This Pics have been Picked!

It is the best of times. It is the worst of times.......Exciting as it is to get student artwork out in the community, it is one of the hardest things I have to do as an art teacher. The Annual Elementary Library Show is a wonderful venue to expose our students talents. Several Public Libraries display elementary artwork for about two weeks in the spring, showcasing some of the best works from each school. Why is it the worst of times? Because we are only allowed to submit 5 pieces of 2-D work. FIVE! How can I only choose 5 from 50 to 60 exceptional works of art by our students???? It is truly a vexing time for me, because the choices are impossible! But, after many excrutiating decisions, I have finally narrowed down to THE FIVE (one I am having trouble uploading....will try again so come back and visit).



Congratulations to all these artists!

In addition to these fabulous works, about 30 pieces of 3-D work was submitted to this show. Hopefully, they will all get in, but if not, they will be submitted to The Best In Elementary Exhibit.

Try to go by the Pablo Branch Library and see these pieces on display. The show will be installed on March 27th and should remain up for about 2 weeks.

Good Clean Fun

I had the opportunity to work with a few 4th grade classes making soap sculptures. This is probably one of my all time favorite lessons so far because they students get really into the project, and although the soap shavings get everywhere, the whole art room smells so clean and soapy!

I am waiting on the other two classes to finish their soap sculptures, but here are some images from the class that did complete the project.

We talked about abstract art, what makes something abstract and I showed them some examples of abstract sculpture. I also had the students identify positive and negative space. The students then drew out a plan that was to include at least one area of negative space, and they were to alter the soap to release an abstract form.

The project took patience, and often times the soap can break if students rush, so in those instances we had to really think creatively about either changing our plan or using some toothpicks to hold it together in a unique way.

The Sea Creatures

The 5th graders have been painting a lot of their clay projects which were sea creatures. Some classes are still waiting to paint theirs or need to finish up, but heres a sneak peak at some of the sea turtles and orcas. I am sure once the projects are complete Mrs. Snead will take a bunch more photos and post them because they are all turning out so well!

Proud of my Pointillists

I taught a lesson on pointillism to a 4th grade class for their Kids Art Fair project. I had the class 3 days in a row, which is rare, so I decided to start the project with them since it was going to be time consuming.

I showed the class a picture of Seurat's famous La Grande Jatte, and talked about the technique he used. The students then practiced drawing a still life with a vase and something overlapping the vase such as fruit or a cup. The students were to use the pointillism technique for the vase, however it was not required for the rest of the picture.

There were two students who just absolutely blew me away with their work. It was a difficult project that took patience, but I feel it is always worth it when students exceed your expectations. Take a look, I just cant believe these came from 4th graders! They are stunning!

3rd Grade Cartographers

This has been one of my favorite lessons to teach, I had some 3rd grade classes making maps in the art room. Mrs. Snead told me the students start learning about maps in 3rd grade, so I developed a lesson to reinforce what they learned.

I put together a PowerPoint to show the students different types of maps. The main focus of the lesson was what were the 3 things all maps should have. We discussed how maps needed a compass rose to tell us which direction to hold the map or to navigate the land. Maps needed a legend or map key so we could identify symbols or land features on the map. Finally, the maps had to include a map scale so we could measure distance.

I showed them weather maps and oceanography maps. I introduced vocabulary words such as cartography and we also discussed topographical maps and using contour lines. The students were to create an 'uncharted' island map that included the 3 things we discussed. The students were encouraged to name their island and were given the freedom to come up with some creative ideas for their maps, as long we were able to identify what they had drawn using the legend.

We had some really great islands, some students made islands they had actually been to such as Hawaii, others made candy island with chocolate rivers and peppermint beaches, and I had one interesting 'Kitty Island' with litter box beaches and furry hills.

All in all the maps turned out great, we kind of aged them by crumpling the maps and putting a watered down brown tempera wash over them. I had a great time teaching this lesson partly because of my interest in earth science and geography, I love being able to connect across disciplines to reinforce learning, its one of my favorite things about art, we can connect it to what students are learning in other classes.

