pencils:

I do like the contrast of the dark blue with tan better than the gray on light blue. But after all we went through to get them done, I don't know that this is an every year sort of project.

Eight More School Days Until Winter Break

And OH BOY, I hope I make it.  Kids are WILD this year.  Like, beyond anything I can remember.  If you've seen the video on facebook with teachers acting out a class during December, that's pretty much every class I have right now.  
We're trying to stay focused and busy (HA!) with work.  Sixth graders are finishing up their version of Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party (blog post and photos coming soon), and let me tell you, sixth grade as the last class of the day is not my idea of a good time, fifth graders are working on some super-awesome Picasso-style large "posters" (I'll post specifics when we're done), fourth graders are starting their Mexican crafts unit, third graders are doing some symmetrical name designs, second graders are making calendars with cut paper, first graders are insane with Santa fever right now, so we're being art factories making texture rubbings, and my kindergarteners are all over the place, so I decided to paint with them because insanity is catching.  I did look through my blog archives to link more lessons, and I didn't blog about many of them--maybe because I'm always so ready for a break this time of year that it's never a priority?! And I'm so over-caffeinated that I'm going a mile a minute just to keep up with Christmas-crazed kids!
Whew, I hope you're all hanging in there, and winter break can hurry on up! (and then slow way down while we're all home in our jammies).

Ready or Not, HERE THEY COME!

If you've taught for a bit you know that back to school means more meetings than prep time, and if you're one of those come-weeks-early-and-get-your-room-perfectly-prepared then this is probably not the post for you.
Here's my room two days before students return:

Randomness abounds and NOTHING is up on the walls.  No new supplies in bins.  See those piles in the foreground on the table?  Those are all the sketchbooks that need copying.  I did try to copy them, and broke/jammed the copier.  Twice.
I did get two real things accomplished before Meet Your Teacher:

The hallway bulletin board that every child getting off the bus sees.
And my poster outside my door for this year:

The black strips are photos of student projects made to look like
old film strips--all thanks to my fabulous with Photo Shop husband.

It will all come together, I promise.  This year WILL BE FABULOUS.  Students will learn, time will march on.
Happy art teaching, friends! Hold on to your hats!

WWRB Say?

What WOULD Romare Bearden say about this stinker of a lesson?
Maybe I should title this post "A Sincere Apology to Romare Bearden."  Big SIGH.  This was maybe a bit successful? Mostly not?  I don't think the students really 'got it' and it shows in their work.
We started out learning about Romare Bearden and looking at his work via a scrolling powerpoint of images.  Then we painted blocks of color for backgrounds (using tempera cakes):

Then I made my (first) crucial mistake: I had the students cut anything that interested them out of magazines and allowed them to glue them to their papers.  What happened?  A mish-mash of images with no cohesion:

Some kind of got it:

But they still felt random, and like students were just gluing random pictures on a piece of paper (which many of them were).  I tried to reign it in and get them back on track and didn't let them glue, had them build their composition first, and eh:

I thought maybe adding some oil pastel would help:

Finally, I decided we had to move on, so we finished and added some what I learned/what I want the viewer to know sheets:

Sorry for the blurry photo--it says
When I did this project I learned: "putting different things together."
Something I want you to know about my artwork:
"it is outside showing a house."

All in all, not a truly terrible lesson.  Also not one I'd repeat without some major changes.
Sorry, Romare Bearden!

If You're Gonna Use A Marker, Put A Lid On It

SERIOUSLY!

See that purple one over on the far right with no lid? That's AFTER I had students check them.  Grrrrrrr!
Both fourth and fifth grades have been using them for projects.  Fifth's Underground Railroad Shrinky-Dink necklaces, and fourth's Mexican tinwork frames.
I've had some difficulties with the Underground Railroad Quilt Necklaces this year: the first class I did, the sweetest, nicest kid in the class' got ruined/stuck to the cardboard.  Ditto the next day.  TODAY, I started a small fire.  In the project kitchen oven.  Like, flames and everything, and I had no idea what to do.  Another teacher grabbed salt and threw it on (until we ran out).  This was all that was left of that student's work:

And, OH BOY, what a smell!  The cardboard was also burning and ash was floating in the air, causing a para to walk in and say "why are there gnats in here????"
When I returned (the non-melted) quilt necklaces to the rest of the class, I had to confess to the student who's work was ruined, and guess what??? Yep, one of the nicest students in the whole fifth grade.  I am so ready for this long weekend, I need a break from teaching catching things on fire.

