Painting Without a Paint Brush VIDEO!

Hello!  Happy Saturday!  I hope you are having a lovely day so far.  It is sunny and beautiful out here in Ohio so I will probably be hitting the pool with Little I for a little swim action.  Today we went running (Little I LOVES to hang out in her running stroller!) and in between laps at the park we played at the playground for awhile. 

I just wanted to quickly post a link to a NEW video I created.  It was for one of my master's classes but I wanted to share it with you also!  Click here to watch a video called "Painting Without A Paintbrush."  It is actually a painting project I do with my advanced painters at the beginning of the school year to help them think outside of the box in terms of using painting tools.

Well I am off to enjoy this beautiful day! 

Hollyhock Paintings

Why hello there!  Hope you are enjoying your summer.  It has been divine for the most part!  I am finishing up two of my FINAL masters classes and then I should be DONE!  Hooray!  It has taken me three years but I have almost done it!

Anyways...so I have been super duper busy this past year with Little "I", teaching art full time, finishing up my masters and MOVING!  Yes, we sold our lovely Cleveland Cottage and have moved into a WONDERFUL place.  It is not permanent but it is perfect for us right now until we buy or build our dream house (because I am never moving ever again!)

So back to being busy.  I have had no time at all to do artwork for myself.  I have only been able to work on things that pertained to school.  My school art style is different from my own personal style seen in my store.  High school kids are very picky about art.  Everything has to look semi realistic.  That is generally not my style but I have tweaked it so that I can assist my lovely students.

So that being said, here is a painting exercise I did to show the importance of completing an underpainting.  The underpainting I used here was burnt umber.

Here is my final hollyhock painting I completed using acrylic paint.  I used the monochromatic burnt umber underpainting for this one as well.

I actually gave this painting to my mom for her cottage on Lake Erie.  The reference picture I used was actually a picture I took on the island my parents have their cottage on.  It is one of my most favorite pictures!

If you would like to see how to complete a monochromatic underpainting you can check out a video I made on doing one here.


Well I hope you have a lovely rest of your day!  I am hoping to go to the cottage this weekend and hopefully take some great pictures for more paintings!

Candy Corn and High School Art Projects

That's right..I caved.  I bought some candy corn even though it is still August and candy corn is more of a fall thing.  Oh well, it was delicious!

Well I hope you have had a great week!  Sorry I have not written on here in an entire week but I was crazy busy with the first week of school and our open house on Thursday night.  I was at school until 9 pm Thursday!  I think I am going to have some wonderful classes though so I am excited for that!  

I have been working on getting my students ready to start their first project on Monday.  My intro to art students will be doing a project that kind of resembles a patchwork quilt.  Here are some examples from previous years:

 

 

 Basically students divide an 18 x 24 piece of tagboard into a 3 x 3 inch square grid and draw whatever they want on top for their subject matter.  I then have them use at least five different art media (paint, cut paper, colored pencils, marker, pen, etc.) to create an artwork that shows contrast between their subject matter (positive shape) and the background (negative shape).  We just learned ALL about the Elements of Art and Principles of Design so they will also have to make their artwork balanced, unified, show movement, pattern, etc!

Sorry to bore you with lesson ideas!  I am officially in school mode!  I have not done any art for myself this whole week and I am starting to miss it!  Hopefully next week/weekend will be a little calmer!

Meanwhile I am keeping myself sane with music (as usual) such as this lovely song by  Ray LaMontagne.  

Hope you have a wonderful weekend!  I will try to write more next week:) 

Art Bulletin Board Ideas

Wow...very exciting title to my post.  Sorry!  Since school is almost back in session I have pretty much been living in my classroom.  Today I spent the majority of my time working on the bulletin boards in my classroom.  Since my school (and every school it seems!) is on a tight budget, I had to purchase my own bulletin board paper!  My favorite thing to use is colored wrapping paper.  I love Hobby Lobby's huge rolls of fun patterns.  However for my bulletin boards I stuck with white and blue as my main colors.

Here is the start of one board:

Elements of Art Board:

I  painted the entire border with gold, silver, white and turquoise tempera paint.  It took forever but gives the border some depth I think!  The elements are all made from some lovely stamps I bought.  Luckily I had a student stamp out the elements for me last year so I didn't have to do them again!

Here is my Principles of Design board.  It is hard to see but I listed each principle and put an artwork next to the principle that illustrates it.  I am going to be adding definitions next to each principle as I go over them with students in class.

Notice the Romero Britto artworks I have hanging above the board?!  Kids LOVE his art!

 Here is where I keep most of my supplies.  This bulletin board was kind of a pain to do because I had to stand on the counter and staple the paper onto the board.  Keep in mind I am 6 months pregnant!

Check out all of the NEW labels on my supplies!  So fresh and clean to start the year:)

Lastly here is my Old Guitarist  by Picasso bulletin board.  I just got this poster from amazon and wanted to make it a focal point in my classroom.

