Time out for the teacher!

On a normal Thursday afternoon during the school year, I'm busy teaching art to a two classes of first graders, but today I got to take a break and become the student for part of the afternoon. While my little artists-in-training were celebrating Valentine's Day in their regular classroom, I got to participate in my first webinar. I've gotten regular emails from Cloth, Paper, Scissors for months (www.clothpaperscissors.com), but the timing has never been right to try something like this. The project was a mixed media Valentine heart and here's the result of my 30-minute webinar:

 

That was fun and a much nicer way to spend my "off duty" time than cleaning up dirty paint brushes and crushed oil pastels! Since I took the photo with my iPad, I couldn't resist playing around with a few apps. Here's my favorite, using the Popsicolor app:

 

All in all, a Happy Valentine's Day for me.

Hope yours was, too!

Finding new inspiration at the DAI

Over the course of a 36-year teaching career, I've logged a lot of workshop and in-service time, some of it useful and worthwhile and some of it not so much. But only rarely have I participated in a workshop that inspires me and makes me want to hurry home and pull out paints and canvas or paper and pastels. Today was one of those days, thanks to the Dayton Art Institute and two fantastic workshop presenters, Dr. Vincent Branick, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Dayton and his wife, Arlene Branick, a retired museum and art educator. The workshop, Art and Belief: A Look at Mary in Art, gave me a totally new outlook about works of art that I have viewed many, many times and a new understanding of the role of Mary in Catholic theology.

The Holy Family with a Donor in a Landscape
Pier Francesco Bissolo (Italian 1492-1554)
Museum purchase with funds provided by the John Berry Family,
the James F. Dicke Family, and the Deaccessioned Works of
Art Fund, 1998.41

Works like the one here are images I've seen many times, but today I finally understood the context in which they were sculpted or painted. Toward the end of the tour, we were viewing the only contemporary piece at the museum that had a madonna theme, or at least used the word "madonna" in the title.  

Madonna and Child
Alfred Jensen (American 1903-1981)
Museum Purchase, 1960.23 I was struck by the similarity between this piece and some of the transformations I've made to photographs using the Percolator app for my iPad. So now I'm thinking....make a painting of a contemporary Madonna and Child...photograph the painting...use Percolator...could be fun! I think I'm inspired!!

 

 

Making progress!

It took a little longer than I had planned, but my itty bitty work space is finally in order! The closet is completely reorganized, as are the shelves, desk and work space. I still need a little more storage, but haven't quite found exactly what will work for my space.

  

 All in all, I'm happy with the results...and a few unexpected finds! The best one is a pair of counted cross stitch pictures that my daughter made when she was in grade school. Two cute little teddy bears that will now be perfect for my youngest grandson's bedroom!

Now on to Goal #2: Complete a small calligraphy project for a friend's daughter and her new baby.

Old messes...New beginnings!

Here it is! A quick look into my "studio/computer room/storage area". So many unfinished projects...so many unused materials...so many unfullfilled ideas in my head...and so little time! Such is the life of a full-time teacher from late August until early June. The "art" I make during these months consists mostly of samples for new classroom projects to motivate my students and not the art that I would like to be making.

My hope is that by putting some of my ideas into writing and sharing them publicly, I will be more motivated to spend those few precious hours I do  have each week on developing my own creative process. Before I do though, I need to give my little 10x12 space a throrough reorganizing and cleaning up.

So Goal #1: Clean, organize, inventory...and dream of better days to come!
I'm giving myself one week from today to have this goal met...February 3!