My State Conference 2015

 I just returned from Naples where my state art educators conference was held. IT WAS A BLAST!! It absolutely amazed me, the effort put forth by all involved parties. The FAEA board members and their committees, the presenters (of which I was one) AND all the vendors that let us loot them, I mean gave us free samples.

I went to so many marvelous workshops, my head is about to explode! Thinking of ditching all my lesson plans for next week and just sharing what I learned!!

Okay I presented first thing Thursday morning and again on Friday afternoon. More details to follow on that as I am exhausted......  However, strongly feeling the urge to highlight what I learned!

After my workshop AND in the very same room was this awesome workshop titled Clay Critters which was presented by a speech pathologist by the name of Suz. She uses simple rhymes to help students remember the steps to take to complete a clay critter.

 

Really happy one was a lion, because that's my school's mascot! Mine is on the left, the other is one of Suz's samples.

I then attended a workshop titled Foil Action Figures led by Robert. He really makes his students think about what their figure is doing and has them place the figure in a scene appropriate to the action.

 

And much later that same day was workshop number 4....... ( remember the one I presented and the three I attended).

 

Textured Dragons and Castles presented by Chantel. That was really fun and I have many of the supplies needed to do this really great lesson. Pretty exhausted by the end of the first day!
Loved each and every presentation!

On Friday I presented on blogging and attended a workshop titled FAN-Tastic Mini Folding Fans with Chinese Brush Watercolor Markers presented by Debra and Melissa.  I was so tired I forgot to take lots of photos. So here's what I was working on.

We also had our division meeting AND I played in the vendors hall. Picture a really big room set up with dozens of tables, some vendors had "make it and take its," and many tables were loaded with a ton of free samples!! OH YEAH!!! A BIG THANK YOU TO Blick, Sax, Sargent Art, Pacon, Faber-Castell and so many more! I can't imagine what it takes to put all of that together and travel from state to state with all that stuff.

Above are ONLY some of the goodies I got to take home!

Saturday I attended a presentation by Cindy Walker, from Davis Publications. I have attended her presentations in the past and just LOVE her! It was titled Photography-Through the Lens-A View to the World and now I really, really want to teach photography!

Later that same day was a Hands-On Presentation by Matthew Reinhart. OMG! He is an amazing pop-up book artist! Seriously AMAZING! GOOGLE him! And a really nice guy!

 

 Above are some of the sample things I learned to do. Below is the balcony of the hotel I stayed in where I ate breakfast and relaxed at the end of my VERY full days!

 And all of the days were made that much better by having Erika as my roommate! We met at a 2014 summer workshop and get along great!

Thanks for reading and I promise to go into more detail soon! Drop me a comment about your state's conference!