Well that is about it for today.  I better get to sleep because I have meetings all day tomorrow, a dentist appointment and dinner with a lovely friend!  School officially starts Wednesday.  I hope I am ready:)  Meanwhile, I am listening to this song by David Gray constantly on my ipod.  I am in love with his voice and he is one of my favorite artists to listen to especially around the fall.  Also check out this song by Florence and the Machine.  You might recognize it from the Eat, Pray, Love commercial.  The video is definitely creative and interesting:)

Well have a great evening!  I hope to write soon.  The next couple of days are going to be a bit crazy!

UPDATE:  Hello!  I just wanted to post some more bulletin board ideas for anyone interested!  Looking at my blog statistics I have found this post to be one of my most popular:)  For all of you teachers out there here are a couple more ideas:

 Animals in Art Bulletin Board

This bulletin board is made up of past student artwork and color printouts of animal art.  I have found that borders are super important in the overall aesthetic of a bulletin board.  I use construction paper and usually paint on top of it to make it more interesting.  For the zebra pattern I just made copies of a zebra printed folder I had and placed it around the bulletin board to unify everything with the sign.

Color Theory Bulletin Board

For this bulletin board I hung up some of the creative color wheels left over from previous years and included vocabulary such as the primary, secondary, intermediate and complementary colors.  I also used the space above the bulletin board to display a poster by Kandinsky and paintings that display the use of complementary colors.  

 Other bulletin boards from previous years:

Black and white pattern is actually tissue paper I bought at Target!  Cheap and easy way to cover space!

A more simplified approach...Matisse inspired also!

 And if you really have time....

I hand painted this bulletin board and had students create cool leaves if they finished their project early.  

I hope some of these ideas were helpful...I will continue to post more as the year goes on!  If you would like to see my class blog click here for project ideas.

Ordinary to EXTRAordinary

Happy Saturday! Hope everyone has had a pretty restful New Year weekend!  I know for me it is going to be pretty hard getting up very early Monday morning for work.  I have been sleeping in until 8:30 every morning (it feels so good to do this!)  To get myself back into the work mode I recently updated my school blog with some of my student's artwork.  If you get a chance please check it out here.

I have the best students this year and am so proud of them:) It has been kind of hard to update both this blog and the school blog- but I am trying!

Have a lovely Saturday!

Classroom Blog

(Drawing done by one of my students!)

Hello! Just wanted to share my newest project that I am working on! I am currently working on a blog for my art classes this year! I started last year but then got totally sidetracked when I started my masters program! Now I have a little time so I resumed the classroom blog.

Here is the link if you are interested:
PHS Art Room

I would love for you to check it out and see what we have been up to so far this year!

Hope you are enjoying your weekend! It is absolutely gorgeous here and a perfect day to be outside! Too bad I have loads to do for school! Fun stuff though... just working on ideas for my classes.

Have a great day!

Crazy Surreal Collages

Here are some of my Intro to Art Surreal Collages. They are so much fun and so interesting.








Students are going to grid the drawings


and then redraw them using any media they want. I will post the drawings when they are finished. I think they are going to be great!

On another note.....my dog Jack Henry



got a haircut...and he looks fat! Time to start taking him on more walks!



Well I am off to bed! Have a great night!

Intro to Art Projects

Here are some of my Intro to Art students' early exam projects. At my school the art department is allowed to give a project to students for their exams. If the students finish the project they do not have to come in during the exam period. It works really well to motivate students to work!

For the early exam project students were to draw a collection of 7 items from observation. They could use their favorite medium or combination of media (we previously worked with all different kind of media such as paint, charcoal, pencil, pen, oil pastels and colored pencils on other projects.) I had in class a box of wooden shapes, a collection of glass bottles, a box of shoes and fake flowers. If they wanted to bring in their own collection they could. My main objective was to have students draw from observation and to shade the objects to make them appear 3-D. I will be posting this lesson to my educator page if you want to check back for it.



Shapes done with pencil


Shapes done in ink on a light gray painted background


There is always one really creative student! This was done with oil pastels on a painted background.


My bulletin board of shapes (this was a popular item to draw apparently!)


Art supplies done with ink on a painted background


Perfume bottles done with a charcoal pencil on a painted background

Watercolor Sketches

Wow! 2 posts in one day! I will even be posting one of my 10 minute sketches later so that will make 3 posts! I am posting some watercolor sketches my painting students completed awhile ago. I had them hanging on a bulletin board and was unable to photograph them well. These sketches allowed students to play around with watercolors and try different techniques such as masking fluid, rubbing alcohol, salt and lifting out colors. If you would like to see a cool site that has a ton of free demonstrations on these techniques, click here.. If you still have not entered my art giveaway please do so!!!! You can enter here.

Student Self-Portraits: From Observation

Students in my drawing class just finished these self-portraits from observation using pencil on watercolor paper. They HAD to look at mirror to draw these, no photos! Before we did these we practiced drawing facial features and other people. Students are now working on their final, CREATIVE self-portraits. I will post these when they finish.