My own ME day today :)

After feeling awful for a few days I was glad to wake up this morning to feel better. Today is Friday and my day off so I decided that today is my own ME day !!! What a wonderful idea.... I had coffee in my favorite orange striped chair in my studio with all the ART magazines and books I could find. The latest Somerset Studio is wonderful and highly recommended.
2 hrs later (OH BLISS) I took the longest shower in history and drove to Michaels for some charcoal pencils and found (of course) plenty of other FUN and very necessary things that I just had to buy. Lunch at Chipotle (who can eat that whole burrito???) and a really quick trip through Costco.

Back at home again with a full head of ideas for some ART... have to put my thinking cap on since it is the Faculty Art Show already in April and I wand to come up with something fabulous. Unpacking the bag from Michaels...always fun...with some new sticker letters and clear stamps...chipboard tags and ... oh yea... the charcoal pencils I left the house to get. Now I have the rest of the ME day left to do whatever I want to do... Tonight the youngest of my kids is on a sleepover, the middle one out of town and the husband working late... :) JUST ME =^..^=

Need some new art lessons

Fun ripped paper bug project 4-5th grade Art Project...

I am in need of some new art lessons. Anyone out there with some ideas please let me know. I come up with almost all of my lessons (art for Elementary school kids) and always work with a lesson planner that the school district provide their teachers with. I am usually very organized and have lessons planned for 3 weeks ahead. I am teaching 3 5th grade classes tomorrow and have no idea what I am teaching.

I have used up most of my ideas and feel like I have no idea how to come up with new ones. The ideas might be there but I ALWAYS make a "sample art" to share with the kids. I love to show them what I am talking about by showing them some posters of famous ART or some sort of "thing" to touch and feel and smell. I even dance if I have to or sing to help the kids to "get it". Lately there are no finished sample art pieces and no posters to show.... and I think I know why... I have been spending way tooooo much time with my ART JOURNALS!!!

Tomorrow I need to bring out the art education books and magazines and visit blogs and teaching art websites. Putting on the thinking cap and CREATE MORE ART LESSONS!!! The ART journals will have to wait for a little bit. I can use them like carrots on a stick to a donkey, me being the donkey :). If you have any good websites to share PLEASE let me know.

Crazy digital ART

Don't ask....Some disturbed moment on my side I guess since I hate fish....only like to eat them. The text in the middle says... "Ladies Traveling Without Escort" Like I said don't ask :)

Gloomy day but lots of ART

A perfect day for ART. It rained all last night (finally) and today was cloudy and gloomy. The perfect time to hide in the studio and create ART.

Teaching today was good....I had the 4th grade do some work with patterns. My special needs K/1 class did some nice cupcakes and I told them what an amazing artist Wayne Thiebaud is.... One of the boys thought the cupcakes looked so yummy he had a taste but told me later it did not taste as good as he thought :)

Kids love Thiebaud's art and I always get the same reaction. Smiles and comments from even the most quiet kids. They love his cakes and goodies just like I do. He truly is one of my favorite artists.

First Grade ART :)

First graders making "quilts" today with a sharpie and oil pastels.

I started the lesson with showing the kids some real quilts and explained how they are put together. I was sad to find out that a lot of the kids have no idea what a stitch is or how you sew by hand...some knew you can use a sewing machine.

Do not use the Crayola oil pastels.... they are awful. All they seem to do is make a mess. The kids have to rub and rub and get all these shavings all over... Oil pastels need to be nice and smooth, bold and soft so make sure you use a better brand. I love the Schmincke Soft Pastel!!! They are reasonable in price and the kids love them. For my own art and art journals I always use the Portfolio Oil Pastel that is water soluble. www.dickblick.com is where my school gets all their art supplies.

The quilts we made today are lots of fun. The kids start with sharpie pens and draw straight lines all over the paper. They then use the pen to "sew" and make stitches. Coloring is fun and can take as long as you like it to take. I had the kids layer up to 3 colors :) I made sure we used the oil pastels to their full potentials....I did not want hardly any white showing when we were done. In the end we laid the "quilts" on the floor and created a HUGE "quilt" that we all admired together.

Ask the kids....what are the primary colors? what if you only have the primaries and you want to use green? purple?...

Good lesson over all....

Today is important

Today is important for all of us!!! Art and blogs and stuff is...just stuff. No matter who we are, what we look like or what we believe in... today is important.

I was teaching ART in a 2Nd grade class today when the inauguration aired on TV live and we all sat down on the carpet to watch. I really thought I was one of the most popular people to these kids...I mean ART is FUN and when Miss Jeanette arrives I get cheered and greeted with joy. These little kids sat on the carpet for an hour listening the our new President speaking with very adult words but somehow they still knew...today is important.

We ended up not doing ART at all....tomorrow we might try to draw President Obama.... :)

Today was important

sLiDe sHoW

Martin Luther King Day...NO WORK!!!

Today is Martin Luther King Day and the last day of my 4 day weekend. Tomorrow is loaded with 3 art classes....2nd grade! We are working on quilts and patterns. I am lucky enough this is in 2nd grade curriculum and they study quilts in class right now. The picture above is from a huge wall mural mosaic that I found at the San Fransisco airport Saturday night when we picked up the newly weds at the airport :) It is a huge mural made by many artists and thousands of little mosaic pieces creating these wonderful quilt like patterns....my students will see the pictures tomorrow. In class we work with oil pastels and large white card stock (will take pictures tomorrow) and the kids will draw straight lines with sharpies and then pretend "stitch" the shapes together....in the end (it will take them the full hour) they turn out so colorful. I encourage the kids to blend and mix colors...rub with their fingers and make up patterns....they love it.
Other than that...I did make some ART....The girl with the curly hair is my very good friend that had her Birthday party yesterday and needed to know how wonderfully fabulous she is....so I made her a painting. The rest of today is everything but exciting....I HAVE to go to the grocery store and get ready for the week. Good thing it is short.

