WHAT'S GOING ON IN MY CLASSROOM

I looked around my room today and felt a little overwhelmed.  I go so many different directions at once and have lots of different assignments set up from class to class.  Instead of wringing my hands about how much was happening around me, I decided I would capture it in a post.

One corner of my classroom is dedicated to pastel painting.  My students have been working on pastel exercises and projects for a few weeks and now are concentrating on creating a personal pastel of their choice of subject matter.  As is always the case, some are flying along and others are slowly working out their pieces.  It is always a struggle to keep my students busy when some finish ahead of others.  I use sketchbooks as a backup with monthly sketchbook assignments they can work on both in and outside of class.  This month's sketchbook assignment is making Vans shoe designs as part of a national contest.  That's a whole post for itself.  We have boxes of Vans that the company actually mailed to us to paint and draw on.

My art one students are deep into a color unit.  We have been studying all sorts of color schemes.  I got the bright idea this morning to use some photos I took of each student last semester as a resource for them to create a monochromatic, self portrait next week.  So I am digitizing their photos for the next assignment while my desk is piled high with their finished, color exercises.

I told my principal that my students and I would maintain and build displays in two storage cases around the school.  We've had a variety of displays set up throughout the year.  Currently my students and I are building cardboard, marquee letters that we plan to distress and complete with working, electric lights.  Cutting cardboard is always a pain so this display may take a while to complete.

My first hour students are into printmaking.  We are doing all sorts of crazy, inventive prints with basic linoleum plates.  We started with the soft rubber plates but boy, they are too expensive and fragile to use for very long.  I'm lucky to have a big printing press for this unit.  I am lucky to have it until it comes to time to store the darn thing.  I've contacted a local tie-dye artist to arrange for her to bring in some fabric dye we can use to put our linoleum stamps on shirts.

My art club started collecting bottle caps last fall in hopes of making a giant mosaic in our school.  I have giant garbage bags full of brightly colored bottle caps all over my classroom and the adjoining hallway. This too, is a slow project since some art club members aren't even in my class and show up here and there.  We have painted canvas panels as our support and are using heavy duty glue to create stacked sections and opted to make swirls and flourishes around words.  Our finished piece is huge and measures over 22 feet.  It is going in a hallway above student lockers just around the corner from my room.

That's a little tour of my art room.  I left out a whole corner dedicated to matting and framing pieces for  upcoming competitions and my advanced placement students who are just starting triptychs or building Shephard Fairey inspired collages.....maybe next time.  I'd love for you to stop by sometime and enjoy the chaos!