Do I have to go back to the future?

This morning (Tuesday, 9/23/14) in the studio classroom

Clearly,  I have not held up any bargain/promise/proposal I have previously made to resume blogging. I am not even going to try and apologize about it anymore because I'm actually not all that sorry.

I mean... this blogsite has been really important to me. (Don't get me wrong on that.)  It has (more than) served its purpose of connecting me with other art teachers and working artists and designers. It's also been a terrific resource for folks if/when they have really REALLY needed it - be it for lesson plan ideas OR set/scene design ideas/how-to's/graphics for the many theater productions of which I have worked. I have gotten some awesome emails and comments from readers (about all of the aforementioned) and with every single one, I'm constantly humbled and amazed that anybody else thinks what I have done here has been useful or good.

(Please don't read all of this as a cry for validation and passive-aggressive request to feed my ego. I just seriously feel like I am 1) not that great of a writer to begin with, 2) OK enough at sharing what I have shared and 3) still learning so much myself that I am hesitant to "consult" because I'm still figuring things out myself/for myself - basically, I know I don't have the "answers" so I'm not trying to give anyone anything that is "half-baked.")

Related to all of the previous, the "fasting" I did years back from social media and then eventually from my electronic devices at large, I have found that since I have tried to return from that fasting, it's been hard for me to have very much of an appetite to keep up this particular blog anymore. I find that what I really crave (and am drawn to do) is to be more present in my classroom and with the incredibly talented (and hungry) student artists that I have been blessed to come to know. Despite how contradictory this sounds (especially since I am sharing this with you via digital social media), I find that one of the first things I want to do in order to start and end my days, are things that are not digital/virtual and are as tangible as possible.

In the past I used (and hated) using a teacher planning book/notebook. While I had lesson plans, I disliked writing them and I preferred using any (even every?) number of digital mediums/apps to write and archive them. Over at least half a decade later, I'm admitting that "my way" - of doing as many things digital as possible - is not nearly as productive or useful as I once thought. Through much too much trial and error, I've discovered that actually WRITING lesson plans in tangible ways (on real paper) has made teaching and learning (for both myself and my students) that much more tangible and REAL than it ever has been in digital format. This isn't to say that I have now decided that technology is bad but just... I have a new understanding of what it is good for and it's no longer as good for me (and my teaching efforts) as it once was.

My very well used Teacher Planning notebook - NOT digital!!! Thank you, Erin Condren for this amazing teaching tool. 

I've applied the understanding of the need for tangible things and organization in other areas of my life too. While I still use iCal across all of my devices, I don't rely on it as my sole means to keep me on track and on time. I have alarms and reminders set for things but I don't require them because I am actually remembering things before they remind me to not forget them. This is all because I'm using a paper planner (also from Erin Condren) for my non-teaching life...

I have no idea how my life was ever functioning at all without this Life Planner. Seriously. How did I do it? (Answer: I didn't)

The above looks fancier and like it requires more work to maintain it (as seen above) than what it actually does and I'm so thankful for that. I've come to find that it is true that when I fail to plan, I plan to fail and this has a domino effect in every direction of my life. This isn't to say I've become this incredibly regimented and "by the [planner] book" type of person of routines that cannot be deviated from and structure that is so rigid it hurts. Quite the opposite, I'm more relaxed and at peace and fully present than I ever have been in all of my life. I don't get worked up over stupid things and I'm truly able to do things like keep little things little because I have taken the time to better know the size and weight and TIME that most things take up in my life. And if something unexpected arises? I know how much size/weight/TIME I have leftover (or not) in my life in order to be able to squeeze/fit it into the time and energy that I DO have because I can see it so clearly as it's laid out in my planning notebooks.

None of the previous was ever possible for me when I did things digitally. Perhaps there's something wrong with me that doing this digitally has worked like this but I have found I just can't do things digitally as much as I have thought I could. I feel like doing things digitally (and thus asking less physically and cognitively of myself) has ended up giving me less HEART and SOUL to actually LIVE life as I know I have been called to do rather than giving me "convenience" and saving me time, energy, or money the way I have thought it worked when digitizing is used to its greatest degree.