Koi Ponds

This lesson was one of the very first lessons I ever did in my pre-internship experiences. I really liked it and decided to try the lesson with 2nd grade.

The students were to make pond scenes, we discussed using warm and cool colors. They were to blend cool colors to create the water and then to create contrast we were to use warm colors on the koi fish.

I shared with the students some interesting facts about koi fish, for instance they can live for 30-40 years, and are symbols in Japanese culture for luck, love, friendship, and masculinity, as well as being known as the warrior fish and the fish of nobility.

Koi fish are usually a mix of orange, yellow, red, white, cream, and sometimes gold and blue. They can also have black spots on them. The students were really interested when I showed them a visual with all the different types of koi fish, they are categorized by color and scale pattern, the diagram included Japanese symbols for the type koi.

This project is really great because there are so many things you can talk about, we discussed what made the project 3-d because the torn strips bulge so the project is not flat. Finally we also discussed why the project is considered to be a mixed media project. I explained how this refers to what materials we use, in order to create the koi pond scenese we used paper, glue, crayons, watercolor paint, and tissue paper.

Another Candle

Last year, a committee of teachers, parents, and staff, got together to plan a HUGE birthday party for Chets Creek's 10th birthday. It was quite a week long bash of birthday festivities. One idea, was to paint a large wooden candle for each year, depicting the theme for that year. (1-Building a 21st Century Community of Learners and Leaders, 2-Team up for Success, 3- Aim High, Take Flight, 4 - Hitch Your Wagon to A Rising Star, 5 - Puzzle Paradise, 6 - To Infinity and Beyond, 7 - Mission Possible, 8 -Lights, Camera, Action, 9 - Blazing the Trail 10-The Race is On, 11- The Magic Kingdom, Dreams Begin Here) Here, you see the first 11 (actually 10 1/2) candles with the various themes. These were painted by several people including, Kristy Sappington, Karen Willett, Haley Spooner, Hillery Theverage, Ian Forrester and myself. Believe me, I was ever so grateful to have such a wonderful group of artists to help with this undertaking. It was really fun to see candles ALL OVER THE ARTROOM being worked on in so many different styles. With oldies music in the background.....it was a real painting party. And they ALL turned out fantastic!!!! Below, is the new addition for this year..."Around the World in 180 Days." Not only does it include various forms of transportation, but features our new Mascot, Champion Chet, in the pilot's seat. Now, where it will go......I don't know. But it will mark another wonderful year at Chets Creek Elementary!

THE WALL IS UP!!!!

Earlier you read about all our old 5th graders (I say old like they have been gone forever), that are now 6th graders, returning to paint their "High 5" tiles for our wall. Well, now all the tiles are done and up on the wall, thanks to our wonderful volunteer, James Boyd. All 151 tiles have been adhered to the Dining Room wall and are looking good for our upcoming HIGH 5 Banquet, where the new section of the wall will be officially unvailed.

Here is our new section. Our Goal is to line the Dining Room walls with these beautifully glazed tiles as, not only an enhancement to the yellow walls, but a motivation to our students to strive for the honor of having their handprint, forever displayed, for all future Chets Creek students to enjoy. It is interesting that each year, the numbers of students receiving the "5" on Math, Reading and/or Science, has grown. Maybe the wall is motivating more than we think!! Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

NOW WE ARE COOKIN' WITH GAS!

Meaning, of course, that things are really cooking in the art lab......with electricity.......specifically the clay pieces. We have had several of our 4th and 5th grade classes finish up their clay projects, using paint and mod podge. They are really turning out beautifully.

Above you will see 4th grade clay plaques, with open negative spaces, where the students have woven with wire and beads. Below, there are swimming sharks and jumping dolphins, completed by our 5th graders.

