Barb's art students

Bomomo Fun

2011-08-14T09:22:00.001-04:00

I took some time today to investigate software that is new to me that allows for artistic creation and fun. Bomomo (www.bomomo.com) promises to be an interesting experience. It takes some getting used to, and is great to practice your wacom tablet skills. The capability of digital technology is moving at such a rapid pace! Forget analyzing it- just go have fun with it.

2011-06-27T13:41:00.000-04:00

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

First Things First

2011-04-21T22:13:00.000-04:00

Folks! Thanks for your interest in the online conference. I apologize, but I think I spoke too soon! As a student in an online doctorate program, I realized that I could not devote the time and energy to this conference without risk of being overwhelmed with the amount of time required by both. I hope to do this at a later date, and did receive some wonderful e-mails from interested people. Thank you all for your interest.

2011-02-13T17:10:00.004-05:00

Times are busy for art teachers. Isn't it time for those who wish to meet to discuss the great profession of art education to meet- ONLINE? This is an idea I am brewing along with a few other interested people. You will hear alot more about it as we hear from YOU. Wouldn't it be great to not have to pay for airline tickets and hotel rooms? You can attend this conference from your own computer at home!

Please feel encouraged and welcome to leave your comments below. We can present and talk using the online venue using the conveniences of modern technology. You can even chat using your keyboard. All you need is a computer, a camera and a microphone, if you are presenting. If you are attending, you need only speakers and your computer.

I am looking forward to hearing from you!
Barbara

Using Messy Stuff Like Plaster and Clay

2011-01-08T13:09:00.000-05:00

These double portraits are positive/negative experiments in creation of a mold using clay. Students build a face-shaped sturdy base of clay and put walls of clay around it to hold the plaster that is poured in. Anything dug into the clay becomes what pops out of the plaster. Anything added to the clay becomes the indentations on the plaster cast. The student in the second example chose to make a cartoon out of her project.

Art Teacher Blog Roll

2011-01-01T13:49:00.000-05:00

Here is a list of links which will keep you busy! Find out what art teachers are doing with their students.
Do you want to join an art teacher blog directory? Add your link and then copy and paste the whole thing to your blog. Pretty soon you will be linked up with art teachers from all over the world.

1. Marcia Beckett	2. Greg Percy	3. Mini Matisse	4. Barb's Students	5. The Teaching Palette	6. Artspiration
7. eleni	8. Mrs. Picasso's Art Room	9. Trish ackerman	10. Use Your Coloured Pencils	11. Art Makes Kids Smart	12. Draw, Paint, and Cut
13. LeAnne	14. Katie Morris	15. Art on the Move	16. The ART of Education	17. Rachel Motta	18. Tami Smith
19. Waitsfield Elementary Art	20. Fayston Elementary Art	21. Barb's Thought of the Day	22. Tana	23. Art Teachers Hate Glitter	24. Stuck In The Mud Pottery
25. phyl	26. Lines, Dots and Doodles	27. Mary	28. Kthomas	29. Kathy	30. Artful Artsy Amy
31. Art with Mrs. Smith	32. ARTolazzi	33. Studio-Kids	34. Lori	35. Laura	36. we heart art
37. NancieKay	38. OZKIDZ ARTZ	39. Gallery2404	40. Her Dabbles	41. mary ellen	42. Fine Lines
43. Jen Matott	44. Janie B	45. Jodi	46. Kati Walsh	47. Karen	48. Megan Swartz
49. Patty Palmer	50. TishaLou	51. BeccaRuth	52. Maggie Bandstra	53. School at St. George Place Creation Station	54. Jacquelien Bredenoord
55. Karen Bosch	56. Lisa Winkler	57. Lori K	58. Jeanne Bjork	59. Digital Sojourns	60. GT Art Room
61. artteachergirl	62. Jacqueline Cassidy	63. Roderick Vesper	64. High School Art	65. Ms. I's Artroom	66. Mme Reddick
67. Mme Reddick	68. Natalie	69. Deanne Tepen	70. DATA Di	71. Nicole D.	72. nicole sisco heller
73. destiny Breault	74. shine brite zamorano	75. Anna Pietrolungo	76. The Dot	77. A Faithful Attempt	78. Artmuse67
79. This Little Blog of Mine	80. stacy spangler	81. jennalee	82. Hannah	83. Aileen Wilson	84. in art class
85. Beth	86. Wilkinson's Wonderful World of Art	87. M