Anyway, all of this is to say that 1) I'm still not clear about what I'm to do with this here blogsite though I know I'm not taking it down and 2) I'm still choosing to be more present in my actual and physical life more which consequentially means I am also choosing to be less present here (on this blogsite) and until further notice.

I hope you all understand. I hope that even what I am sharing now (in addition to what I have already shared) is relevant and useful in the dreaming, Praying, and CREATING of your own decision. In the meanwhile, I am being still and remaining in a holding pattern where I'm praying for each and every one of you, this blogsite, and myself so that I can better understand where/what I should create next.

God bless you, all! Have a great rest of your week and see you whenever I see you...

RoyGBiv day still on my mind

Technically this is day-old news here on the blog but this is a great shot (not taken by me) that is currently parked front and center on my school's homepage...

*sigh*

What a wonderful day and opportunity for fellowship it was!!!

I have been able to speak with a number of folks (administration, faculty, and students alike) about what they took away from it and I have gotten nothing but super positive feedback. Administration has even said that they would fully support (meaning funding and all) for this to be a recurring event at the end of every single year!!!! *SCOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRE!!!!!!!*

You must realize something: This idea originate from my own "crazy" imagination in the midst of winter when I was also working on getting the ombre experience lesson idea together while also juggling everything needed to do the sound of music set design and fabrication. I casually mentioned it to the one senior student who spearheaded this with me with (sort of) the expectation that he was absolutely "crazy" enough to want to do it. (He's just that kind of awesome and so I kind of wasn't surprised that he wanted to do it.)

Here are some more shots and things to note of how we got from start to finish on the whole thing.

We did a number of trial runs with inflated balloons to see how long they would maintain their ability to self-levitate. We determined that we had a max of 8-10 hours before they would lose their ability so in order to fully utilize that ability, we determined we would have to inflate the balloons the morning/day of the release. Our preferred time frame would have been mid-morning but we ended up being given the tail-end of the school day in the way of the last two periods - so about 1:30-2pm was when we would do the release.

In order to accommodate both the inflating of the balloons, storage until the release, etc. etc. etc., we used our school's performance arts center/venue and gathered over 20 students to help inflate, tie off, and attach balloon clips (with strings pre-attached) to the balloons. We estimated it might take us as long as five hours with two tanks of helium based on some balloon inflating that had been done weeks before for another event for around 300 balloons. We ordered 600 (100 of each color from Oriental Trading) but ended up with less than 550 because of shoddy balloon quality, balloons that burst from being overinflated ("pilot" error, if you will), and ones that just got away from us and floated up to the ceiling while we were trying to inflate them. We had the students come in at 5:15am to do the inflating and we were done and cleaned up by 8am when school started. (Note: EVERY student that came in said it was "totally worth it" and other students that missed out were disappointed that they didn't take the opportunity to join in!!!)

We stored the balloons in this venue until they students would all gather together for the presentation and instructions about how this whole event would go down...

We did provide lots of coffee and other yummy breakfast food as extra incentive for those who got themselves up and into school so early. 

 At the last period of the day, all of the students were gathered in the venue for the presentation about color theory (done by my senior student partner-in-crime) and he capped off the presentation with specific instructions about how each student was to get their balloon off the balloon clips/strings and out to the school quad in formation in order to release them. There were diagrams/maps that showed the path they were to walk and volunteers on-hand to facilitate traffic control and flow. Volunteers were wearing rainbow tie-dyed shirts so though would be easy to pick out from the crowd.

 Once the students got out to the quad, there were more volunteers (donning the requisite tie-dyed shirts) who were holding large poster board signs corresponding with all six colors of the balloons we had.

Students stood in their color group (away from other groups) until they were given the "OK" that every single student had exited the building with a balloon and was ready for the release.

 

 The center of the color "wheel" formation was marked with a duo of balloons (in black and white) where my senior student stood with an electronic megaphone and I was with my camera to document the action.