When I've recovered I'll come back and blog about my wonderful kindergarten and adaptive student work from this week.  Enjoy your day, art teacher friends!

Self Portraits and One Unhappy Art Teacher

Fourth grade is busy at work, drawing their self portraits like Frida Kahlo.  We're still adding our details, but their drawing skills are so very good this year:

I thought about having them color with colored pencil, but it takes forever and I was really happy with the painted ones from a few years ago, so we'll stick with outlining in ultra-fine-Sharpie and paint.

Fifth grade is also working on self portraits.  After making Queen Elizabeth I, we're making ourselves as president (except one student who's making her mom as president, and doing an AMAZING job).  This year, we took notes comparing monarchies and democracies, focusing on art's role.  Like, with a portrait of royalty, they need to look noble, (ie better than us), smart, powerful and wealthy.  Presidents need to look smart, approachable and in control (but not all-powerful).  We drew with pencil and are starting our oil pastel:

We'll work some symbols of America into the backgrounds.  I also want them to do some writing when they're done, a sort of narrative about themselves as president, what they accomplished during their presidency, etc.

We had to add her eyelids in, she had a bit of a wicked look without them!

Student's mom as president, I can't wait for her to see it,
as her daughter really captured her likeness!
(The chin's a bit long, but we'll work on it)

As for the unhappy art teacher bit, I had a total meltdown in sixth grade yesterday.  Picture it: I had half the room working with gelli plates and our faux gelli plates while the other half was making stamps for adinkra printing when I look over and see students using brayers like paint rollers, just covering their whole papers and LOST IT. "WHY are we doing this?? WHY am I busting my behind dragging all this stuff out and cleaning it up if you're just DOING THAT?"  I explained the possibilities AGAIN and then a student looks right at me and paints his paper with his brayer, using his gelli plate as a pallet, and friends, I had to leave the room.  Get out in the hall for some fresh air.  They're a nice group of students, so it was DEAD SILENT in there and I was losing my mind.  We all survived the class period, (at least I can say that) and when I talked to the classroom teacher at the end of the day she said they came back and said "We made her really mad." When their classroom teacher said "Did you apologize?" they replied "No, we thought it'd make it worse."  Smart kids.

We'll soldier on, and I'll narrow it down some more with the gelli printing to get some decent prints out of this if it's at all possible.  I just LOVE gelli printing so much.  Maybe I should take a day off to gelli print for eight hours. . . .hmmmm, that's really something to consider!

You Know You're an Art Teacher When

 You know you're an art teacher when you take a selfie with a huge papier mache sarcophagus and send it to friends.  Seriously, this thing is BIG:

And it "lives" in the basement art room of my second school.  The art teacher who put it there bought it at a garage sale.  I really want someone to hide in it and jump out.  Not to scare me, of course, but scaring someone else would be hilarious!
You also know you're an art teacher when things go horribly, disasterly wrong, and you keep on truckin' right through that lesson even though you want to cry.  Laughing at this point is recommended.
Remember this video? And my plan to have students make their own gelli plates?  Well, we did it:

Aren't you so impressed?  Yeah, me either.  But I'd already poured a million dollars into this (ok, so really only about $175, and PTA paid for it + my generous principal reimbursed me for my out of pocket expense, but STILL) so I was bound and determined to make it work.
We started with the lids from tempera cakes:

And used the 7 packets-gelatin-11/2 cups-glycerin-1 1/2 cups-boiling-water recipe and got this:

But for some reason they didn't set up well like when I did them at home:

And did I check them before whipping them out of the cafeteria refrigerator to have a class of 28 use them??? Of course not! Ain't nobody got time for that! So we ended up with a GIANT mess of gelatin, glycerin, acrylic paint and brayers:

AND my classes are back-to-back, so I had fourth grade and third grade after this disaster.

But NO WAY was I going to let anything like a lesson/experiment going horribly awry stop me!  So I scooped what I could of the faux gelli plates back into the tempera cake lids and microwaved them for 2 minutes (one lid melted a bit, and then I knew to more closely monitor the microwaves) and got this:

See how all the paint mixed in?  So what?  They still work!

There's six like this.  All different colors.  They kind of look like
some sort of coral reef/ocean thing.

Then I decided to actually learn from my mistakes and try it out before having the students do it, and this is what I got:

Totally happy with it.  And if students produce quality work it's all worth it, right art teachers????