Our 4th graders have also had some fun designing their own form of storyteller after being motivated by the Pueble Storytellers that they observed. Here you even see and alien storyteller, passing down a story to the little alien children. Also as woman telling her cats a story. This, of course, lined up with telling a narative, which some of them had for the FCAT writes. Maybe they could actually imaging the story that these storytellers are telling. Hmmmmm.....

There is still a lot more to come as the students are finishing up with paint. The seahorses and Marlins that were shown in an earlier post, are getting ready to be finished. Stay tuned to see what comes out next from the CCE ART LAB!

Kindergarten Owls

I had my kindergarten class last week paint owls. We practiced several weeks ago on practice paper and then we painted them on the blue paper last week.



I am really pleased with how the owls turned out. We talked about the different types of shapes we use to make the body, ovals, circles, triangles, and skinny ovals. We also talked about patterns in order to do the feathers of the owls. Finally, we discussed overlapping, the branch was to be in front of the tail and the claws were to be on top of the branch.

We also painted leaves onto the branches and used oil pastel to outline and add fine details.

Clay Marlins

The next 5th grade class I worked with made marlins out of clay. These also turned out great! The most difficult part was probably the nose/snout of the marlin, if it got to thin it would probably break.

The students did a very good job scoring and slipping the clay together and I also think as a whole their craftsmanship and attention to fine detail was above average, there are a lot of great looking marlins!

I will see this class today and we will make bases to hold up the marlins. Mrs. Snead had a neat idea last week that 'mounting' our trophy fish on a wood placque would be kinda fun for a base, but we just didnt have an opportunity to try it out. We will make the base out of clay, but perhaps we can still toy with the idea of placques later on.

Clay Seahorses

All of the 5th grade classes have been working with clay, each class Mrs. Snead was doing a different sea creature to keep things interesting and to help keep the classes separated.

I took over all the classes this week and had to step up to the plate in working with clay. I thought doing a seahorse would be a neat idea so both Mrs. Snead and I got to work in trying to figure out the best way to make a seahorse out of clay.

I knew it would be challenging and I am glad the class I got to work with was small so I was able to get around to everyone quicker that needed help. As challenging as making the seahorse was, the 5th grade class really stepped up to the plate and their pieces turned out great! I was really impressed with how most of them turned out.

It was difficult because we created the body using a slab technique, and we had to continue to work with the clay in our hands so it wouldn't become flat. The body of a seahorse also is covered with a spine like texture that required a lot of skill to mimic in clay. We also created bases to hold up the seahorses, which was also a more challenging style base because the seahorse is kind of thin, but tall. Luckily through the whole process Mrs. Snead was right there to help both me and the students out if we needed it. We did perform a few "surgeries" on seahorses that broke, but its very easy to reattach clay while its still wet by simply scoring and slipping the pieces together.

I am really pleased with how the seahorses turned out and very proud of the students and myself!

6th Graders Come "HOME" to Glaze "High 5" tiles

How fun it was to see all these students who came in to paint their High 5 tiles. With FCAT scores coming in AFTER school was out for the summer, these students did not get to design their tile until this year, when they are 6th graders. I am so glad we were able to get them in, because seeing your tile on the wall is much more fun if you made it yourself. I would have hated that they would have missed designing their very last art project at Chets Creek.

What is our High 5 tile about? At Chets Creek, any student who makes a 5 on the FCAT gets to decorate and glaze a 6"x6" tile. It then gets fired and put up on our HIGH 5 tile wall, that is worming its way around our dining room. That way, they can come back later on and always be able to find their tile. It really is a cool thing AND it really adds beauty to our dining room.

What was really fun was hearing these 6th graders chat about what was going on with them in Middle School. Oh, has the drama has already begun.......funny! They thought is was fun coming back to Chets Creek as they were constantly asking of their old (well...not really so old) teachers were still here. You'd think they had been gone for years. They had a blast seeing each other again and catching up, as many are attending different Middle Schools. Even the parents, who were hanging around, were jumping into the conversation, laughing, and teasing. Some were even helping to paint their child's tile. Others were offering advice as to how they should be painted. Little siblings (at least those not in strollers) were coloring up a storm and sharing their artwork. It was, to say the least, lively in the art lab these two nights. It all made staying after school, late, a really fun experience!

