Back to School, but NOT back to Normal

This is my life now.  It's Sunday afternoon and I'm looking for images to use for buttons on my Canvas courses that I have to have finished before Friday.  It's easier for me to make transparent backgrounds and download and cut and paste on my mac than it is for me to do on my chromebook at school so I am trying to anticipate what I might want or need tomorrow morning.  I just got out of the shower and I'm in my jammies but I am looking for fun clothes for my bitmoji to wear.  Sigh. Actual clothes are not looking too good for actual me today.

School started back for teachers officially on August 7th this year.  I went in a couple of days earlier that week to pack up my classroom as I was told that I, like all the other exploratory teachers on my hallway, would have to make room for the fifth grade teachers who would be moving up to the middle school to make more room for social distancing in their respective elementary schools.  After I came out of shock from the disbelief of being displaced from my room and being overwhelmed from the thought of packing up and moving 15 years worth of art teacher stuff, I tried to get my head on straight and deal with it.  We are all making sacrifices this year for sure.

My county in NC has decided to go with a hybrid model of returning to school dubbed 'Plan B'.  For middle school, that means that we will have 3 separate groups of students.  Group A students will come 1 week, while Group B students will be learning online from home.  When Group B students are F2F in school, Group A students will be learning online from home.  Group C students are 100% virtual.  Along with other measures put in place such as all students staying in one room while teachers move from class to class,  scheduled breaks for bathroom and water and a shortened school day, we are hoping that this keeps all of us safe and well.  For me and the exploratory team, this means that our classes are 100% online and we will be 'seeing' our students during their 'virtual' weeks via Canvas.

OMG.  Canvas, y'all.  Not gonna lie, I've been a Google Classrooms girl for the last few years and I sort of dug my heels in about Canvas because IF IT'S NOT BROKE DON'T FIX IT and Google Classrooms was perfect for what I needed it to be.  But the powers that be have decided that we needed to use one online platform and be consistent across grade levels, the county, apparently the state of North Carolina and what seems to be the entire U.S. of A and rightly so. I mean, parents.  You poor things.  At least we get an inservice or two. But why oh why didn't I buy stock in Instructure, the parent company of Canvas I am just sayin.  

BUT holy cow the learning curve on this thing is steep.  I'm not a complete idiot.  I used to be the 'Webmaster' at my old school when the internet was still a baby and we thought life was great when we got T1 lines installed one summer.  I think I might be on the upside of it but all I have to say is thank goodness for YouTube Videos, Message Boards, and friends who are just a text away, or down the hall or across the classroom.  There have been so many questions and a lot of uncertainty.

 

But y'all.  I am kind of excited.  I have the best principal in the world and he is letting me teach different this year.  I had this idea in the spring when life was crazy and we didn't know what end was up and I was churning out projects for my kiddos to do on a daily basis that it would be super cool, if in the fall we didn't go back to school in a normal way (little did I know) that instead of teaching straight 6th, 7th and 8th grade art online, that I could teach courses that fit easily into an online model.  So, I will be teaching Photography, Anime' and Digital Art, Drawing and Crafts.  Students get to choose which section they want to be in for the semester and hopefully this will motivate them to participate, which we all found to be an obstacle this spring.  I hope that I will be able to share some great success with this new project of mine and that I will have made some lemonade out of the lemons we've been handed this year.

Like I said to some of my colleagues earlier today, none of us chose to be in this mess that we are in right now, the least of all our students.  I am bound and determined to give them the best experience they can have in this weird year that 2020 has turned out to be.  All I can ask is that you wish us well, send out some good vibes to the universe and say a bunch of prayers for us all.  We are going to need them, along with your support and a lot of grace.  We are all going to be first year teachers and administrators tomorrow (and in the next coming weeks), even those of us with 30 years of first days behind us.   

 

Day 39

There are several ways that you can get your work to me:

You can take HIGH QUALITY photographs of your work and email them or text them to me.  You can also upload them to Google Classrooms.  I MUST be able to READ the Artist Research project if you photograph it.  If you would like, I shared a copy of the document that you can type your research on and turn in via google classrooms.  Check your email for my contact information in case you cannot find it.

As a reminder, all work is due on Friday, May 29th.

All artwork that we have created together this year while in class will be available for pick up in the fall as soon as we are back together.

