Show time!

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Hello all!

I have my first showcase coming up this month, and I am excited. I have grown amazingly this year, in terms of quality of work, time management, and maturity of projects, and am gradually realizing that I have found my niche.

This showcase takes a look at my works over the past year and the theme I’ve found emerging. “So Delicately” is a collection of works centered around intricate and delicate qualities. Since each piece comes from different assignments and projects from the last year and a half, subject matters vary, but every piece is intimate in size and requires the audience to view it on a close and personal level. I’ve also explored my interests in multiples and how a series can enhance the delicate nature of each individual segment.

Enjoy, and I hope to post more work soon!

Based on the Butterfly Effect and Order vs. Chaos
Star/Carousel book
“And you push me up to this state of emergency; how beautiful to be” – Bjork
I wanted to explore the notion of “collections” that people have. This is a collection of sealife xsrays, like one would collect fossils or bones. X rays can be precise or nebulous, and the pieces transition to abstraction diagonally down to the right, moving from a completely realistic, detailed form to an abstract, referential form.
Series of small paintings of interior spaces

Second Round of Pottery

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Hello, all-

The second round of pottery came out of the high-fire kiln this weekend (all cups), and here they are! I’m not quite as happy with the glazes, but I tried to use some different glazes that I had never used, so it’s a good experiment.

This was probably my best one out of the batch
I don’t like red and green, and the green was black underglaze, so…
The outside had a acorn cap texture
Pretty tiny and cute
Little tiny birds under the glaze.

 

Enjoy!

Awesome Art Ed Resources!

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I’m finally beginning the long journey into art education, and as part of our first assignment in my class, we were supposed to come up with a list of our top five museum resource sites and our top five art education sites, as well as a lesson plan from each type of resource site to share with the class.

I get a little too excited.

And so, I have decided to share all the exciting resources and pages I have found through this process, and you’ll probably see more pages throughout the next couple of years with many more I discover along the way. 😉

Enjoy!

Museums:

MomaMoMA Learning

http://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/tools_tips

This is probably one of my favorite museum sites yet. The site has available slideshows, follow-up worksheets, and other resources for use in the classroom or self-guided learning under dozens of time periods and subcategories.

 

Museum of Visionary ArtAmerican Visionary Art Museum

http://www.avam.org/for-educators-and-educatees/past-educational-resources.shtml

You can download PDF files here to print as handouts for your students when they visit the museum and for use in the classroom. There are numerous class activities and critical thinking resources under each lesson unit.

 

AICArt Institute of Chicago

http://www.artic.edu/aic/resourcefinder/

The Educator Resource Finder has Artwork Resource Packets on specific pieces, Teacher Manuals on specific time periods or subjects (which would also be valuable as handouts or table laminations), and Thematic Websites on specific topics.

 

DMADallas Museum of Art

http://www.dmaconnect.org/CONNECT/index.htm

Connect is a collection of teaching materials focused on works of art from Africa and Asia in the Dallas Museum of Art collections.  Materials offer images of pieces, the descriptions, explanations and histories of the pieces, and teaching ideas based off of each individual piece.

 

MADMuseum of Arts and Design

http://madmuseum.org/learn/resource-materials

This has a large collection of enormous articles (often 40 pages or more) with well-written, very detailed explanations and lessons. These would be excellent to use portions of, but probably not the entire packet.

 

Metropolitan Museum of Art

http://www.metmuseum.org/learn/for-educators

Has a lot of lesson plans inspired by their collection pieces.

 

Baltimore Museum of Art

http://www.artbma.org/educators/resources.html#online

Lessons relating to collection pieces, as well as links to online resources.

 

Art Education Sites:

 

teachingpalleteThe Teaching Palette

http://theteachingpalette.com/

This is a very exciting a progressive site, with all kinds of articles and lesson ideas. This is definitely one of my top favorites – a site run by art teachers/educators with everything in the field explored.

 

deepspaceDeep Space Sparkle

http://www.deepspacesparkle.com/

This educator blogs some amazing lessons in the classroom. It has a ton of art lessons, PDF lesson plans, and resources to make teaching art to kids easier. It also has links to free art lessons, products and resources, and e-courses.

 

the art of edThe Art of Education

http://www.theartofed.com/

Phenomenal all-around resource for a teacher. It has articles for personal/professional development, how-to-teach sections, and lesson plans separated by age range. It also has online classes for Art Teachers, and an online magazine with daily articles, tips, tricks, and videos.

 

ipadiPad Art Room

http://www.ipadartroom.com

With the transition into the digital age, knowing how to create assignments out of new technology is crucial. You’ll find lots of lesson ideas, teaching tips, resources and apps. Especially valuable for experienced teachers that are having difficulty learning/incorporating new technology standards into their practice.

 

organizedchaosOrganized Chaos

http://msnovak.blogspot.com/

A teacher’s very cool blog spot full of articles, lesson plans, and ideas. “Creating and teaching art requires a sense of humor and an understanding of organized chaos – as there is no way to create something original without spreading out supplies and getting a little messy.” So true!

 

Artventures in Middle Schooling

http://bcwmsart.weebly.com/

This site has good examples of allowing the student to approach the project in whatever way they feel is best – what I very recently learned as choice-based education. It’s a very strange/difficult scenario to teach in, but amazing conceptually, and this site helps illustrate how possible and successful it is.

 

TinkerLab

http://tinkerlab.com/

This site has a lot of DIY’s for the teacher, lesson ideas/prompts, and good articles. Overall, a cute site, too.

 

School Arts Room

http://www.schoolartsroom.com/

Has some neat articles and lesson ideas, along with a ton of information about current artists.

