New School - New Table Colors

At my old school I had the students make mono-chromatic sculptures to hang above their tables.  Our first ones were made with paper, but had to be thrown away because they were a 'fire' hazard (it's an art room).  The second ones we made hung for the 3 years I was there and were made out of clay!

My new school has no rules about hanging things from the ceiling so my 2nd graders went to town using paper, chenille sticks, pop tops, stickers, crayons, markers, colored twist ties, beads, and any other colored 'craft' supplies I could put at their tables.  We talked about what mono-chromatic means - we also practiced different things to say, like: "When you are done, may I use that?" "Could you please pass the bucket?"  "Are there any more chenille sticks?" "I was planning on using that could you please give it back?"

The pictures do NOT do these justice - they are too detailed, chaotic, beautiful, and textured to photography well.

1st Kindergarten Pictures of 2011/12

First week accomplished!  It is weird to have it be my first week, but the 3rd week of school.  I decided to pretend like it was the beginning of the year and practice getting out and putting away supplies with Kindergarten.  We would pass supplies out, draw for a bit, clean everything up -- we repeated this till each kiddo at the table had a chance to put away the supplies!

Their task for the day was to fill their paper with lines and shapes!  These few caught my eye - boy do ideas spread in kindergarten.

New Start

One of my new schools!

I have been hoping to write this post since last year when I decided to move to Michigan to be with the love of my life.

I HAVE A JOB TEACHING ELEMENTARY ART!!!!!

I could not be happier.

I will be teaching art to about 700 students between two FABULOUS elementary schools.

Posts to come from my new classrooms!

Arts Beats Eats - Royal Oak

Darryl Norem

Over this Labor Day weekend I had the pleasure of traveling to Royal Oak, MI to explore a great festival called Arts Beats and Eats.  This festival combines my favorite things - art, music, and food!  The thing that shocked me most about this festival was how crowded it was.  It wasn't just crowded at the stages or the food vendors - but people packed down the blocks to look at all the artist tents.  It was amazing, inspirational, creative, and powerful.  I happily paid 3.oo to enter, and then 10.oo for 16 food tickets.  I wandered up and down the side streets looking at art work, eating smoked pulled pork bbq, and jamming to music filtering through the crowd.

Out of all the booths I saw filled with amazing jewelry, word workings, metal sculptures, photography, leather work - Darryl Norem stood out for me.  Her work is both tactile, whimsical, bold, and soft at the same time.  Pictures I have posted here are from her website.  Unfortunately these pictures do not give the depth of these pictures much of these are layered and give wonderful visual texture.

I sense a layered landscape lesson being inspired by these works!

Enjoy.

Darryl Norem

Darryl Norem

Darryl Norem

Darryl Norem