I miss you all and hope you all have a great summer!  I look so forward to being with you in the art room in the fall!

Day 38

If you are looking for a challenge, you need to look no further than the internet.  You can find challenges that encourage you to donate to a charity such as the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge or the Movember Challenge which encourages men's health awareness or the Below the Line Challenge which encourages participants to 'live below the line' spending less than about $1.50 a day on food in order to bring awareness to extreme poverty.  There are silly challenges sure to annoy your teachers back in the old days when we were in a building together such as the Mannequin Challenge or the Bottle Flipping Challenge and there are some downright dangerous ones that I am not even going to mention here because, well, they are dangerous.

The list of ART CHALLENGES (which are not dangerous or silly) is long.  There is Inktober, which is a prompted drawing in ink challenge that happens every October, Sketch Dailies, which encourages participants to draw characters every day and provides inspiration, The Sketchbook Project which I am participating in myself thanks to a birthday present from my bestie and there are tons of general '30 Day' challenges that you can find just by searching for drawing challenges or photography challenges  and photoshop battles or painting challenges.  All these challenges are designed to help you to be creative every day, stretch your imagination, learn new skills and perfect the ones that you already have.

One of the challenges that has been popular on the internet lately is The Style Challenge.  The Style Challenge was created by a 17 year old instagram artist named Autumn Massaquoi (beautifulness87). The idea behind The Style Challenge is simple: Draw a character in YOUR style and then draw the same character in as many possible cartoon character styles as possible.  Autumn's almost 60K followers have joined the challenge and drawn characters in their style and then, also in the styles of The Simpsons, Fairly Odd Parents, Power Puff Girls, Disney, The Boondocks, Adventure Time, Naruto, Codename: The Kids Next Door, Tim Burton, Gorrillaz, Hey Arnold, Hanna Barbera, Mine Craft, Bubbleguppies, Ed, Edd and Eddy, Bob's Burgers, Rick and Morty, Rugrats, Phineas and Ferb, The Proud Family, and Spongebob, to name more than a few.  

Today's challenge is to draw a character in YOUR style and then draw that same character in at least 3 other cartoon styles.  Take pics of your work, post to our google classrooms (or you can just email or text them to me). Have fun!

Day 37

You can use a photo collage program or just put a bunch of photos in a grid on a document or slide.

Here's mine:

Day 36

Fashion designers are artists who apply the principles of art and design to clothing to make it both functional and aesthetically pleasing.  Most artists that want to work in the fashion industry will go to school and study for a Bachelor in Fine Arts Degree in Fashion Design.  If you have ever watched earlier seasons of Project Runway, a reality show where contestants compete each week in fashion based challenges, you will know that seasons 1-13 were shot at Parsons School of Design which is one of the top art and design schools in the world.  On Project Runway, designers are often given a challenge to create clothing using unconventional materials.  Over the years, designers have created clothing out of sombrero hats, newspaper, silk flowers, bird seed, and garbage bags.  Designers visited a candy store and created clothes out of wrappers and the candy itself and struggled with creating something to wear with vegetables after visiting the farmers market.  This was always one of the most fun episodes to watch but one of the most difficult for the designers.

You may have also heard of the Duct Tape prom challenge, Stuck at the Prom sponsored every year by Duck Tape. Every year, Duck Tape gives away $20,000 in scholarships to high school students who create the best prom attire, completely out of Duck Tape.  A quick google search will yield thousands of images of high schoolers in their best duct tape gowns and tuxes.   

Sylvie Facon is a French designer who creates beautiful ball gown out of materials like books and musical instruments.  You can see some of her work here.

Today's challenge is to make an item of clothing out of a non-traditional material.  Use what you can find in your house - look through your recycle bin for things like bottle caps, plastic, catalogs, envelopes and other discarded items.  Use your imagination to come up with an outfit, but don't worry!  You don't need to be able to wear it. You can make an outfit for a doll or a stuffed animal or an action figure.  It doesn't have to be human sized! 

Have fun!  I can't wait to see what kind of haute couture you create!

