Andy's Soup

Just went to Target yesterday and purchased some of the limited-edition Campbell's Soup cans. I love what a simple idea this is! Why didn't anyone think of it sooner? Thanks to Target and the Andy Warhol Foundation. This is the coolest soup ever!

There's a Dragon in the Garden

Towards the end of the summer I donated my time and expertise to creating a new bottle cap mural for a local elementary school. This past school year the students, staff, and families all participated in the building of a school garden and outdoor classroom.

The timing never seemed to work for me when they were designing the space, building garden beds, etc. but I love to garden and wanted to contribute. So I decided that I would create a bottle cap mural for the school garden. Since 2012 was the first year of the school garden project, the year of the dragon, and since the mascot of the elementary school is a dragon, I decided to create a mural with the theme “A Dragon in the Garden.” It sounds a bit like a wonderful art teacher blog I know of, but it's just coincidence. Hi Phyl!

These projects are so wonderful and accomplish many goals for a school community, including beautification and school spirit, a lesson in recycling (bottle caps can not be recycled, but can be re-used for this purpose), and participating a large-scale community artwork. The families and children who participated brought me great joy, and were such a help! The principal was impressed and plans to install the mural soon on one of the outside building walls of the garden. They may even put it on display at the Board of Ed offices before it is permanently placed. I hope it will make the garden an even more beautiful space, and that the kids can point and say "I helped make that!"

Here is the finished mural. It is 4'x8' and used over 1,900 bottle caps. 

Transferring the design. 

Literally, in the middle of sorting.

The painting begins.

Beginning to install the caps, working from the middle out.

Capping the dragon's wing.

A parent and student working with the screwdriver drill.

Adding the finishing touches.

One-page Manga Stories

During the summer session of Manga Club, the kids and I learned about the 4-panel gag manga style called yonkoma. They used this genre as a starting point to create a simple one-page manga of their own. First they brainstormed ideas and did preliminary sketches in their sketchbooks. Drawings were then transferred using the light box or redrawn onto final art board. Copies of each one page work were made and bound together to create a class project.

I could not have been more impressed with their ideas, attention to detail, and time and effort put into these projects! Even though yonkoma are generally a simpler style of manga, we still had to consider a multitude of elements: character design, panels, dialogue, environments, continuity and more. I also emphasized that their work should include areas of white, black, mid-tones and texture. It was a jam-packed super lesson, and they all ran with it. Great job all of my junior mangakas!

Giraffe Wire Sculptures

Inspired by a lesson in My Art Book: Animals, and artist Andy Scott, students created these giraffe sculptures using Twisteez colored wire (one of my favorite products at the NAEA Convention this past March.) First they chose a color for their cardboard bases and painted them with acrylic paint. They then learned to make a basic armature, plotting out the anatomy of their giraffes. Starting with the legs, additional wires were added to flesh out and strengthen their sculptures. Photographs of giraffes were available for reference. 

I really enjoyed watching these sculptures come to life!  I also loved seeing how each student made their creation unique from others by choices in color, placement, and all of their hard work wrapping, attaching and bending the wires. It was also a great lesson for balance. The legs of the sculptures had to be strong enough to support the rest of the body. If someone started building the head, they would soon realize that they had to stop to focus on building up the lower areas. Then they could return to the top of the sculpture. Enjoy!

Great Art Sites for Kids – Glassblowing

The Children's Museum of Indianapolis has a wonderful kid-friendly interactive tour of how to blow glass. Sarah leads the tour of the hot shop, where she helps you make glass into art. This is a great tie-in for a Dale Chihuly lesson. It is also just a genius idea too, since the process of glassblowing is not child friendly! Let your kids make their first piece of virtual glass here at this online resource.

Art Shows & Appreciation

Toward the end of the school year each elementary school hosts art shows individually, and then all of the schools K-12 participate in a district-wide show. I was happy to participate this year as a parent and contributing teacher. Thank you students for sharing the art room with me whenever I got the chance to be there, thanks to the district for my quick stint as an elementary art teacher this past fall, and thank you to all of the art teachers who have shared with me and have been so supportive. I have learned more this year than ever! Special thanks to Emily and Paula.

Here are some images of some of the artwork exhibited in our elementary schools, and my family's visit to the district show. Have a wonderful summer everyone!

Most Fascinating Blog Nomination

Voting begins this week at Accelerated Degree for some of the most fascinating art teacher blogs of the past year. I am fortunate enough to be included among the nominated for one of my posts featuring the bottle cap mural that students and I created last summer! It must be fate, because I just offered to create another mural this summer for our local elementary school.

Now the tricky part. To vote you must have a Google+ account.  If you have one, all you need to do is visit the link, and look for the second post down with the picture of a girl at an easel. The "My Adventures..." blog is listed in the comments. Add a +1 there, and your vote is cast. 

If you don't have an account, but are willing to join and cast a vote for little old me, visit Google and select the +Google tab along the bottom menu. Thanks for voting, and good luck to all of my fellow art teacher bloggers!