I Have Learned Something New!

I was challenged by my principal, Susan Phillips, to create a wordle. I was clueless. So I sought out the help of our wonderful tech person, Melanie Holtsman, to help me out.

Wordles! Sounds funny, looks cool. And all ART! Taking words and creating a cloud, where the words you use most often are the biggest. This is a great way to see what words you use A LOT. This can be quite telling about the focus of your written word.

When I look at mine, I at least see that I talk mostly about ART and STUDENTS, which is good as that is the focus of my blog. Fun seems to be a decent size as well, that's good too.

What do you see in my wordle??????

I tag Hallie Spooner, Terri Woodlief, Mary MacKoul, and Betsy McCall to try this out!

Intern Update

So things have been going pretty well with the internship so far, this coming week will be the first week I fully take over all the grade levels (I’ve been picking up 2 grade levels each week). I am excited and nervous; the most difficult thing so far has been adjusting/wrapping my brain around Mrs. Snead’s class schedule.

I have been doing a lot of water coloring with the kids to help them finish up their Kids Art Fair projects. I have also really enjoyed helping the 5th graders work with clay. On Monday I am going to start a clay project with a class, we are going to attempt to make seahorses. I know it will be a challenging task, but I think we can do it. I have also had the chance to teach my ‘spacescape’ lesson again, which gave me the opportunity to try a different approach after reflecting on the strengths and weaknesses of the first run through. I was really pleased how excited the students were about the subject matter of outer space.

I also had my first observation by my supervisor last week. She came in and observed me teach water coloring to Mrs. Ossi’s class. They were wonderful and my supervisor said she was very impressed and that I am performing right on target, which is great news and certainly a confidence builder.

The first grade sleepover on Friday was also really fun to be a part of, I love how spirited the school is, and coming into school in pj’s was fun. In the art room we had the first graders making book covers, it was great to see so many parents and teachers getting involved. I really do feel so lucky be at Chet’s for my internship.

Sleeping Over with the First Graders

That's right! All day long we had a "sleepover" with our first grade students. It really is a lot of fun. First of all, we get to go to school in our pajamas! For that reason alone, it's fun. Then, we get to parade around the school, infront of about 1000 kids, with those cute little first graders, to show off our pajamas. Too exciting! Next, all the resource teachers set up exciting stations through which the different classes rotate during the day.

In the art lab, we did book covers , illustrating the stories the students had been (or will be )writing about their "sleepover" experience. We discussed the role of the illustrator and how they did artwork that actually told the same story in pictures that the text told in words. We learned that, many times, it is the picture on the cover of the book that first attracted us and sparked our attention to the look at and examine the book further. Then, the students went about taking on the new position as illustrator of their story. They really seemed to get into their designs, coming up with some beautiful covers.

I wish that when I was in elementary school, I had gone to a school like Chets Creek, that designed these fun days for students and teachers. I might have liked school better, maybe even tried harder. "Sleepover" is like the PLAY in Daniel Pink's book A Whole New Mind. So get your PLAY on.....and do some art while your at it!!

"Green" Baskets

The buzz these days is "going green." It is all about recycling our wastes so as not to fill our landfills with all that stuff that doesn't break down (or at least doesn't for a million years or so). Well, art labs across the world has always been "green" as we recycle just about anything we can get our hands on. My storerooms are full of "garbage" that parents and students drop off on a regular basis. Some of the items I get I can't even identify BUT they come in real useful for certain projects. Some items may even sit there for a year or two before I get a brainstorm about how to incorporate them into a project, but I am glad it's there when I need it.

This particular project has been a little challenging for my 4th graders at first because it takes some coordination to get it started. But once it clicks, they are off to the races. (Make sure to watch for a future entry showing the finished products as these are NOT finished yet.) It simply uses old newspaper, string or yarn and tapestry needles. The product is a functional basket, ready to hold silk flowers, yarn, or decorative balls or any other dry, non-edible item(s). Obviously, there are tons of ways to use newspaper to build projects. What ways can you think of?