Day 35

Have you ever been to Tiger World in Rockwell?  If you haven't, I highly recommend a visit!  It opened back up this past weekend.Tiger World is an endangered wildlife non-profit zoo that focuses on education, conservation and preservation.  The last time that I was there, which has been a few years now, they had a liger named Wayne, so I am not sure if he is still there.  A liger is a cross between a male lion and a female tiger which are the same species but a different genus.  In the wild, lions and tigers don't live anywhere near each other so ligers are definitely always bred in captivity.  Ligers are the largest of all the existing 'big cats' today, ranging between 9.5-11 feet.  Wayne weighed in at 800 lbs.  Tigons are a cross between a male tiger and female lion.  Like a mule, which is a cross between a female horse and a male donkey (same species, different genus), ligers and tigons are sterile and cannot breed.  A lot of people question the ethics of creating tigons and ligers that would never be created in the wild because they are often born with health problems, the animals are prone to gigantism and the mother often has to have surgical intervention to give birth because of the cub's enormous size.  You can read a little bit more about the ligers and the ethics of breeding hybrid animals here and here.

Today's challenge is to create a wacky animal hybrid.  We don't need to worry the ethics of creating these animals because today, we are just using our imagination.  If you head over to google and search 'Animal Hybrids' in images, you'll get a page full of wacky animal hybrid ideas that could never exist in reality.  A horse with a duck face, a guinea pig lion, a dolphin kangaroo - there are a ton of them.  The image below comes up on your first search.

If you are having trouble coming up with and idea you can visit hybrid creature generators here or here.  The first link gives you ideas like a lab accident resulting in a strange cross between and rabbit and a lion.  The second link gives you pictures and even names them.  What do you think a Mooyote is?  Draw your hybrid, give it a name, take a pic and share in google classrooms. Have fun, but remember, no lab experiments!

Day 34

In art school, many, many years ago, one of my favorite classes was Typography.  Typography is the art of arranging letters or type to make them attractive and interesting. Back when I was in school there weren't nearly as many font choices as there are now.  Most of you have written a document and played around with the fonts, changing the way that they look, finding your favorite, adding others for emphasis or just because you liked the way that it looks.  Creating a new and original font or typestyle can be very lucrative for a graphic artist, particularly nowadays when it seems that there just isn't much room for a new font.

Before we start, let's look at the different parts of a letter:

• Baseline: the invisible bottom line on which characters sit.  
• Meanline: the middle line that is at the top of most lowercase letters such as “o,” “p” and “r.” It is also at the curve of letters like “h.”  
• Cap Height: the distance from the baseline to the top of uppercase letters like “B” and “H.”  
• Ascender: The part of a character that extends above the meanline.  
• Descender: The part of a character that extends below the baseline, such as the bottom stroke of a “g.”  
• Stem: The stem is often the main “body” of a letter. The vertical line of a “B” and the primary diagonal line of a “V”.  
• Bar or Arm: Bars are horizontal or diagonal lines of a letter, also known as arms, and are open on at least one side. “E” or “T” 
• Bowl:The fully closed, rounded part of a letter. Letters A, B, D, O, P, Q, R, a, b, d, e, g, o, p, and q all have a bowl.  

Here's a good example of the anatomy of letters.

There are also different styles of letters.  You are familiar with bold and italic and probably use them often.  You are also probably familiar with other styles as well, but you more than likely haven't given them much thought because you didn't know their names.  

Letters are generally divided into two separate groups: Serif and Sans Serif.  

Letters that are in the serif group have an extra decorative line at the ends of a character.  Examples of serif fonts are Times New Roman and Georgia.  

Letters in the sans serif group do not have that extra little decorative line.  Sans is a preposition that means 'without' so sans serif means 'without serif'.  Examples of sans serif fonts are Verdana, which I type this blog in every day and Helvetica.  

Next, we have cases.  There is UPPER CASE, lower case and miXeD cAsE.  

Finally, there are four different styles of lettering.  

• Roman Style in which letters have thick and thin parts.  It is usually a serif font.  

Roman Style Fonts

• Script style in which the letters are connected, as in cursive handwriting.  These fonts can be serif or sans serif and are often used for invitations or for elegant, formal occasions.

Script Style Fonts

• Poster Style fonts which are usually bold and easy to read.  These fonts are often used in advertising, packaging and print media.  They are generally one thickness but can be serif or sans serif.

Poster Style Fonts

• Trademark and Creative fonts.  Trademark fonts are usually created for specific company logos and are generally easily recognized and associated with that particular product.  Creative fonts are the fun fonts.  They are usually unique and have a theme and are highly decorative.  