Resistance Is OK for Students if it's Wax Resistance

2010-12-11T19:57:00.001-05:00

If you look closely at this fine watercolor, you can see clearly what the subject matter is ( which is somewhat unique for young children when tackling realism with watercolor). What we did here in this beautiful painting is to begin by placing a sheet of wax paper over a nice quality watercolor paper. We used a ruler and scratched various lines into the paper using a soft pencil so the wax paper left lines of wax on the paper. We then drew something. Anything! The trick here was to divide the positive shapes and negative shapes by using cool or warm colors; do not combine warms and cools. Voila! Each tiny shape required a new color mix, so it would be different from the color next to it, but still either a cool or a warm color. I think this turned out very nicely!

Awesome Auto, cool car=recycled

2010-11-26T10:17:00.000-05:00

T.J. built this awesome auto from small pieces of leftover wood , leather, and whatnot. It could really move! Notice how he found exactly the right scrap wood shapes to keep the axles of the car supporting wheels which moving freely, as he had envisioned it.

These Deer are NOT in Headlights

2010-10-15T22:35:00.005-04:00

Here is a charming painting by a child who loves deer and clearly sees them as an integral part of a sunny day out in the open . Unfortunately, we spend many years behind the wheel of a car and may have been surprised one time too many by a stray in the path of the car lights. As we wait for the tow truck, we lose the feeling of the sweetness and charm of this animal. This painting helps bring it back. Notice the lustrous colors of the green shadows and the fluffiness of the clouds in the sky. Nicely done!

Portrait of a Beloved Older Brother

2010-06-29T17:38:00.000-04:00

How does a second grader tell her brother how much she loves and admires him? She draws him a portrait of himself. It is quite a bit of hard work, but alot of fun as you see the difference that the smallest change can make. Do you notice the guidelines that appear to be on the photograph? They are really lines on a sheet of clear acetate that help the young artist figure out how far the features are from each other. There are very faint lines on the portrait that help this placement. The result is a credible portrait!

Bronze Look Alike Work is Really Cleverly Disguised Cardboard and Paint Patina

2010-02-26T12:15:00.001-05:00

These interesting abstractions are really impressive. They use simple materials to create the illusion of copper with an aged patina. The method to create these is also simple, and alot of fun. They are made by using a cardboard base and building up layers of cardboard of different thicknesses, similar to how a collograph is made. Because this will not go into a printing press, you don't have to worry about how you add the thicknesses. But we will call it a plate nonetheless.

Then, black paint (gesso) is painted on the "plate". After it dries, the artist is free to investigate some of the many colors of copper patina that are formed over time. Here is an example of some of the colors: An artist can re-create any of these by learning how to mix colors, and apply layers of colors on dried layers. Some people call this faux-painting. An artist can imitate a metal color and texture This is the fun of being an artist. The "plates" can be abstract, or more realistic and can tell stories. Don't forget to cover the paint with some varnish for some real zing.

This is a Collage that a Teacher Might Relate to!

2010-01-30T10:12:00.000-05:00

I was reading a blog this morning from the TAB (teaching for artistic behaviors) blog. The blog was a lively discussion of "how-to's" in creating collages- how to teach children to put these together, what kind of glue, how do you work with overlap, etc. I believe that collages are an excellent way to use the process of thinking in order to create. You cannot do a collage- you have to create a collage.

There is alot a thinking involved. All of the elements and principles you know are involved in this creation. As an added bonus, the process of creating a collage is a "flow" activity...time passes...and more time passes...in an absorbing activity that stimulates your artistic muscles.

