Inspired...

We all learn from one another. We are inspired, fueled, and pushed by our observations of others' work, their aesthetic, and their techniques. At CEDFA's Summit XII, I was learning from the participants while I was sharing my approach to the work I do in and out of the art classroom.
I will be sharing more of what Nancy and I presented, but I want to take a side-step and share a blog that always catches my eye:
New City Arts is an incredible K-6 art program in St. Louis. I wish I could go to school there!
Take a look at her architectural projects with various grades. Check out the wonderful birds her students created from working pinch pots of clay. And the snails... The creative connections that New City Arts makes inspires her students to explore ideas and approaches. She gathers inspiration from her community, from Art21 and the multiple intelligences. Each work is celebrated. Each work is special. Thanks New City Arts for sharing your great work!

Sharing=Learning

Two or three years ago, as I embarked on a "technology infusion" for my teaching, I became a member of Art Ed 2.0 and became virtual friends with amazing educators. From that virtual connection, came real friendships with two amazing teachers, Theresa McGee and Tricia Fuglestad. I was fortunate to be able to schedule a visit to their classrooms (who gets to do that when we teach full-time?) It was a great visit. Since then we have collaborated with each other on many projects. We get to do so again as we prepare for our presentation at NAEA's Seattle convention. Dynamic Collaborations II is the name of our session. I do believe that any opportunity we have to showcase our teaching and lessons causes us to think about other perspectives. It also causes us to re-evaluate our systems in order to make them more efficient--which we should be doing for our students in the first place.
Something I learned from Tricia which I just applied for an upcoming project is the use of Keynote and instant alpha--what magic!
If you use a Mac--the Keynote program has a special button that allows you to apply "green screen" technology to an image with 1 color around the object --the alpha button allows one to erase that color (by dragging the cursor over the area) and make it transparent. That allows the image beneath to be revealed... just like this one inspired by R. Magritte.

What is Art?

As I prepared my classroom yesterday for the start of school and 2011, I set a group of prints around the easel for our Art of the Day discussion. The big question will be "what is Art?" As we explore the different approaches by individual artists, the cultural, spiritual, emotional, and intellectual implications of their works will hopefully shine through in the conversation. The constant evaluation of the students' personal connections to art and art-making, informed by a growing understanding of media and technique, will engage these 4th and 5th graders in what will be, no doubt, an interesting debate. I can't wait for 2011 to start in the Studio!

As I explored over the break, I found this awesome video that begs the question: What is Art? It is great for the laugh, and for the (edited) shortened clip to share with students in a discussion. The video is by Creature Comforts, and I found it on Art Matters. It is also a great example of claymation:

Get Ready, Get Set, Sketch!

There are some fantastic sites that focus on sketching and on sketchbooks. One of these is SketchCrawl which celebrates sketching with drawing marathons from around the world
On 01.22.11, they will be celebrating their 30th Sketch Crawl, and this is all you need: Materials. If you are looking for inspiration on creating your own sketchbooks, check out this neat site (Thank you, @craigr on Twitter!)
Take a look at the SketchCrawl Flickr site for further inspiration!

Inspired by Others

Made with My Cool Signs.Net

I took a little time this morning to take a look at what others are doing on their art blogs and websites. It is so inspiring. I found this sign maker via one of those discoveries. There are so many great art educators out there, who bring in so much to their classrooms, share their ideas, and connect with others. I love what these educators are doing to inspire children of all ages through art education.
I am going to add more links to the blog roll to connect to these incredible teachers. So much to learn!