Trademark Fonts

Creative Fonts

The challenge for today is to design a new font.  Decide which group you want it to be in: serif or sans serif.  Then, decide if you want it to be Roman style, Script Style or Creative.  Draw at least one capital letter, one lower case letter and one number for your new font.  Take pictures and upload to google classrooms.  By the way, don't forget to look for the treat that I left for you today in google classrooms.  You will need a printer, but I hope you enjoy it.

Oh, and I hate to be a buzzkill, but when you get to high school and beyond, it's Times New Roman, 12pt. all the way.  Trust me, you will thank me later on and your teachers and professors will love you for it.

Day 33

Andy Goldsworthy is a British sculptor and photographer known for his environmental art.  Andy's work is a type of sculpture known as an 'installation' which just means that it is site specific.  He generally uses materials that can be found where he is creating his sculpture, such as twigs and leaves and rocks and flowers and sometimes even icicles.  His goal is to work with nature as a whole and to use what is available to him.  In addition to only using found materials in his artwork, the only tools that he uses to create his work are his hands, teeth, and found objects, like a sharp stone or branch that are found on site.

Photography is a very important part of his work because his sculptures, being outside in nature, are temporary and prone to the elements.  Andy considers the change and decay that comes through the time that his work exists to be a part of the art that he creates.

To learn a little bit more about Andy Goldsworthy, you can visit here, here and here.

Environmental art is also known as Land Art, Earthwork and Ecological art and has been practiced by humans throughout history.  Think of Stonehenge, The Great Serpent Mound in Ohio, The Nazca Lines in Peru and even our own Town Creek Indian Mound. Unlike the environmental art of today, these earthworks often had religious or ceremonial connotations.

"Environmental Art, also known as ecological art, encompasses several different forms and practices that engage with and represent the environment. It is distinct in its less specific time period and greater scope of art."  ~ the Art Story

"Earthwork is art that is made by shaping the land itself or by making forms using natural materials like rocks and tree branches. Earthworks range from subtle temporary interventions in the landscape to significant, sculptural, lasting alterations made with heavy earth moving machinery.  Some artists have also brought the land into galleries and museums, creating installations out of dirt, sand and other materials taken from nature.  Earthworks were a part of the wilder conceptual art movement in the 1960s and 1970s." ~ Museum of Modern Art

Read about Creating Art from Nature here.

Today's challenge is to create your own environmental art inspired by Andy Goldsworthy.

• Spend some time outside while being safe, social distancing and exploring the nature around you (your yard, neighborhood, park-but only if it is open and you have permission from an adult)
• Gather any natural materials that are already on the ground instead of picking any plants or flowers. Items that you can look for are leaves, branches, sticks, twigs, rocks, stones, pebbles, ice, nuts, seeds, flowers, dirt, and even mud.
• Once you have gathered your materials, choose a place outside where you would like to create your artwork.
• Play around with your natural objects and experiment with patterns until you like what you come up with.  Think about radial symmetry, stacking stones or twigs, creating patterns with pebbles or using leaves to create a natural mosaic.
• Take photographs along the way to document your process. 
• Remember that your artwork is temporary!
• Don't forget to upload the photos of your work to Google Classroom.

Here are some images of environmental art found in Google Images to give you some inspiration.  Some are by professional artists, some are by students, some are done by unknown artists.  

Here are some other environmental artists that you can read about: 

Robert Smithson

Nils Udo

Richard Shilling 

Patrick Dougherty (NC connection: Patrick grew up in NC.  His latest artwork was created on the campus of Davidson College.  I might take a ride up there this weekend to see if it is still there!)

Simon Beck Fun fact: Simon makes his art by walking on snow!

Jaaku Pernu

Walter Mason

Day 32!

Using your chromebook, a smartphone or a camera, go on a scavenger hunt to find the following items.  See how many you can find.  When you are done, make a collage out of the photographs and upload the collage to google classrooms.

Day 31!

  After yesterday's challenge, some of you may have practiced drawing hands, which to me, is one of the hardest things about drawing the human body.  They can be so difficult to get right- proportion, symmetry, it can be hard to make hand look real.  It just takes practice. In case you have forgotten, here's the link to the hands tutorial.