An Art Lab in Action

I really think it is so cool when students come into the Art Lab during their recesses, before school, and/or after school to work on their art projects. It make this room feel like a REAL art lab; a working art lab; a place where students can come put in a little extra time to improve their craftsmanship or catch up on their project, getting their artwork to to level they want it, instead of to the point that regular class time allows. It is exciting to have so many students WANT to spend their extra time doing art! To me, that is the ultimate goal -> to have students excited about what they are creating and desiring to do it well.

Lately, it seems we have had a stream of students in and out at all hours of the day, starting at 8:30 until 4:00 or 4:30. These are students that come to the lab OUTSIDE their normally scheduled art class. I might have as many as 7 or 8 students working in the back of the room on their various projects, sparking interests from the assigned class. Questions start flying..."What are they working on?," " That is really cool, can we do that too?" and so on. I guess a real art LAB is when students feel that they have access to it whenever needed, to put in the extra time,desired, to complete their artwork.

Kids Art Fair to Exhibit in April

Our students are working on projects that will be part of a special art exhibition to be set up on three different nights in April during our Cultural Arts week. Kids Art Fair company will take the students' works of art and put them in a double mat and black metal frame and have them displayed for parents and family to enjoy. The really wonderful part of this is that families can purchase these works of art for around $30, ready to be hung on the wall of their homes. A portion from each sale, will go to Chets Creek to suppliment the Cultural Arts fund, which helps to bring in quality presentations for all of our students as well as helps supply the resources with special materials used with students during resource classes.

Be on the lookout for an invitation for this event and be ready to RSVP, so your child's artwork will be ready. If desired, additional frames and mats can be purchased on the evening of the event, just in case you want to have your child's artwork copied for another family member.

We can't wait to see you their. If you have any questions, leave a comment and we will publish answers as we get closer to the event.

Mrs. Snead Has an Intern

Hello to all! My name is Tina Fravel and I am Mrs. Snead’s intern for the next 14 weeks! I am an art education major at UNF, after completing my internship I will be graduating in April (finally!). At UNF I took several fine art classes in addition to taking education classes, I really enjoyed taking a ceramics class because I love working with clay. I also enjoy working with oil pastels and painting. This past summer I took my first photography class and found I had a natural talent for it; this class had us working with manual cameras and darkroom development.

I have most recently decided that I want to learn more about digital photography because I know how in tune kids these days are with technology. After expressing this interest to the only other artist in my family, my 89 year old pop pop (who was an engineer, musician, painter, photographer, and singer!), he decided to let me have one of his digital cameras he no longer uses. So I will be trying to figure out how to use it and digital editing software in the coming weeks I hope.

So far I have really enjoyed working at the school and observing Mrs. Snead teaching the students. I noticed right away the students were working at much higher levels than I anticipated. This week I started working with the 3rd grade and 1st grade classes. The lesson plans had a similar theme of outer space, the 3rd graders were working on ‘Spacescapes’ and the 1st graders were working on paper collage aliens. I enjoyed working with the students and hope to continue to challenge them to perform at high levels. I have already noticed a lot of very talented artistic students and look forward making some fantastic art projects!

Who do the budget cuts hurt?

You know, I have always wondered .... when the money gets tight, why is education one of the first places they look to cut????? Actually, why do they go there at all? You'd think it would be one of the MOST IMPORTANT areas to keep in tact, even in which to actually INCREASE funding. I mean, aren't kids, the future leaders and workers of America, important enough to make sure they get the education needed to keep our country alive and competitive?? How are we to do it with less and less. With TECHNOLOGY ever increasing by the day, how are we supposed to keep the students up to date if we dont' have the tools? Lots of questions with not very many answers.

