Falling in Love with Bookbinding

I have truly developed a passion for bookbinding this summer. The idea of creating sketchbooks and art teacher planners, selling them, then having other imaginative individuals use my creations to further their own inventions is so exciting to me. I love the whole process and feel that it’s really fulfilling. Also, since I have been teaching art, I still have yet to find a lesson planner that accommodates my needs as an art teacher. All of the teacher stores I have been in have cute and useful planners for classroom teachers, but not art teachers. So I love that what I am making is original, yet very functional as well.

So far, this is one of my favorite art teacher planners I have made.

Out of all of the sketchbooks I have made so far, this one is my favorite. Essentially, it is a mixed media piece and would make a really cool diary/ art journal/ sketchbook.

Visit my shop, Art Teachers Boutique !

End of Summer and Start of an Exciting Etsy Shop

Well… It has been awhile! I go back to work on Monday and have been reflecting on how awesome my summer has been:
– My husband and I visited a university that has one of the top 3 best programs for a PhD in art education, which I am applying for for fall 2016!
– We stayed at the beach for a week
– And I started an Etsy shop called Art Teachers Boutique where I create and sell art teacher planners and sketchbooks!

I am going into work early today to get a head start and will post pictures of my classroom soon! Best wishes!

*one of the planners I made that’s for sale in my shop*

Artist: David Hockney

Contemporary Artist Alexey Kondakov

From a series titled “Art History Joins Your Daily Commute.” I love this and would like to use this series for a lesson in the upcoming school year.

3rd GRADE

VA.3.S.1.4 Choose accurate art vocabulary to describe works of art and art processes (students can identify the difference between realistic vs. abstract)

(one slide from the presentation I created)

3rd grade students learned about the differences between abstract art and realistic art. Students were asked to predict both definitions before I provided the correct definition to them. Following this, students created a double bubble map to compare and contrast the two different art styles. Finally, students created a piece of abstract art, which was later shown at the school wide student art show.

Contemporary Artist Pawel Kuczynski

Pawel Kuczynski is a Polish artist who creates satirical works that reflect modern social, political, and cultural influences. I love his work and anticipate using some of his pieces to inspire my students to create some sort of social/ political art in the upcoming 2015-2016 school year.

4th GRADE

VA.4.S.2.2 Demonstrate the ability to recall art procedures and focus on art processes through the end of art production (students will be able to recognize the following procedures to create an observational drawing: gesture drawing, placement, forming shapes, proportion, adding value, showing contrast, adding detail, mark making, and visual texture)

Students learned about the steps required to produce an observational drawing. First we discussed the steps. Then, students wrote down the steps and their definitions using a brace map. Following this, objects were set up in the center of their table. First, students were instructed to complete 4 gesture drawings. Following this, students picked their strongest gesture and continued the observational drawing steps on that one gesture.

The Goal of This Blog

The purpose of this blog is to share Elementary art lessons I have created that are based on the Next Generation Sunshine State Standards. I hope that my lessons can inspire other art educators and help to motivate the movement of creating quality arts based lessons, which allow students to identify and generate personal meaning in their own work. All of these lessons were created for the purpose of pushing students to think for themselves and create original works of art that have content. Teaching students to make beautiful works of art is easy. However, teaching students how to independently create content in their own pieces bears a challenging yet rewarding task.