I've added 3 charts that show how to do each letter of the alphabet in American Sign Language (ASL).  Spelling out each letter in a word is called Fingerspelling or dactylology.  The first one is a bit cartoonish, and probably the easiest to draw.

The second one is a little bit more realistic.

And this last one is the most realistic of all. 

Have fun practicing.  When you do your name, take a pic and share it in google classrooms!

Day 30!

  I think most, if not all of you have tried to draw anime characters. This website is a great source for tutorials and breaks down how to draw all the parts of the characters that you might imagine.  Have fun combining different hairstyles, poses, clothing, eyes shapes etc.

Day 29!

There's a lot of work put into the art supplies that we use daily.  Click on the links below to find out how they are made.  Each video has been approved for viewing on SCS chromebooks!

Pencils
Colored Pencils
Crayons
Erasers
Markers
Paint

Then, when you have learned how art supplies are really made, head over to our GoogleClassroom and click on the assignment "Wrong Answers Only".  Choose one of the supplies from the videos that you have watched or choose your own ART supply and write a paragraph about how that ART supply is made - WRONG ANSWERS ONLY! 

Day 28!

Comic strips often reflect what is going on in the world. Today, I want you to write and illustrate a comic strip that tells a little bit about what your life is like these days. 

Day 27

Before the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in the mid-15th c., books were not as common as they are today.  Most books from that time period were religious text, primarily the Bible and they often took up to two years to complete.  Monks would work in a special room in the monastery called the 'Scriptorium', copying the text and then later an illuminator would take over and illustrate the text with pictures and designs.  Because making the books was such a painstaking process books were very expensive and generally owned by monasteries, universities and the extremely wealthy.

Another type of book created during this time was a 'Bestiary'. A bestiary is a book of a collection of animals. Like today, animals were a very important part of life for the medieval family. People kept animals as pets, hunting and farm animals and they were an important source for food and clothing. Since they usually didn't travel far from home, people also imagined the world beyond their village might be full of fantastic creatures like monsters and dragons. People also believed that illness and disease were punishments and that evil spirits, demons and beasts were real and ever present. Often these beasts would end up in illustrations in the margins of illuminated manuscripts. These animals that appeared alongside the text were symbolic and they oftentimes told a story. Since the majority of people couldn't read, they could still understand the story just by looking at the illustrations.

Animals were also associated with different qualities. Monkeys were considered evil and
were associated with the devil. Peacocks were associated with immortality and dogs were
associated with devotion. One animal that is often seen in illuminated manuscripts is the
owl. Unlike today, when owls are associated with wisdom, during the middle ages,
owls were often associated with darkness of mind and spirit because they are nocturnal.

You can learn more about illuminated manuscripts here and here.

You can learn more about bestiaries here and take a look at the Aberdeen Bestiary here.

You can learn more about the invention of the printing press here.

In the meantime, my only question for you today is:
Which medieval owl is your mood? 
I’d say I’m about an 8 right now.

Day 26!

Have y'all been spending a lot of time gaming?  Today, I challenge you to step away from the computer and draw one of the characters from your favorite video game.  Don't have a favorite?  Create one of your own!

Day 25

Happy Star Wars Day!  

Today, you will take a Star Wars Themed Art Parody Quiz.  What does parody mean?  Parody, in this case, is imitating an artists style in an exaggerated way, usually for comic effect.  The link is in your google classroom.  See how many of the original paintings names and artist you can find.  Have fun!

Day 24!

You might be noticing more and more people outside, staying safely distanced from each other, these days.  The truth is, the longer that we are socially distancing, the more stir crazy we get.  On pretty days, people are taking advantage of our beautiful Carolina blue skies and weather.  Take advantage of these beautiful days to do something nice for the world.  If you have some sidewalk chalk, go outside and draw some pictures for your neighbors to see.  Don't have any sidewalk chalk, draw some pictures and hang them in your windows for everyone to see.   

Day 23

Collage is an art medium that you are all familiar with and I would guess most of you have tried in one way or another.  Who hasn't taken pages from an old magazine or catalog and cut out their favorite bits and pieces and pasting them down together to create a whole new composition? Many photo apps rely heavily on the concept of collage, where you can drag pictures from your photo app into a frame to create one picture. 