 When all was clear and everyone was confirmed to be outside with a balloon in hand, the volunteers were given the "yes" to bring their groups toward the center and we all bunch together as closed as we could. A countdown was given from 20 and then the balloons were finally released.

Again, I'm sorry I don't have any video of the actually release but it was truly (for lack of better words) MAGICAL to experience. Even now just looking at the stills of the event above with all of those colorful balloons floating up to the sun, I can hardly put into words how it felt to be there. And that, my friends, was/is the whole point of such a thing as RoyGBiv day in the first place!!!

It's about not just telling but SHOWING the students the gift that is an experience, that gift that is visual art, the gift that is being a part of the creation of visual art, and the gift that is being a part of something so much larger than itself.

A lovely blog reader (Hi, Cynthia S!) left a wonderfully supportive comment on my original posting about this event saying that she was going to "copy" this for her school next year. Friends, folks, blog readers, WORLD - PLEASE COPY THIS IDEA!!!!! Like I said before, to my knowledge (and per Google) no single day like RoyGBiv day exists at all AND IT SHOULD.

My own personal thoughts about this are to maybe not make it one single day that is the same day every year (though the last day of school is a good one for it to be) but perhaps making it a "surprise" experience - so you never know when RoyGBiv day will be - is better since that type of thing better adheres to the whole way that rainbows happen to begin with. Rainbows are kind of surprise to come upon, right? But they are always welcome. Now, for something like a balloon release? Well, that takes some planning so you would certainly require a select group of folks that would have to be "in the know" about it but my thoughts are that it could happen in other ways too. Like, perhaps, one day at lunch rainbow cupcakes could be made and served to surprise all of the students. (BTW - this is also another significant undertaking to make happen. I know from experience!) or you could figure out a way to get a sno-cone truck to come in and serve up those pre-fab rainbow sno-cones (I know, whatever, it would definitely cut down on the labor to make RoyGBiv happen in the first place).

Whatever the case, I'm actually leaning towards making RoyGBiv day a regular occurrence at my school. My reasoning also harkens back to the fact that I teach and live by an establishment of faith and the rainbow is SO sacred as it is featured in scripture. I love being able to draw students back to scripture to remind them of how much of this present-day world still contains the makings of scripture from way back when because it helps them to see how timeless the words of the Bible truly are. For purposes not of faith though? Well, RoyGBiv day is just awesome and that's all there is to it.

So all of this is to say that if it can be done at my school? It can be done at YOURS too and I encourage you to help make this happen because you just have no idea the enormity of the gift that you will be giving your school/students/self/colleagues/administration/community when they witness it. :)

Not my art: Day of the Dead statuette of Frida Kahlo

This lovely little piece of finery is courtesy of a junior year student aide for one of the 3D Design classes. She did this work for the purpose of fulfilling a passport credit (one of the standard foreign language components here at my school) for Spanish class.  It's hard to tell but this little statuette stands only about six inches tall. It was modeled out of scupley clay and then she painted it with acrylics with a few extra embellishments like string (for the braid that you can't see).

It's very significant that I am a fan of this piece of artwork in the first place because I am normally not a fan of day of the dead stuff. Am I unreasonably unyielding to new ideas? Perhaps it's more than I'm bad at employing disinterested pleasure. Still, my lovely student aide brought this little piece to class (it's technically a work-in-progress for her) in an effort to ask me advice on some design decisions she was trying to make and I couldn't help but be completely enthralled by it. The picture above fails to show how well detailed it is (with her sculpting technique and overall attention to detail) and how truly charming it is in real life.

Lesson idea: StampART for Black History month

Said it before and I'll say it again: I LOVE doing things to recognize the holidays that come and go!

My every intention was post this at the tail end of last month but it just didn't happen because of all of the set design and painting for The Sound of Music. *shrug* What can I say? I should make the tagline for this blog "better late than never."

Anyway.