This collage is called "Disruption", and pictures a physics class in action. The student on the right is examining her nails, while the "good" student on the left has the answer and is poised to write it on the blackboard. I really had fun with this one.

I wonder how long students will know what a blackboard is. Aren't whiteboards the way of today?

The Progress of One Painting

2009-12-11T21:27:00.000-05:00

Here is a little film (less than one minute) showing the progression in a painting-. It's fun to see how someone goes about beginning a painting, especialy one as different as this one. She has an unusual sense of color, and is not afraid to be expressive in its use. see what you think-

At first I uploaded this video with beautiful music, thinking it was for education and under the time limit... so it was taken off. Does anyone have any good sources for free music downloads that are not copyrighted? Share the url please!

Something Diffferent

2009-08-16T17:34:00.000-04:00

If everyone had as much fun as the two girls who painted this, it would be great. They produced this piece with alot of conversation and shared decision making (and a lot of noise and giggling). A little paint flinging, too. Sometimes it is just good to have plain old fun in art class!

2009-04-28T17:39:00.000-04:00

This student would prefer to add her own description, so I am awaiting her words!

When only Colored Pencil will do-

2009-04-15T17:34:00.000-04:00

This free-standing building was engineered entired by its 7 year old artist, Barb, who figured she wanted it standing by itself. You can't tell but the car is also freestanding.

This is what it is like to live on a hill in the city. Absolutely only colored pencil was used for this drawing. Although I made many suggestions, virtually all of them were ignored. Some children have an intense desire to build and create and express themselves without censure. Barb is one passionate artist!

Painting inspired by life under the sea

2009-03-27T19:22:00.000-04:00

This painting took a couple of classes to complete and really is an interesting work. It was inspired by browsing through a book about undersea oddities. It ended up looking like a network of lines and colors that are quite beautiful and abstract.

The effect of the larger pink (ish) lines and the small pink lines intersecting the blue/green backgrounds created a deep sense of space. It was alot of fun watching the painting unfold, as only the artist knew the direction the painting would take.

The vastness of the sense of space created by this 5th grade student might be the envy of adult artists.

Raise your Hand if You LOVE giraffes!

2009-03-22T15:47:00.000-04:00

There must be alot of people out there who think that giraffes are wonderful animals. This whimsical one was created with papier mache technique. What a great way to use a paper plate (the lips). Actually this head goes with an entire papier mache body that makes this giraffe almost 4 feet high. Before he left the art room he was dressed formally in a dotted tie that matched the dots on his body.

Don't Blame the Dog

2009-01-29T19:12:00.001-05:00

This is a cartoon about a boy and his dog who get into mischief when their Mother leaves to go out. Oh oh! A game of indoor baseball has resulted in the ball crashing through the window.......and Mom will be home soon! What can they do? The boy and the dog just clean up all of the glass after breaking the entire window, and the Mom doesn't even notice that the glass isn't there anymore. Now there's a unique solution to a situation- drawn and thought up by Jon who is all of 6 years of age.

I know a place to get great beads...

2009-01-26T19:06:00.000-05:00

I had a great vacation in Mexico and managed to spend some time in a lovely mall with an awesome bead store.

Punch out a design

2009-01-02T11:58:00.000-05:00

The French name for this is repousee. The way this is done is to put lots of newspapers under a piece of very heavy foil and creating a 3-D design.This design was done by "punching out"and then turning the metal over and "punching out " the other side. The design is then continued onto the black piece of mat board using colored pencils to extend and change the patterns of the repousee. I found this idea in an old issue of Scholastic Arts Magazine. The artist, Zoe, can be seen above putting on finishing touches. It takes a bit of patience, and one can get a little carried away with detail, but it sure is fun to do. You can also paint or use permanent markers to color the metal itself.

Playful Artist

2008-12-07T16:46:00.000-05:00

Here is a terrific idea from Seraphina. A carefully painted game board holds three pieces from each side, facing each other and ready to begin their game. The pieces are made from plasticine and wood, and the sides are not the same color. Can you see the carefully placed gems on the crown of the kings? The pieces hold toothpick weapons, though each has a protective dot of clay on the tip to eliminate unwanted piercing of the players or pieces. Seraphina obviously loves games and created her own- she is 6 yrs. old.