The first collages were made over 100 years ago, by artists Pablo Picasso and Georges Braques.  Since then, collage has maintained its position as one of the most popular ways for an artist to express themselves.  Some artists use photographs, some combine photographs with patterned paper, or bits from the recycle bin.  Some artists create mixed media collages where they might add paint or fabric or a multitude of materials to complete their work.

Romare Bearden, an American artist, writer and songwriter was born in Charlotte and even has a park named after him on Church Street, right across from the stadium where the Charlotte Knights play baseball.  Who misses baseball?  Sigh.  I know I do.  It's my favorite.  Although Romare explored many different types of art, he is probably best known for his collages.  You can learn more about Romare and look at some of his work here, here and here.

A few of my other favorite collage artists:
David Hockney
Jasper Johns
Henri Matisse 
Trevor Norris
Jean-Michel Basquiat

Today's challenge is to be a collage artist.  You'll need old magazines, catalogs, scrap paper of any kind.  Ask an adult if there are any old books or phonebooks laying around that might be headed to the dumpster - those are great for collage.  Also, some kind of glue, scissors and your imagination.  Search for images that stand out or mean something to you.  Arrange them in a way that you think is pleasing to the eye or speaks to you in some way.  Do your arranging before you do your gluing.  You can also be a mixed media artist and add bits of fabric, beads or countless other things that might go with your composition.  Have fun!

In the meantime, I'm just going to be over here hoping that I get to go to a baseball game before summer is over.  Sigh.

Day 22

Origami is one of the things that we don't do a lot of in MizzSmiff's art room, mostly because I'm not good at it.  I can make 3 things: paper cranes, water bombs and pagoda towers.  Visit Tavin's Origami Instructions on YouTube (I've approved the channel so you should not have any problem watching any of the videos) and have fun making some origami.  No MizzSmiff needed.  Don't have any origami paper?  Ask an adult in your house if there is any leftover wrapping paper from holidays or birthdays.  Wrapping paper makes great origami paper because it is thinner than writing paper, has designs on one side and is blank on the other. Just be sure to cut our perfect squares before you start.  Have fun!

Day 21!

Today is just a quick, fun activity.  Go here to figure out what color your name is.  Take a screenshot and share with the class in Google Classrooms.

Here's my first name:

I actually really like the colors that I am.  I can't wait to see yours!

Day 20!

Most things, especially things in nature, have a color that people automatically assign to them.  The sky and the ocean are usually depicted as being blue, grass is generally green as are most trees.  People have varied skin tones but they usually fall into a palette that we are familiar with.  Dogs and cats usually are black or white, brown or 'ginger', sometimes mixtures of all of those colors, sometimes in various shades.

Back in the early 20th century there was a group of artists called 'The Fauves', meaning 'Wild Beasts' in French.  The Fauves were interested in using color as personal expression rather than the realistic, representational way that it had been used in the past.  The Fauves valued individual expression and the personal relationship between artist and subject.  You can read more about the Fauve movement here, here and here.

Here's a list of a few of the most famous Fauve artists that you can read about:
Henri Matisse
Andre Derain
George Braque
Raoul Dufy

George Rodrigue was an American painter most famous for his Blue Dog series.  While not technically a Fauve, he employed arbitrary color in his work regularly.  You can read more about George's work here and here.

Today's challenge is for you to think like a Wild Beast.  Draw a picture, or if you have a coloring book you can use a picture in the book, just make sure that if you do use a coloring book picture, it is a picture of something recognizable, not just designs or patterns.  Then, throw all your ideas of what color things should be out the window and color in your picture using arbitrary colors.  Use colors that you want the things in the picture to be, not the colors that they are usually assigned. Have fun, be creative and as always, take pictures and share them with the class in Google Classrooms!

Day 19!

Today's challenge is to enter an art contest!  Use one or more of the drawings that you have been doing in your sketchbook or something that you have done for a daily challenge or something that you have done on your own.  What do you have to lose?  You never know, you might win something!  Look for art contests here, here and here (scroll down a little bit for the 2020 contests) or search for one on the internet.

Day 18!

Today is just a little bit of fun.  It's is supposed to rain all day so you will more than likely be stuck inside most of the day. Today's challenge is to just play a drawing game.  You'll need some dice, like you might have from a board game. If you don't have any dice, don't worry, you can use these online dice. Next, you'll need to choose a subject to draw from one of these game boards.  You can draw a landscape, or a face, or a cupcake or a lego person -there are 10 different boards to choose from.