Of course, often withen that arena, the resources are looked at pretty early on, meaning art, music and PE, as an area, supposedly, "expendable". I will have to admit, though, in my county, the School Board seems pretty supportive of these areas, but, never the less, I know that some of the positions are going to disappear. As important as the arts are to "educating the whole child" ( the new buzz word) why would they end up on the chopping block first? For that matter, why would any teacher end up there?

I guess it is time to let our legislators know what we want them to do with the budget as we are the people they are representing. My prayer is that they would be given MUCH WISDOM as they deal with these budget cuts, and that they would deal with them from a proactive, instead of reactive, stand point. After all the quote "Children are our Future" is a real life FACT. We just hope they are ready to take it on!

Still lilfe Photography

My 5th graders are going to town with photography this year. In thisclass, we talked about photographing interesting still lifes.

We talked about changing angles, closeups, and

just creative set ups that might be different from the normal still life pictures that we see. After looking at several photographs with the still life genre, we discuss different ways we could interpret and set up objects that were placed around the room. Students got all kinds of stuff out of my storerooms, my shelves, my closets and cabinets. Just about any thing they could find to use.

Believe me when I say, they got creative. With only two classes of 50

minutes each, they had to find their stuff, make their plan, set up their items, photograph them and then print them. You can't even imagine what my room looked like at the end of those two classes. I had still lifes EVERYWHERE! But I can't argue with the results. They really had to make alot of quick, quality decisions to get their final results. For the most part, everyone did great!

If you have any other really great ideas for subject matter for digital photograpy, please, please, please....let me know.

Studying Relief

My students really seem to just love this project. It seems so easy but they just get a real kick out of watching it develope into, what looks like, old, tarninshed silver relief patterns. We talk about relief and what that means in art. That it is a form of three dimentional art BUT it is only slightly three dimensional. Most sculpture can be seen from all sides but relief sculpture is viewed like a two dimensional picture. This one is of a tulip and has been created with shirt board, glue, and foil. Wooden stylis were used to etching into the heavy duty foil, after covering our cardboard motifs, which gave us some intricate little patterns, textures and details to enhance the overall piece. We used India Ink for the aging process by putting it on, letting it dry for a minute or two and then buffing it off to our liking. The results are amazing! Definitly a fun one to try!!!

Meeting an Original Highwaymen

One of the wonderful parts about the Orlando Conference was being able to meet one of the ORIGINAL Highwaymen artist and watch him paint. This is R. L. Lewis, one of 26 artists who, in the early 1950's through the 1980's, developed their own style of depicting the Florida Landscapes, selling these paintings out of their cars and vans as they traveled up and down the coast. During that time, an African-American, would not likely find Art Galleries open to displaying their work, so they would take it to the road, so to speak. Today, their artwork is eagerly sought after by collectors willing to pay top dollar for Highwaymen originals.

Duval Art Teachers Association was very blessed to have R.L. Lewis paint one of the wooden palettes that are being auctioned to provide funding for the Leslie Beddard Scholarship Fund. His particular palette is being auctioned on Ebay and has already had an offer of $600. We would really like to thank Mr. Lewis for his huge contribution!

IMing with Iraq - Talk about ART and TECHNOLOGY!

We spent almost an hour IMing with my son James, who is on tour in Iraq, while, part of the time, seeing him through web cam. It is still hard to fathom being in contact with him, half way across the world. But one thing that really struck me was the marriage of art and design with technology that made it possible for this Mama to stay in contact with her boy. We are so surrounded by art being used to simplify and improve our lives that we hardly know it as art! If you have Instant Messaged, you know that there are hundreds of little "things" that you can send through the IM to enhance your words. My Daughter, Morgan, was constantly pulling up these little pictures that did some kind of funny action, when activated, to send with her text. Funny!!!!! Of course, James had to send some back as well. One thing I know......I have an aweful lot to learn! But, I am thankful to be able to keep in touch so often with my son. It almost makes him seem as if he is not so far away.

