garden loom

I brought out some scraps of yarn for our garden loom the other day during my recess duty. Usually our garden loom is filled with earthy colored twigs, sticks, long grasses, and garden cuttings from work days but I like the splash of bright color here too!

The garden loom is wonderful Multiple Intelligence tool. It fosters the use interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligences, and of course the spatial, naturalist, bodily-kinesthetic, and logical-mathematical intelligences.

If you want to find out more about how to build your own garden loom check out Weaving a Life and The Earth Loom Foundation. Our garden loom started as a hallway conversation "wouldn't it be great if..." and our wonderful NCS parents made it happen!

welcome back!

Welcome back! We have just finished our first week here at New City School. I am looking forward to a wonderful year of art! You'll notice the new shelving in the middle of the room that was handmade by Bill,our expert craftsman and facilities manager:)Thank you Bill! This makes our art supplies so much more accessible.

I have a fifth grade advisory and we start and end each day together in the art room. We used washi tape to decorate birdhouses on our first day together.

And this little guy is our yarn ball sprite. He winds balls of yarn for our kiddos who love to finger knit during free time. He might need a little help now and then to keep up with demand;)

This is the start of a concept bank. Each 6th grade art time I will record our "post it note discussions" and deposit them here so we can refer back to our discoveries. My Art21 experience really has me thinking about my big questions and through lines. This year I want to make these connections more evident (rather than just using them as a curriculum organizer). Our theme in 6th grade asks the question: What is creativity? How can I use my creativity to benefit myself and others? We will be exploring what ways we can be creative, what hinders or promotes creativity, finding out if creativity is universal, and looking for ways we value (or don't value) creativity.

More to come soon! Best wishes for the new school year!

what I did on my summer vacation...

I was accepted into the Art21 Educators Program and spent 10 days in New York during the month of July. It was the most challenging, inspiring, and wonderful educational experience I have ever had! I didn't just come away with some new tips and tricks, I know I've experienced some growing pains in being challenged with new ways of thinking, and I have come back a better teacher.

Here is a little photo tour of my time there!

Here I am with Linda at the Met! I am so glad I talked Linda into applying with me for this program. She is one of the most talented AMAZING teachers I have ever met and it was such an honor to get to experience this all with her.

This is me out of my comfort zone at the TASK Party. We got to meet Oliver Herring on the very first day- what a treat! He was so warm and generous and the TASK party was a great way to build our sense of trust and community.

I had written this TASK and was so delighted when someone else had implemented it so beautifully: Find discarded scraps to create something new.

I have often felt very alone in my profession as the only art teacher at my school so I am especially thankful to have had the opportunity to collaborate with this group of passionate educators. It felt like stepping from a drought into a monsoon- we talked about art/education every waking moment!

We met with the artist Charles Atlas to talk about his work here.

Lots of brainstorming, discussing, collaborating, editing, thinking, writing, questioning, and coffee.

We got to spend the day at MoMA! Here we are practicing one of the ways to facilitate a discussion about art with students. We got to meet Allan McCollum to talk about his art here. We also talked with Mary Reid Kelley and Patrick Kelley from Rome via Skype and visited the studio of Diana Al Hadid on different days.

We are all looking rather serious here but had a blast seeing artist examples and making paper at Dieu Donne!

We worked hard! Linda and I worked until 2am many nights and then got up early to start the next workshop day. More coffee.

It wasn't all work and no play! We had the perfect balcony view to see the 4th of July fireworks over the Hudson River. Spectacular!

And the food!

Here we are on our last night dining together. Our group of 16 was comprised of first year teachers and veterans, elementary, high school, and college teachers, and art, spanish, science, and english teachers. It was great to have so many perspectives and experiences. I wish I could have packed them all up to take back with me to my school! Fortunately our time together will continue via online meetings and ning network this year.

I look forward to sharing what I have learned here and can't wait for the new school year. Bring it on!

second grade watercolor landscapes

Here is a closer look at the watercolor landscapes I featured in the second grade Artist Explorer show. I was inspired by the beautiful project created by Anne Wilbur here.

This was a very successful project on many levels. It was a great way to introduce a variety of watercolor skills, the collage portion allowed for lots of creativity and collaboration, and it was the perfect companion to this project.

We started with the clouds. They worked to leave the white of the paper in creating their chosen cloud type. This was after we spent lots of time looking at cloud formations in art here. Next year, I'll be adding this cloud finder to the mix!

I love the variety of moods created in these landscapes. Some are still and serene, some are stormy, and some you can feel the wind blowing across the lonely prairie!

second grade art explorers

This year I showcased the yearlong work of our second graders in the gallery. The westward expansion is a big part of their curriculum in second grade and I think what we create in the art room is a wonderful complement to this.

SECOND GRADE ARTIST EXPLORERS:
How can we find beauty in the everyday? How can I be a lifelong explorer?

Our theme in Art combines the spatial and naturalist intelligences as we explore Art in Nature. Artists love to create and observe so we spent a lot of time developing observation skills. Our projects are inspired by landscapes and natural events: auroras, bird migration, and by the wonders of simple natural objects like the contours of a leaf or shell.

The second grade artists have done amazing work in creating their own paths of discovery just as Lewis & Clark did!

Each student was given a current map of the Saint Louis area. I asked them to think about how this map might have looked like in the time of Louis & Clark. What things would change? What would be the same?

They focused only on the lines and shapes that they found most interesting and drew those. Maybe it was the highway lines, or the waterways, or the boundaries. The pencil lines were outlined in glue and then colored with chalk and oil pastel.

These formalist map studies are beautiful in their lines, shape, and color but most of all it is interesting to see the influence of the Mississippi River and how it has shaped us.

This artist always has a fiercely original approach to everything he does.
"Where is the white pastel?"
(It hadn't occurred to me to put white out since we were working on white paper.)
"Just don't color in the areas you want to leave white," I suggest.
"But I want the whole thing to be white!"
And he waited patiently for me to get the white pastels out.
I love that he is never afraid to question and is always so dedicated to his vision. Thanks for keeping me on my toes Brian!

Here is a wall of nature inspired contour drawings.

I don't have a photograph of our felted cloudscapes, but these were also displayed!
And I'll be posting more on this watercolor landscape project soon:

Here is a peek at their gorgeous watercolor and ink birds:

These bird nest helper wire sculptures demonstrate ingenuity and problem solving by our second grade artists! Each artist designed their own three dimensional shape that could hold yarn scraps to be used by birds for nesting material. They LOVED creating these and did a great job handling the responsibility of working with many different kinds of pliers too.

Congratulations dear second grade explorers!