This project was one I did to recognize Black History month. I stumbled upon the idea by way of This is Collossal when they highlighted the work of New York based artist Molly Rausch. I loved the way it drew in the nostalgia and real history of postage stamps as arts while also touching upon the idea of how important it is to "see the forest from the trees" since a postage stamp - while small and well designed - is such a small snippet of an illustration of a persons while big wonderful life.

Each of the students was allowed to pick whomever they wanted within Black History and I also allowed them to utilize the tracing table because, for some of them, this is their first studio art class in all of high school or in many many years.

This is a very VERY small sampling of pieces that were completed and I wanted to photograph a lot more but a combination of laziness and running out of time has yielded only this much. You get the idea of what we did at least with this much.

Fun tidbit of this project: The edging of the stamps (that were about 4"x5" in size) was done with this handy-dandy paper edging machine that my artsy-craftsy grandma gave me last year in a bin of other random art materials. The machine is specifically for card making and scrapbooking but I'm not into either one of those things so the only times I get to use the machine is during seemingly random times like this project.

Lesson idea: Egg Art

As I've mentioned before, I really like doing projects of the holidays. At Christmas time I did faux gingerbread houses with the students of 3D (never posted those pictures but I will try to at some point) and for Easter I thought it would be fun to do a twist on the traditional egg decorating.

I did these last Spring and they turned out reasonably well more than these. This is mostly because last year I used a white glue based mixture for the paper mache and this year I used real paper mache mix. (Playbox brand if you are concerned about that type of thing and I would link it here but Blick doesn't seem to carry it anymore.) Next year when I do this I will go back to the white glue based mixture because it created much stronger egg sculptures for cut designs and ones that were heavily sculpted overall.

The students started with balloons and then simply covered them with 4-6 layers of paper mache. We let them air out and harden over a weekend (I believe) and then we embellished them with acrylic paint, model magic, and other materials we had laying about the classroom. The goal I communicated to them was to take the egg shape and use it as inspiration for something that was definitely not of an egg but lent itself to the natural shape of the egg. Because of how delicate the structures ended up being because we used the Playbox brand of paper mache, many of the egg structures/sculptures barely survived the design fabrication process. I was as bummed for the kids as they were for themselves. I really hate it when things tank and projects get ruined.

Here are a select few that "survived" through every step of this creative process. Something funny to note: many of the students picked the color yellow as a major element of their design. *shrug* Perhaps they were thinking all of the yellow would bring the sunshine to these parts stat. Well, it worked since it's not in the 80s and 90s here.

Tips and Tricks I learned this round:

• Do I have to say this one again? Well I insist because I'm serious about how much of a difference it made: USE A WHITE GLUE MIXTURE instead of the powdered paper mache mix.
• Count on at least 2-3 balloons per student because they pop/deflate themselves easily during the sculpting process
• This is a nit-picky thing but I'm mentioning it. If you want a more natural egg shape, do a layer or so of paper mache and let it dry, deflate/pop the balloon, insert another balloon from the opposite end and inflate it and you will get a less balloonish and more long/oval egg shape. The students and I figured this out on accident.

Lesson idea: Black History Month 3-Vu portraits

We did this project to commemorate Black History month. The idea was to illustrate and illuminate three different perspectives of an individual of Black History all in one project. The idea originated from a kit I found on Dick Blick called the Scratch-Art 3-Vu Kit which was pre-fab in nature and probably aimed more for younger kids/artists but that I thought would be a great springboard for my high schoolers to really push their ideas with. Sadly? The kits left a lot to be desired for because the strips that were to be used were torn/separated in such a way that they showed heavy perforation textures that detracted from the overall aesthetic of the works of art and when I tried to remedy the issue and "save" the project idea by hand cutting the strips, well... it just didn't work out as planned in the end. The strips ended up getting warped over time and instead of them looking like the example that was promised of the finished project, many students ended up with essentially ruined work. Oh well. Live and learn. And now I know what I should do instead (IF I do this again *grrrr*) and I don't have to buy the kits since ultimately I hate to create an alternative to most of what was included with them anyway.  The really unfortunate thing is it had so much potential to start with.

