Thoughts?  I have good news about the inspiration behind the project, and that is that I finished the mini-marathon that I ran in May.  And I ran the whole thing.  I KNOW.  I couldn’t believe it either.  Since then I finished student teaching (so sad), substitute taught the remainder of the school year, and taught art all summer at a camp.  I have been searching endlessly for a job teaching art but haven’t found one yet so I am back to subbing and searching.  I now have teaching licenses in both Indiana & Illinois so hopefully something will pan out soon!

Oh and my friend Karyn has started a blog to document her first year teaching, go look!

Hope everyone is doing well =)

Now, that challenge is not in the behavior of the students (though generally, the kids who sign up for ceramics are not at all interested in art, and are more interested in obtaining an honors diploma.  And it goes without saying that teaching is more fun when the students are interested.)  My kids are great.  I am completely spoiled, and this high school has ruined me for all other high schools I’m sure.

The challenge is in that this is a brand new skill for these kids.  And these kids belong to a generation of efficiency and having things done for you.  And most importantly, I myself only learned this brand new skill a few days before I taught them.

Yeah.  I learned at the end of one week, and began teaching the following Monday.  Throughout this whole experience I have been keeping just one step ahead of the students.  And they have No.  Idea.  Whatsoever.

In fact, they’ll often say things like “Well it’s easy for you, you spent all of college doing this!” & “Well I’d be that good at it too if I’d been doing it for three years or whatever.”  Ha ha ha.  Please keep my secret.  They can never know… even though I am absolutely dying to tell them.

I’ve spent planning periods and time after school practicing and sometimes would whisper questions to my cooperating teacher so that the kids would not know I didn’t know the answer.  And I did it.  I now feel completely comfortable on the wheel (though I have a lot to learn) and my students have produced some high quality work.  I can spot a student across the room doing something wrong, and instantly know what they need to do to fix it despite having never seen the problem before.

One of my friends is teaching art history right now, and he told me he heard somewhere that you remember 20% of what you learn, and 90% of what you teach (or something like that.)  I remember so much more from my research now, knowing that I will have to present it to students and answer questions about it, than I did while doing actual coursework for my classes (where I just had to get through a paper or exam.)  I imagine that I am going to learn so much more from actually being a teacher than I did while studying to be a teacher, though I know I wouldn’t be able to get through it without that education.

So that’s what I have been spending half of my time doing at school these last few months.  I am so glad that I not only know how to throw pottery on the wheel now, but that I can teach others how to do it successfully.  I also know that I will be able to take on any other medium I am less familiar with and teach it if I am ever given the opportunity (I’m looking at you, jewelry.)

I’ll try and take some pictures of the finished pieces, and maybe even a few of my own =)

I wish I had taken more!  The days were so busy and the kids took their projects home as soon as they could, so a lot of great projects slipped away.  I had some very talented campers =)  What do you think??

This is the first page, before I put the covers onnn

And then I put a camera on the cover to make it a little more interesting (the class I’m teaching is Digital Photography.)

It’s RIVETING.  Haha.

Omg just a few more days until Spring Break =)  I need it.  And I’m going to Chicago for the St. Patrick’s Day festivitiesss  !!

I have so many ideas and I keep starting each and then not finishing ANY.  So here is a quick post just to say what you can expect soon =)  Pictures of my camera collection (finally, I know) and hopefully a painting this weekend?!  we’ll see on that one, umm… oh yeah and I am planning on working on my hollowed altered book a little bit.  Hopefully.

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I’m also really excited about teaching my students to make stamps tomorrow !!  And maybe I will make an ACEO/ATC… okay I might (definitely) be overestimating myself here, since I have a ton of papers to write, but I’m going to try.  Oh yeah and I need to work on a “reflective journal” for an assignment for class and also, you know, clean my room.

And yes, I know, I am adorable  =)  hahaha.  OKAY time to get to work, I hope you all have the most amazing weekend ever, and if you have tons of snow I am REALLY sorry and just remember that it’s almost March which means it’s almost April which means… it’s basically July.  Right?

Warm weather, I need you.

I had a lot of fun making it and now I want to make them 24/7.  I’m actually really behind on work right now cause I kept trying out different colors and color combinations… oops  =)  I’m trying to think of what sort of image I should make when I do the demo on Saturday, any ideas?

I was talking with some friends today about last summer and it made me really nostalgic, last summer was one of the best I’ve had.  The picture above was taken after we had all spent a weekend on the lake… ahhh I miss it so much.  I cannot wait for the warm weather.

Today at Saturday school we decided we’re going to teach the kids to make stamps, so as soon as I make my teacher sample I will be posting it =)  I have NO idea what it’s gonna be yet.  We’ll see.  Ideas?

Okay here they are:

A key that matches the one on the outside of the book, some stitching, and an instax self-portrait (I am so cool, I know.  It’s not as weird/cheesy in person, TRUST me.)