Thank you all so much for visiting my blog :)

I never in my wildest fantasies would have guessed so many of you are visiting my blog. Thanks to all of you for stopping by, makes my day.... I just downloaded sitemeter and it works great.
Today is flying by...way too fast. My youngest daughter had soccer, she played goalie so it was a very nervous mother on the sideline trying to look at everything but the game. She did real well and I am so proud of her. Her Dad ended up walking around and around... that is what he does when nervous :) Lunch on the way home and a Starbucks outside in the sun...another 70 degree day here. Tonight we pick up the newlyweds at the airport and send them off to their brand new condo up in the Sacramento area. We will go and see them next weekend and help move in. I can't wait.
ART did not really happen today...other than my art journal of course!!! How did I even live without them. (yes I have 2 completed and 2 I am working in)

3rd grade ART

Some adorable Van Gogh inspired Starry Night art by my 3rd graders...

Ideas for teaching ART to Elementary school kids

Today was a full day at work with some pretty hectic art classes (4th gr. and K/1 special need). We did some talking about Paul Klee and worked on rubbing crayons over small shapes in 4th grade. The little kids worked with "dot markers" and made fish to add to some large blue paper. We made bubbles and seaweeds and in the end it looked really nice. I will take some pictures of lessons next week and share with those of you that might need some ideas. I teach K/1 special need, 1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th grade and come up with most of my art classes on my own. I follow California standards and always try to make art fun and interesting for the kids. We often look at famous art and talk about the artists and discuss together why that particular piece of art might have something in common with what we are working on that day.
I know how hard it is to come up with lessons and ideas so why not share. I would love to hear from anyone with ideas for some FUN art lessons for Elementary school kids. Not from California? no big deal...art is the same all over the world.

Here they are....the Bride and Groom and on the bottom....my 3 children.

The Wedding is over.....

I am beyond completely exhausted....both physically and emotionally. The wedding was a dream in white and everything went according to plan. The kids called from Honolulu just a little while ago :) There will be a picture of the wedding in the next few days. I took a few hundred pics and have yet to download a single one. I had to be at work this morning after 5 hrs of sleep and blisters on my feet from dancing and bad shoes. The wedding is over...my life will be back to normal but not until I have slept for 14 hrs. straight.

Almost time for the wedding

I love my daughter and I love my son in Law but I hate the stress of wedding planning and last minute RUSH....Do they know you can just elope to Vegas and get married in a little cute chapel with an Elvis impersonator. Hahaha my daughter would kill me if she knew these are my thoughts these last few days before the big DAY.

I found a place that can alter the dresses last minute today....after spending the day with yet another migraine, medicated and grumpy...I took my 11 yr. old there this afternoon to have her dress hemmed and my dress has to have the "tail" removed. The zipper in the back (right over my rear end) sticks out and it looks like I have a tail. The place is sort of...well...in lack of words (a dump) and I wonder if I made the right decision to leave our dresses there. The lady promised to have them done by Friday afternoon... SCARY PLACE...

Later this afternoon the migraine is gone, my hair has new high and low lights....the kids are home from school, dinner is planned, homework going and I need to start cleaning the whole house....

Vegas weddings might be the way to go :)

You have to get this.....

If you are into art journaling at all you have to get the BRAND NEW Art Journaling magazine by Somerset Studio...I found mine at Borders and every page is wonderful...worth the $14 ;0)

Some NEW Art

Here is some NEW ART...some of the pieces I created before Christmas...like the one above...when I had a few days before Christmas and no gifts under the tree :O)
The girls are just a try for some melted wax....was fun and i will try it again. All these pieces are in one of my handmade ART JOURNALS that I can't get enough of. Just need to do some more writing in them and less ART...just can't stand my handwriting.
This girl is so shy :) My good friend Jenny (age 5) inspired me...even though Jenny has blond hair not blue. She loves her dolls and is a real treat to be around. I have inspired her as well and she is just getting started drawing little girls...
This little one gave me a lot of trouble...Her hair was a mess...I still have to work on more background.
In my front yard I found these red berries enjoying the sun...it has been cold these last few weeks even here in California.

The wedding only one week away!!!!!!!!!

It is today only one week until my daughter is getting married. It feels surreal and somehow like she was born just yesterday. It is hard to really think about the big picture when all you do is stress around the wedding planning. Maybe after the wedding I will be able to digest the whole thing. Now I have to deal with caterers, florists, hair, nails, dresses, alterations, guests, rehearsals, lodging.....the list goes on.

So am I getting any art done? NO.... but every day I sneak in a few minutes in my art journal (or I would go crazy for sure).

We are back in town after a few wonderful days at our friends The Rehnvall's house. Tomorrow the kids go back to school again (but not me...I am taking the week off for wedding stuff). Life goes on and it is 2009!!!

The brand NEW Year

The new year is here....we are still visiting our very good friends in the Sacramento area and having the best time. Relaxing, visiting, getting help with our family website and enjoying the kids that live here (they are adorable). We all still miss Folsom and it always feels very sentimental to come back here. The weather is freezing...upper 30s BRRrrrr. Tomorrow we head back to the Bay Area but hope to come back up here soon. Thank you Family Rehnvall for always being the best of friends.