 

The Incredible Art Department

http://www.incredibleart.org/

Yet another fantastic site with so many resources – departments, galleries, lesson plans, and even a career/job page.

 

Art Teachers Hate Glitter

http://athglitter.com/

Have to put this one in here. 🙂 It’s not really a resource site, but it’s a funny day-in-the-life-of-a-teacher site. Matches my humor pretty well.

 

Resources With Resources!

 

Choice-Based Art Education

http://choicearted.com/

THE site for explaining choice-based art education and self-directed learning. Also has a list of blogs related to it.

 

National Art Education Association

http://www.arteducators.org/

This is the big mama of art websites. The site of all sites. Lesson plans, professional development tools, community involvement tools, grants and financial opportunities, resource guides – practically anything you will ever need. I wish I was teaching with a school already so I could sign up…

 

Blick

http://www.dickblick.com/educators/

Lesson plans to go along with supplies you can buy through Blick, which is one of the major suppliers for classrooms.

 

Portfolio Oomph

http://www.portfolio-oomph.com/?utm_campaign=Listly&utm_medium=list&utm_source=listly

Good resource for students on how to apply and get into art schools/colleges.

 

Share My Lesson

http://www.sharemylesson.com/

Lesson plans for all ages and subjects, which you can break down into your particular subject, as well as use cross-curriculum resources.

 

 

I know that was so much at once. But hey, there’s even more awesome ones out there! Hope you find some cool stuff out of these!

My indoor garden

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I’ve seen pictures of succulent terrariums online over the past couple years, and I’ve always wanted to try to make my own. I’m moving into my new apartment on Friday, so I finally got up the guts and did it!

Terrarium!

They are super easy to make, and were pretty cost effective to do.

All you need are your choice of jars, soil (preferably cactus soil), rocks, and plants! Jars are easy to find at garage sales, goodwill, and most stores. The soil is only about $4, and I got all of my plants for $20.

Supplies

First, clean your jars and fill the bottom with rocks, enough for water to drain through. These plants are easy to over water, so you need to make sure there is enough space for the water to sit and not rot out the plants. After that, put some of the cactus soil in, enough to cover the root ball (soil levels are easiest to adjust once you have the plant in).

Soil levelsMake a little hole in the soil, take your plant out of the pot you bought it in, and put it in your jar! That’s about it. 🙂 Put enough soil in and around to cover the root ball and make it look comfy, but don’t pack it down. I would wait about an hour before watering the plants, and when you take care of them, only water them when the soil is dry (use your finger to test).

I’m so excited! I’ll update with a pic once they’re in my dorm. 🙂

What’s your love language?

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This past summer, I worked for a music camp that I’ve attended for the past five years as part of the counselor/security/guide/everything-you-could-ever-need team. In one of our training sessions before the camp began, one of the team coordinators (a current kindergarten teacher) went over the idea of “love languages” and how we need to read kids individually and learn what is the best way to reach them and connect with them throughout the week. We took a quiz to see our own love language breakdown, and then discussed each language individually – quality time, physical touch, words of affirmation, receiving gifts, and acts of service.

The languages are pretty self explanatory, illustrating five different ways that people feel appreciated or loved and will react positively to.

Quality time is spending time with each other – just at home, out and about together, you name it, just as long as you are spending time.

Physical touch is any kind of physical contact – hand on a shoulder, pat on the back, holding hands, kissing, etc.

Words of affirmation is just that – a simple thank you, expressing your feelings for the other person, congratulating them, any words to show appreciation.

Receiving gifts – I tend to associate this with a “they are thinking about me” mentality; by receiving gifts, you know the other person appreciates you.

And acts of service – anything to help other people, donate your time, do something for someone else so they don’t have to; and receiving such acts from other people.

 

After the quiz, she used some of her current students and teaching scenarios to illustrate. She told us of a boy who drew pictures for each and every student in his class and secretly put them in the students’ backpacks. This same student donated ALL of his Halloween candy to the fire department, because he figured the firefighters would like candy too, and he made get well cards for hospital patients during Christmas. This boy is an amazing example of “acts of service.” Another student acts out often in class. I had never thought from this perspective before, but she was right – acting out was a way of getting more one-on-one interaction with her, placing him in the “quality time” bracket.

Since she pointed the languages out, throughout that entire week, it amazed me how each child was different and how some were easy to read their love language, and others were more complex. (And this is extremely beneficial to see from a teaching standpoint – it helps you know which kids to give more attention to, and knowing how to not coddle their love language too much)

 

I recently retook the quiz (just for grins and giggles, making my boyfriend take it too), and found a relationship-based quiz instead. (There is also a quiz on here for if you are single, or if you want to give it to a child)

http://www.5lovelanguages.com/

I scored highest in words of affirmation, followed a point behind by physical touch, and then a point behind in quality time – the quiz I took at camp had them in a slightly different order, so I think they are pretty interchangeable for me. Though, in discussing them with my man (he had the same three categories, ordered – quality time, physical touch, then words of affirmation), those three categories seem to relate very closely, and in a healthy relationship, all three tend (and should) be shown together. Physical touch can be in a fleeting moment by itself, or often accompanied with a word of affirmation, and generally happens when spending quality time. To include the other categories, words of affirmation and/or physical touch can be used in thanks for an act of service or in receiving a gift. Gifts can be given while spending quality time together. You can spend quality time by doing an act of service or giving gifts together. It’s important to realize that people react – to an extent – to all of the love languages, and that you shouldn’t focus entirely on one that you think your partner/child reacts to and neglect other important ones.

 

I hope you guys find this as interesting as me! Feel free to take the quiz and post your love language in the comments!