Anyway, here are some of the finished pieces that weren't too badly ruined. Each slideshow is of a whole piece of work showing three different views of a person in these ways:

1. Individual's name presented in word art/stylized way
2. Picture of the individual (could be silhouette in nature)
3. "Snapshot" of the individual's life that which made them so noteworthy within Black History

The way you look at the physical piece is to look straight in and see one view, step slightly to the left and see another, and then step slightly to the right and see the last view...

RAY CHARLES

 JACKIE JOYNER KERSEE

Things I liked about this project:

• It required the students to really think critically about the person they were attempting to illuminate so that they weren't just considering the first thought that came to mind about who someone is/was.
• It explored the idea of visual representation and how that can really help explain something better
• It required actual physical research (Yay for cross-curricular learning!) that helped them develop skills that are critical for their success in traditional academia.
• Most of them learned things about someone who was both new to them and had also contributed something important to the world around them vs. them watching another horrible "reality" television series on MTV or the like.

Things I didn't like about this project:

• Those horrid perforated strips included in the project kits that actually made me feel like I/we were ripped off!!
• The horribly inadequate directions included in the kits that hardly explained the proper way to assemble the finished pieces and more or less frustrated and upset my sweet kids. (You have no idea how much I love my students/kids! Seriously! I love my classes and job so much!)
• The fact that the whole project took over a month to complete despite the fact that we started them before Black History month even commenced and they're only now being shown in the student gallery a FULL MONTH AFTER Black History month happened. *hrumph*

If you do try this project on your own, I suggest you don't get the kits because figuring out how to do them without the kits is simple enough and will be less exasperating and probably yield much better quality results.  I mean, I guess it's sort of my fault for buying into the gimmick and novelty of the idea and I really should have known better but still.

*eh*

OK.

I'm over it.

Lesson idea: Paper rose sculpting

I'm a huge fan of projects oriented around holidays/seasons/special occasions. It's something that I guess is really more often done for younger age groups (elementary specifically) but I always feel like it's fun even for my high schoolers. Usually I plan long in advance for specifically timed projects but this year I forgot about Valentine's day until it was just about upon me and so brainstormed and pored through the supplies inventory to find something that could/would work and NOT look thrown together.

Enter: the Infamous Paper rose.

I call it infamous because in my world? It is. I have been twisting paper roses for as long as I can remember and have shared them with folks during every major stage of my life...

• Working on the geriatric floor at the psych hospital right after college
• On dates/while being courted by wonderful gentlemen during my college years and after
• In my college dining hall or dorms for almost any of my friends' birthdays or when they were dealing with messy/ugly/sad breakups with boyfriends
• When I have been at any number of restaurants waiting for my food to come

You can sculpt and twist a paper rose out of just about any flexible/pliable paper material. I usually use napkins or paper towels since that's what usually seems to be on hand but those certainly don't make for the prettiest roses in the world. What is ideal is (of course) tissue paper in colors common to roses. And if you're really lucky, you also might have some floral tape, green duct tape, or paper tape on hand that can be painted the appropriate color for the stem and leaves.

Since I'm in an art room and am largely the controller and orderer of the raw materials supply I knew that we had more than enough brightly colored tissue paper AND paper kraft tape (adheres when you moisten in) to sculpt both parts of the rose. The hardest part? Showing the kids how to sculpt and model the rose by rolling and wrapping and twisting the tissue correctly and then wrapping the stems as snugly as possible to look the most realistic.

I don't have a picture of the dozens of roses they made but here is an example one that I had for them. They twisted and sculpted the blossom and covered the stems last Friday and they will paint the stems green today to be able to pick them up by the end of the day...

This is a really fun lesson that could easily be adapted to younger kids and even larger roses.

BTW - Happy Valentine's day!! Thanks for stopping by and loving this blog enough for me to have a reason to keep posting! (Even though I don't post nearly as often as would be worthwhile *wink*)