At the top of this you can see the bottom of that instax photo (just to give ya a little context)  =)

I will be posting more pages soon.  Hopefully.  Definitely.  (And probably full page shots too, I got a little shy with this one!)

Okay first of all, here are the things you will need:

Watercolor paper (or any paper thick enough so it won’t rip when wet), watercolors, paint brush, water container with water, black paint, yellow and/or white paint, thick paper/cardstock/cardboard, masking tape, and scissors or an exacto knife.  I think that’s it.

The first step is to decide on the colors and the order of the colors you want to use for your sunset (or you can just use dark blue and make your scene a night scene.)  The best way to do this is to actually look at real sunsets and get inspiration from there.  Here are a few gorgeous ones:

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Then you want to do what is called a watercolor wash.  You simply get your watercolors watery, and then fill in the space using brushstrokes that are going in the same direction (in this case, horizontal.)  First you do the color that you want to be closest to your skyline, which is typically the lightest color.  Use the brush and go back and forth until you are about 1/4 of the way up the page.  You can go higher or lower on the page, depending on how much of the page you want to be taken up by the buildings.

Now add your next color.  The colors will mix and blend together and will create a nice gradation from one to the next.  If you want you can even run your brush over the top part of your first color to make it seem a little more natural.  The trick is to just keep running your brush back and forth, from right to left, the entire time.  Add water if you need to but remember that the colors will be darker and bolder if you use less.

Notice that this strip is smaller.  The first strip of color you add is going to be mostly covered up, which is why it takes up so much of the page.  The 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and so on strips of color, you will cover less space (depending on how many colors you have chosen to use.)  After you have your second color on there, you can add your third in the same way and keep going until you’ve done all of your colors and filled up the entire page.

Once you’re happy with your watercolor wash, leave it to dry while you work on your stencil.  You don’t have to make a stencil for the skyline and you can freehand paint it instead, whichever you are more comfortable with.  Either way, wait until the wash is dry before you add paint to it.

To make the stencil, get a piece of tagboard or some kind of thick and sturdy paper.  Sketch out the skyline that you want.  You can base it on your city, your favorite city, or you can just make it up and do whatever you want.  Things that I think could make it really interesting are castles or things like the Eiffel Tower.  Look at photos of cities, decide what you want to do, and sketch it out.

Then use an exacto knife or scissors to cut it out, whichever you are more comfortable with.  It’s hard to get some of the corners with scissors, but make sure you don’t slice your fingers or anything with the exacto knife.  Trust me, it happens.

It’s important to remember that you are going to be using the negative space as the stencil, as in, not the buildings themselves but the space around and above the buildings.  So in the next photo, the bottom half is the actual skyline but the top half is the stencil you will be using.  It’s okay if you mess this up, because you can just trace your skyline and cut it out again, but you probably won’t be too excited about doing extra work.

So, again, the stencil is the TOP part in the above picture.  It can be a little confusing to work in reverse like this.  Once you have your stencil, place it onto your (dry) wash.  You can move it up and down on the page to figure out how high you want the buildings to be, and then tape it down.

Now get out your black paint and a brush and start painting!  Make sure not to load on a ton of paint all at once, especially close to the stencil, because then it will just run underneath the stencil and you will get paint where you don’t want it.  It’ll be a big mess.  Take it slow, and make sure to press down the stencil when you are painting the edges.

Looks pretty, right?  =)  Remember to go slowly and to hold down the stencil when you are painting near it.  Once you’ve filled in the whole area you can take the stencil off and see your goooorgeous creation.

If your paint got under the stencil at all (it happens to the best of us) it’s really not that big of a deal.  Just get a little black paint and CAREFULL Y extend the walls of the building out a tiny bit, to cover up any mess-ups.  Nobody will ever know  =)

NOW.  Time to add stars.  Get your white paint out and some clean, fresh water (don’t use the water you’ve been using for the watercolors/black paint, or you’ll have gray stars.)  I mixed a TINY bit of yellow into my white paint just to give the stars a bit of a “glow.”  Get the paint on your brush and then do a couple brush strokes on a spare piece of paper, dip your brush in water, and do a couple more strokes just so it’s not dripping and not completely covered in paint.  Then use your finger to flick the ends of the brush towards your painting, to splatter it with tiny little dots.

It might be best to practice this technique on a different piece of paper to make sure you have the hang of it.  It will be easiest to see on a dark or colored piece of paper (white on white is not so visible.)  You can add as little or as many stars as you like, and even paint extra fancy stars too.  You could even make star stencils, or paint a moon, or… do whatever you want =)

Aaaand you’re done!  You can add whatever you like to it (things in the sky, a quote or lyrics, whatever.)  Let me know if you have any questions or if anything is unclear, and I of COURSE want to see yours when you’re done =)

6. TV Series on DVD

I love having episodes of my favorite shows playing sometimes, even if I’m only half paying attention while I do other things.  Something comforting about it, you know?  What TV series do you love to watch over & over?

7. Photography

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8. Summertime

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9. Teaching

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Inspiring.  I know.

10. Doing Nothing ALL Day

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