The Powerful Link Between Creativity and Play

2008-11-15T10:15:00.000-05:00

http://www.youtube.com:80/watch?v=RjwUn-aA0VY&sdig=1

Tim Brown talks about playful exploration, playful building, and playful role play as the ingredients to freeing yourself to create (using play) unselfconsciously., without censoring our ideas before they've been let out to play with.
We need trust to play and trust to be creative- to use exploration, and thinking with the hands (building)to grow our unique idea without censoring.

His design team operates like kids in my art class- they have the freedom to experiment without an end product in mind; perhaps just a glimmer of an idea is enough to toss around while manipulating materials and "thinking with your hands".

Tim discusses some playful work places and I'm sure he has alot to say about our schools today with their rigidity of teaching to the test.

Before and After Turtle Multi-Media Painting

2008-10-13T11:15:00.000-04:00

Julia's work is shown here before and after the painstaking addition of the turtle-.Both the turtle and the seaweed are made from white tissue paper that Julia had a great (and very messy) time mixing paint for to create just the right atmosphere. The shell was created from crumpled hand-colored tissue paper, while the seaweed was rolled or torn and attached with gel medium. The technique was adapted from Eric Carle's (The very Hungry Caterpillar) and probably a good deal messier. You don't need to start with white tissue paper though, and you can use any means to create texture on the paper.

Follow links on the right for great free Art sites

2008-10-13T10:00:00.000-04:00

I'm compiling a listing of sites which are art related and teach through doing and mastering the software. Some of links are to download a program. Others actually take you to a site to investigate some facet of art education. Please enjoy trying these links and leave your comments about the sites. Also feel free to leave other sites to share. Enjoy!

Create a color wheel-

2008-08-15T20:58:00.000-04:00

Older students can learn alot about color mixing by creating their own color wheels. You will learn that there are warm and cool blues, and warm and cool reds, and warm and cool yellows..you get the picture...A color by itself gives an impression, but in real life a color is never seen alone. So a color is described better in relation to the colors that surround it. Confused yet? Try it- its fun!

Whatever happened to the white plaster feet?

2008-07-27T15:38:00.000-04:00

I guess not everyone chose to make casts of their feet (which extended up to, or past, the knee).

Some chose to plaster the likeness of their face and pose anonymously.

How to create textured salt paint

2008-05-18T10:41:00.000-04:00

The process of art creation is an interesting one. These students are explaining (well they do get to it eventually) how to create a nicely textured paint using acrylic paints and salt. This is a team effort; the idea to formulated the custom colors belongs to the students who are the Chemists of this concoction. Stay tuned to see what they make from it, as it is a requirement to USE the stuff in a project.

Pivot Program Provides Preliminary Problem

2008-04-23T09:31:00.000-04:00

"Pivot" is a great animation program that kids can use to create story lines and animate them frame by frame. The grayed out area shows your last frame so lining up each new frame is a snap. Here's a story created on Primary Election Day in PA. which concerns an elephant, a donkey, and a man.

IN order to use a background created by a student, we had to figure out how to change the file type of the file from a "Word" to a "Paint" file, as pivot looks for graphics file types only to upload. That took alot of thought, and in the end we learned how to use the "Print Screen" button to paste a Word doc. into Paint to save it to a .jpg file. Pivot is then able to use your own graphic created in Word as a background. You could have created it in Paint all along and saved the time, but then we wouldn't have learned how to use the Print Screen button!

Pivot allows you to create your own people or animals or even words to have even more fun. If you think it looks easy, give it a try! It's a real workout if you have a story to animate.

I've added a link on the right to download "Pivot" to your computer.

a very messy day

2008-04-12T18:16:00.000-04:00

Perhaps only doctors should have access to plaster laden gauze...but that would take all of the fun out of making your own cast of your own foot. Thanks to blogger video posts are as simple as point, shoot, and upload!

