They Run on Brains, Not Batteries

So I was reading another blog and was watching the video clip on how crayola crayons were made. While looking around I found this classic crayon commercial and thought it was cute and very realistic. I know that I spent many hours drawing and trying to think up names and create stories for my characters. This video really shows you that not much changes over the years when you hand a pack of crayons to a child.

In Full Swing

This year is already flying by. School is in full swing and so are all my art projects.

Kindergarten is doing Overlapping Hands.

1st grade is almost finished with the Jungle Collage.

2nd grade just finished the Still-Life Drawing.

3rd grade just started Landscape Watercolor Resist.

4th grade also just started the Still-Life Oil Pastel.

5th is really close to finishing the Metal Repousse.

and 6th grade is struggling through Straight-Ahead and 3/4 Viewpoint portrait drawings.

K-5th projects are going well and are very familiar at this point. However, 6th grade life drawing is a struggle each year. I try and change it a little each time I teach it to make lesson a little easier for the students to understand and apply. The students quickly get bored and lose motivation. I believe they are not feeling successful enough. When ever I see a the "light bulb" go off and the student understands the techniques I am teaching them are able apply those techniques to their drawing. They become much more enthusiastic about their work and want to keep going. I am following a curriculum that was set up by the current middle school/high school art teacher. I respect him so much but there are times I struggle with one or two of the projects. Sometimes it is hard to remember that this is my classroom and I have to do things that work for me and my students.

"An Artist's View" Bulletin Board

So, blogging is quite a new experience and I want to share all my experiences from teaching as much as possible. However, I may be a little slow posting until I can get into the swing of things. I apologize for the delay and hope to do better.

Last year I was given a large bulletin board that was hung up in the hallway by my door to display art and more. I love creating fun board designs and I enjoy seeing what other art teachers do for their boards. So I am posting a picture of my recent board design in hopes to inspire others. I hope you all enjoy.


I made different types of frames and put a painting by different artists inside each frame. Under each picture is a art quote from that artist.

Man Ray's Rayographs

So I was reading on another blog about Man Ray and his Rayographs and decided to google some images. I think his work is really interesting and is a great inspiration for some art projects.

Bowl of Fruit

This project was done during the first week of art camp for k-2nd graders. The focus of the drawing was how overlapping objects can create a sense of space and how to layer the oil pastel colors to add shadow.

1. Start by drawing an oval for the opening of the bowl. Then a half circle for the front of the bowl.
2. Draw the fruit. I talked about drawing the fruit closest first, then draw the fruit behind it. Usually the younger kids want to draw the whole fruit so I made sure to point out to the kids that you would not see the bottom of the fruit because of them overlapping.
3. Draw the horizon line behind the fruit to represent the table and the wall. Remind kids to be careful not to draw through the bowl and fruit.
4. Fill the shapes with oil pastel.
5. Shadows. I made sure the kids study where the shadows are on the fruit and on the table and how to layer the shadow color over the original pastel color. The last tip I gave them is that a shadow is the shade of the color that it is casting on. Meaning if the apple is a light green, the shadow is a darker green.

Welcome!

Welcome everyone to my blog. I will be posting a lot about the projects and other experiences teaching art to kindergarten through 6th grade. I hope you find lots of useful information and thanks for stopping by!