Balloons and Crayons and Dolls, Oh My!

My last post was an overview of the workshops and other fun things that kept me busy at conference. Today I thought I would go into detail with a few of the workshops.

While I enjoyed just about every workshop, I don't necessarily believe that all of them would work as a lesson for my students. Which I plan to explain.

Since I had a request for the directions, I thought I would start with the Ugly Dolls.  I enjoyed learning about their history, I sew and it went really smoothly for me. It was the only project I finished at conference.

The workshop was taught by Michelle Varley-Crosby, she supplied directions, paper, felt, thread, needles, buttons and scraps. Everything was available to make an Ugly Doll. Michelle even had a sheet of Dojo characters to inspire us. Class Dojo is an app that tracks student behavior. Students create their own avatar, so if they want, they can actually use that to make their doll.

 

Anyway I was so involved in making my doll I don't have many photos.

Basically, I used a small piece of paper to make a pattern, pinned it to felt and cut out the front and back. Did arms on a separate piece of paper. Cut some scraps for the front and sewed them on, then sewed the front and back together, sewing in the arms when I got up to the shoulders.

I have a bunch of this foam in laptop boxes I plan to use for the stuffing. It rips really easy. I am hoping to do this with 3rd or/and 4th grade. Not sure I would go younger, unless it was a small group, I had help or students had some practice with sewing. The hardest part of this lesson is teaching students to thread a needle.......

Crayon Mosaics was a blast. I am just so excited to find a way to use up all the old crayons. It was taught by Steven Miller. Below are some of his student examples. Steven uses old records he finds in thrift shops as the base for the design. And he gets them really cheap when he mentions he's an art teacher. Steven supplied us with records, crayons and glue to do this project.

   

You can actually draw on the record to help you with your design and then you glue on crayons.

 

 

It is really pretty easy. I am attempting to finish mine up in school and have peaked the interest of many of my students.  Even though CD's are on the small side, Steven did say that using them might work as a good color wheel lesson. To get the label off the crayons, let them sit in a tub of water overnight. Don't know who came up with that wonderful advice, but it WORKS!!

I had a lot of fun doing this Cotton Yarn Sculpture, but this is one I wouldn't do with students unless I had a small group and lots of time. Or I could figure out a way to it as a collaborative lesson or in smaller chucks. This workshop was taught by Aliana Ochoa, a very lovely soft spoken woman who hasn't been teaching for very long. Kudos to her for sharing with us so early in her career!

Aliana supplied everything we would need including hand held pumps (from the Dollar Store) to blow up our balloon, which we then proceeded to make into a dog.

 

 We tied off each section and then untwisted our dog in preparation for wrapping it with yarn.

 

 Yarn was soaked in a combination of white glue, corn starch and water. And since it would take a few days to dry, Aliana brought us finished pieces to assemble, with a partner, to make sure we knew what to do.

I didn't finish in the 2 hours and took mine home.  I had to make sure to finish it before the balloon shrank too much. This reminded me of the Easter eggs with crochet string from years ago. So I could change it out for my students if we use oval balloons.

 

 

I have more to share in future posts. Hope you enjoyed what I have shared so far. I would love to know what you plan to bring back to your students from your state conference!

Thanks for reading!

2016 FAEA Conference Overview

Gonna blog an overview of what I was up to at conference this past weekend. Currently playing catch up with my sleep, laundry and other things (video games count as other things, right?). Definitely plan to go into more detail in the next few posts!  Promise!

Calder's Circus: Learned some interesting things about Calder and got some great tips on how to play with wire and how to teach it to my students. Didn't have a chance to finish, had some trouble with the heavy gauge of the wire.

Playtime with Gelli Pads: OMG who knew you could just keep printing layer over layer until you LOVED the result? And look at how pretty the stencil turned out!

 Royal & Langnickel Brush: Gave out a nice assortment of goodies and I learned quite a lot about different brushes and how to take better care of them.

Crayon Mosaics: Didn't have time to finish. Also happy I haven't changed out the old crayons yet from last year! Lol!

Journal Junkie Workshop: Loved this exercise using shapes and symbols.

Inkless Tesselation Prints: This was tricky and I got frustrated with it. Other people at my table did great. More about that down the road.

African Ndebele Doll: Loved this, had to leave a little early to facilitate the next class and didn't finish it. But I have plans for it........

Cool Cotton Yarn Sculpture: This was fun, the balloon dog when finished will be yarn shapes glued together.

  

 Ugly Doll Soft Sculpture: I got so involved in this I didn't take a lot of photos. However I did finish on time!

Only one of my workshops got cancelled due to Hurricane Matthew. So all in all a great conference!

And I did leave time to visit vendors and made this by painting with sand over at Blick.

Tried out this incredible tray of tempera paint and HAD to BUY it! Jack Richeson & Co.

And I spend money on this stuff. Love that book: Draw, Paint, Print Like the Great Artists, in the photo.

And what's the point of a conference if you don't get a NEW shirt!

Got a lot of free samples, still sorting them out for treasure chest at school. I give a lot of the freebies to my students, in the hopes of creating future consumers of those products.

I've got some plans to submit proposals for next year, thanks in part to discussions at the elementary division meeting. Excited!!! Very Excited!!! And tired.........

Thanks for Reading!

Two Years Ago Today....

Pretty happy that today marks two years since I started my blog. Read my first year reflections here. Really happy that I was a Rising Start finalist in The Art of Ed blog contest! Which means I got to put this on my blog.

Totally impressed that MY Craftsmanship poster has made the rounds on Facebook and Pinterest.

 My poster:

Some of the others I've seen:

   

Was flattered that I was asked to adapt one of my posts for my state art magazine.
View it here.  Read the original article here.

Got some clip cards published in School Arts Magazine. Read about it here.

Have made some awesome connections and put my art out there. I did 3 illustrations:

 

For this coloring book. Click here to purchase.

Had over 50,000 page views. Got a small bunch of followers. All in all happy to be blogging.

Gotta go and get ready, because tomorrow I leave for my state conference! I'm sure I'll have lots to share as I signed up for 10, yes TEN workshops! Can't wait!

AND Thanks so much for reading and all the great feedback!!

Here's to another year of sharing with you fine folks out there!