Artist~Teacher... tishalou

Or a better title: The new fire marshall will be visiting mid January. I am one of the lucky ones that my room was actually designed as an ART ROOM. I know a lot of teachers who make do with a regular classroom or a room designed as a science lab or dare I say it - no room at all.


from the door looking in



in looking towards the door



I started by getting some of the boxes out of the way and out into the classroom

A whole useful shelf filled with empty boxes

Some of the good ones put back for use "someday" Notice the little sample paint jars - great donation - I think I might 'steal' the little shelf in our adult bathroom and have some students artsyfy it!!

Between donations and supplies I have purchased I have some gems I need to create lessons for...

I have 700 of these! Wish they were not divided.

Lots of coffee filters - Want to do a Chihuly lesson with these

cone water cups

200 of these plastic lined paper pillow cases - clinic miss ordered these. I am seeing some kind of watercolor, spray bottle mess with these!

miracle sponges - stamping adinkra? ... stamping on the pillow cases!!!

Magnet tape!

Our custodians are awesome and they have brought me extra shelves so I can divide up the huge ones to make shallow ones for large paper storage and notice I have crayon, pencil, marker boxes on one.

WOW - there is a floor in there! HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!

my finished birdie

a strip before coiling and coils of different sizes.

the box top with my in progress work and strips and templates for the kids. template to size coils on and create outline finished snowflake (hard to get the points!) Notice the all blue paper! my Fave! I love the combo of tight and opened coils these are the two I purchased that started the whole idea!

I saw more versions of this idea on Cut out & Keep like this one: Recycled Magazine Ornaments and Recycled Magazine Necklace. Fun site!!

The one project I wanted to get done was a photo gallery wall. So I went and collected all the frames I had and most already had good photos. I had to decide what time frame - so I decided it would be before our son and our parents, siblings and grandparents. I think it turned out great. Here is a before picture. This one is very early in the process ~ still selecting pics...
Tape marking where to start... The dogs have been enjoying the new carpet.

Here are some pics of the process...
 Laying it out on the floor on brown craft paper:
Taped the paper to the wall and hammered in all the nails:
 Lined everything up on the paper:


Notice the holiday decor already up? Why would I put this up in the middle of the madness? Because the hubby's plans are usually always stored away in his head rarely coming out before the day of the actual execution of said plan. Perhaps he was telling me and I was in such denial that he would actually take on such a project the WEEK OF THE PARTY I was blocking it out!
Oh well - the house never looks better than the day you put it on the market, right?

We had to go to school Monday and Tuesday. I had a full schedule on Monday but no Kindergarten or 1st grade on Tuesday. So I needed a simple and fun holiday lesson for K, 1st, 2nd and 3rd. 5th is still working on their Day of the Dead skulls, I know bad timing and their performance messed the timing up even more, but I am pushing through because some of them are looking really great! 4th grade is finishing up their mandalas, they should need one more class.
So in browsing my favorite blogs I used a combo of Mrs. Hahn's Countdown Turkeys and Ms. Art Teacher's post Lesson for week before thanksgiving to create a cute turkey lesson that was easy, low prep, and used up some of the MANY tp rolls I have stored.
I limited the feathers to 3 concentric circles and I cut squares of different colors and put templates for the circles on each table. They decorated the tube with the turkey face in markers and I stapled the tube to the circles so it stands up on its own.
It was fun - I tried to get more out of them than just "I am thankful for my family" I did get a few that were thankful for art class and Mrs. Burke and school.

All three of these say family. You can see the squares set up on the counter in the background.

Awww! My sample said Mrs. Burke is thankful for great students! and I sure am!

It is official! I have some funding from my school and I just officially registered to attend the National Art Education Convention in Seattle, Washington.

1. This will be the first National Convention I have been able to attend since Grad school. I went to Boston in 05, Chicago in 06 and New York in 07. George Mason helped pay for those travels.
2. I live in Virginia and my Mom, step dad and my sister and her family live in Kirkland, WA.
3. My mom turns 60 on March 12th. I surprised her in Washington on her 50th 10 years ago so it is kind of a tradition! 
4. I miss my family (my nieces especially) and look forward to seeing them! 
5. I love getting new ideas and new perspectives on Art Ed. 
6. Signed up for a Chihuly tour! 
7. Will I get to meet any of my blogger buddies?? 

THANKS MR. E!

Well I FINALLY got around to hanging the beautiful bulletin board pieces that Mr. E made me! I won the contest he posted.
I got a sneak preview when he posted what he had made - I was so giddy!
Then I was even giddier and the ladies in the office were also when I received this awesome package in the mail:

I put the items in to get laminated ~ then they sat on my shelf for too long. You know how it is new lessons write, paper to cut, paint to put into containers, brushes to wash. My son has been taking Tae Kwon Do which is early on three days a week so we leave quickly after school - which has actually been nice! My husband picked him up on Wednesday so I stayed to hang my board! Here it is:

Click on the pic to see it larger.
I am hesitant to laminate it all together - with it being in pieces I will be able to pick and choose which parts I need and could even use it for other things down the road.
I LOVE IT!

Top Art Teacher Blogs, South Region
I made the list, too!

I see a lot of my blogger friends posting that they got an email about making the list of Top Art Teacher Blogs, South Region from the Teacher Salary Website. Well I didn't get the email - maybe it is lost in junk mail filter land... but I am on the list!

It is definately a good list - and looking forward to following the new ones I didn't know about!

• Snippety Gibbet
• Art With Miss Rachel
• Art With Mr. E
• Ms. Art Teacher
• Texas Art Teacher
• Elementary Art Fun
• St. Martha Catholic School Artists
• Tishalou
• Miz Patti's Art Room
• Art At Herod
• Art and the First Year Teacher
• MNPS Chiuly Art Lessons
• Art Gallery
• The Small Art Teacher Blog
• WKE Art Smarts
• Bolivia Arts
• Elementary Artist
• Murch Art with Miriam Cutelis
• Abbotts Hill Art Studio
• Art Talk from Mrs. Woodlief
• Art at WHS
• Lake Hamilton Art
• Riverwood AP Studio Art

Illuminated Letters

I did this lesson last year with much success in a square format. I blogged about it here. So this year the main difference was the Original Works 8 x 10.5 size. I had them make a border the width of the ruler. We used regular colored pencils and metallic paint. The metallic looks a little odd in the final reproductions on the magnets (which is probably why they suggest no metallics. :-)
Some really go the idea of shading with the pencils - pressing down hard in some areas and not so in others. I really emphasize the idea of the vine wrapping around the letter and show them how to make it look like it is really wrapping and not like a striped barber pole.
The B is my son's - He did a great job for being Mr. I Hate Art (which he says just to get to me). He's got it whether he wants it or not!

 I wish we had finished with the sharpies - but we ran out of time!

Abstracting an Object

I start off with a power point about the life and work of American artist, Georgia O'Keefe.

 My fave from last year: I love the lines...