Clay Workshops at the Cummer

This past Planning Day I was priviledged to be able to teach three clay workshops to fellow Elementary Art Teachers on using the "Hollow Egg" technique of clay handbuilding. What an honor, as my colleagues are amoung the BEST art teachers in the state of Florida. I hardly felt adequate to teach them anything at all. However, in each of the three workshops that I gave, I had many teachers thank me for showing this method as they began to get many great ideas on how to teach this to their students. Wow!!!! Of course, I didn't walk away without new ideas myself! Just goes to show that you can NEVER stop learning. The teachers created the cutest, wildest, and most beautiful pieces using this technique. It was just fun watching the ideas move from the mind to the clay.

Of course, we couldn't stop at just teaching the technique, we had to find all the ways that this project tied in with the various academic subjects. When we introduce clay, we have to talk about how important clay has been in learning about ancient cultures. Because it does not breakdown quickly (not even after 12,000 years) archaeologists are able to learn so much from what is painted on the clay AND what is found inside ( sometimes grains or ashes). Of course, that moves right into how clay is made, naturally, from disintegrating rocks, and water. On to different processes that clay goes through to go from a lump of earth to a solid piece of pottery. Math jumps in their when we have to estimate halves, and then put them together into a whole. I could probably go on and on. Not to mention it is all A LOT OF FUN!

Learning Lots in Orlando

Wow! It is a wirlwind down here! I haven't stopped since I stepped out of the car. The workshops are wonderful, and the ideas are coming. There is so much creativity flowing that I should come back with a new lesson plan or two to try out with the students.

The workshop I gave with my friend, Judi Evans, really turned out to be a huge success. Everyone was telling us how fascinating it was to learn how much a small book can help teach students so much. Not only, art concepts, but concepts they find in their classroom as well. See livefromthecreek.blogspot.com to see the details on this workshop and see some of the beautiful books created by these teachers.

A couple more workshops to go and then I am heading back to Jax.

Heading off to FAEA Conference

It is that time of the year again, when all kinds of crazy art teachers head off to Orlando for the Florida Art Education Association Conference. All of you who go to conferences know that not only are these large gatherings FULL of information, and learning of new skills and techniques, they are also just fun! Rubbing elbows so many creative minds from all over Florida can only result in tons of new ideas to try out as soon as I get home. My biggest problem is TIME. How to fit in all the neat stuff into one school year. I am willing to give it a shot.

If you teach art, conference should be built into you annual school plans as often, we are alone in our jobs at our schools. We don't always have someone to bounce ideas off of or discuss celebrations and concerns with, therefore leaving us feeling like we are an island that no one understands. At Conferences, whether local, state, or national levels, we are immersed into the whole "art-thinking" thing with hundreds of others WHO ACTUALLY KNOW WHAT WE ARE TALKING ABOUT! It is just as much a time for interactions, making contacts, and building relationships as it is for learning new procedures or how to improve our craft.

I will be presenting this year by doing a workshop on Artist Trading Card books, how to make them, and how to use them to teach the elements and principals of design. I think it will be tons of fun to see what the workshop attendees come up with while designing their own books.

I will also be going to the reception, where all our "very interesting" centerpieces will be displayed. Now, I would really like to be a fly on the wall as people encounter these "interesting" works of art. I'll try to remember some :-)!

So....FYI.....I will be gone from Thursday, Oct, 16th - Sunday, Oct. 19th. Pray I will get there and back again in one piece and that Judi (with whom I am doing the workshop) and I are successful in sharing all our little secrets about ATC Books with all who grace our workshop.

See ya Monday!

Still time to Order ATR!!!

If you have not turned in your Art To Remember, you still have time. Even though the deadline was October 10th, I will be sending in a late order in the next couple of weeks. You should still have your order back in time for the holidays, so send it in. REMEMBER - if your order is below $25, you must send in cash.

A HUGE THANK YOU TO ALL WHO HAVE PARTICIPATED. EVERY ORDER HELPs US TOWARD OUR GOAL OF QUALITY PERFORMANCES AND ACTIVITIES FOR OUR STUDENTS!