New Orleans-Home of the Blue Dog Artist

2008-04-06T14:36:00.000-04:00

I attended the National ARt Education Association Conference in New ORleans in March. Wandering around the French Quarter with a new friend I met at the Conference, we stumbled up on the Gallery of the Blue Dog artist. The whole place was actually filled with his blue dog paintings. The series of these Blue dog paintings has always fascinated the kids, and I keep one of his books in the art room. Here's Nina's interpretation, the one time she actually painted from direct inspiration of any particular artist. For months after I bought the book, by the way ( and some of you may remember this) the students shouted out the words of the artist, just a few sentences from the book that they found memorable. After a few months, I think I hid the book....

Blue Dogs

2008-03-04T21:03:00.000-05:00

I just love this painting. What was interesting about it is that this child purposefully painted the colors just as she felt them, even though she had a good command of color mixing and could have whipped up some beautiful browns.

Here is Worhol's "Black Rhino". Both of these artists follow their own muse in the color department. I believe that you have to give full leeway to an artist, even a very young one.

How to hang your dog on the wall

2008-02-23T08:43:00.000-05:00

This dog portrait is a 3-Dimensional work completed by Allison. The portrait was drawn and painted first on thick board cut out in the main shape. In order to prevent warping, the board was painted on both sides. The details were then added-the fur is created with rafia glued down and painted, some acrylic yarn for the smaller hairs,some clay for the nose, a ribbon, and two beady eyes which are globs of glass. It is about a foot tall, so it makes a real presence. We thought it looked as good as those made by professional crafters, and certainly resembles her beloved pet!

Reasons why I enjoy teaching art-The creative sculptures!

2008-02-11T21:01:00.000-05:00

These sculptures are the product of having a limited amount of time to create a "realistic" sculpture ( it has to be something) from a limited amount of random supplies and assorted pieces of misc. plastic, wool, flowers, shells, straw, cds, ribbon, etc. Watching the process of trial and error by which the students come up with their ideas has been a real priviledge for me.

Watching the gears of creativity in your students is an amazing thing.

How to have a quiet moment

2008-02-01T19:26:00.000-05:00

While creating plaster masks, we had all kinds of fun!

We played around with imitating Munch's screaming masterpiece. This particular student succeeded in using her eyes to communicate. It was a very unusual class because those being plastered were totally silent. And believe me, that is VERY difficult for some !

first animated gif (click on the bottom graphic)

2008-01-26T18:48:00.000-05:00

This is a test to see what this little animated gif looks like on the blog page. Emma used photoshop to put together the image and I fiddled around with our new software cs3 to see how easy it is to animate in the new Photoshop. The photo on top is a .jpg which Emma put together from four separate photos. The bottom graphic is an animated gif. This attempt shows that I am a brand new owner of this software. I'm going to be investigating the fundamentals of this program. From there I can only get better! The only way to learn the program is to practice! But think of the possibilities of being able to create your own animated gifs! (etc.etc.)

NOTE: you have to click on the animated gif to start it. It will pop up in a new window.

great link to basic Photoshop tutorial

2008-01-13T13:11:00.000-05:00

We've started to use and learn Photoshop in class, and you may want to learn more in your spare time (those of you who actually have spare time). Here is a great little video posted on you tube that will help you learn about the interface (what you see on the screen in your program and how you get it to do what you want it to).He patiently goes over each tool and submenu of the tool and shows step-by-step by example what it does. You can always stop the video and practice the tool before he goes on to the next tool. Soon you will learn the basics of how to use Photoshop.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhfoU0ECdJ0

Nina's weight lifter

2008-01-03T17:27:00.000-05:00

Howdy, I am a student in Barbara's art class. I would like to tell you about this man lifting a heavy weight. Notice that his head is very pale. His head is pale because he can't believe he is lifting that heavy of a weight. If you are wondering what I made him and his weight out of the answer is plasteline clay and tin foil. You could use other clay but it would be harder to use. You should try making something like what I and my fellow mates made sometime.

By: NINA!