Here's what you do:

1. Roll your dice (online or real)
2. The first roll is the first column in the board and the first thing that you draw.  If you roll a ONE, you draw whatever is in the First column, first box. If you roll a FOUR, you draw whatever is in the First column, fourth box.
3. Roll the dice a second time.  If your dice says SIX, draw whatever is in the Second Column, 6th box.
4. Keep going until you have completed your drawing.
5. Color your drawing in using whatever materials your have at home.
6. Take a picture and share on Google Classrooms.
7. Have fun! 

Day 17

Today is Earth Day!  Earth Day is a global celebration that has happened every April 22nd. since 1970.  On Earth Day, we acknowledge issues that affect all of us as global citizens such as climate change, pollution, deforestation and plastic waste.  Every year has a theme and this year, it is climate action.  You can read more about Earth Day 2020 here.

I thought that it would be appropriate today to learn a little bit about Louise Nevelson.  Louise was an artist who is primarily known for her abstract sculptures made from found objects.  Her assemblage art, sometimes the size of rooms, were pieced together from boxes, broken fragments of furniture and pieces of wood that would otherwise be thrown away.  Her assemblage art would be painted in one color so even though the bits and pieces of her sculptures might not have anything in common, the end result would be unified by a singular color.
To see examples of Louise's work and to learn a little bit more about her, visit here and here.

In honor of Earth Day, I would like for you to make a sculpture inspired by Louise Nevelson out of found objects (fancy words for junk) around your house.  To begin, you will need something like a shoe box lid or other shallow box that you can put your objects in.  Then, go around your house and collect your found objects.  Things like paper towel tubes, plastic lids from bottles or other containers, broken toys, bits of yarn, one doll shoe that has lost its mate, buttons and the like. Does your house have a 'junk drawer'?  That would be a perfect place to look.  Of course, ask an adult before you take something because I'd hate for the extra garage door opener to end up in your art.  Once you have collected all of your items, it's time to start the assemblage part.  Take your shoebox lid and start arranging your items in the lid in a way that pleases your eye.  If you have glue and the items don't need to be returned to their original places, glue them down to the lid.  Take a picture of the finished product and post on it on our Google Classrooms page.  Now, here's the part where we have to hope that we get to have in person art class again this year.  Remember where Louise would paint her sculptures one unifying color?  I'm not going to ask y'all to do that because 1. Most of you probably don't have enough paint of one color laying around the house 2. Your parents probably have enough stress already without the art teacher making you paint something 3. I'd LOVE to be able to put all your sculptures together and assemble them into ONE big sculpture at the end of the year (or even at the beginning of next year if it comes to that) so we will need them to be one color 4. I'm not afraid of a little bit of spray paint an it's my job to be messy.  So, that means that after you make your sculpture, I'm gonna need you to save it and bring it in to art class when we get back to school.  Okay?

Day 16

When you think about careers in art, most of you probably think about artists - people who draw or paint and sell their work - and maybe about art teachers, but careers in art go so far beyond those obvious professions.  In fact, some of you have probably thought about what you might want to be when you grow up and have not realized that it is an art related field.  Video game designer?  Fashion design?  Web design?  All art related fields.

Nearly all art and design related careers rely on being proficient in some kind of digital art platform.  Being comfortable with a graphic editing program such as Photoshop is essential if you are looking to find a job in the art and design world today.

Here's a short list of careers that rely heavily on photoshop:

1. Graphic designer
2. Photographer
3. Freelance designer
4. Web developer
5. Art director
6. Illustration
7. Social media marketing
8. Advertising
9. Animation
10. Game designer
11. Interior design
12. Fashion design
13. Set design
14. Comic book artist
15. Character design
16. Multimedia design
17. App design
18. Visual effects editing
19. Background artist (film/gaming)
20. Architect

There are so many careers that are art and design related that if you spent enough time, I am sure that nearly all of you would be able to find something that would interest you enough to explore it for a future career option. 

Today, I'd like for you to try your hand at digital art.  I would love for us to be able to have a digital art lab, with new computers that have Photoshop and other photo editing programs ready for us to get to work, but, since that isn't possible, I have done a little bit of researching over spring break and have found a program called PhotoPea which is a free web based photo editing program that is about as close to Photoshop as we are going to get.  I also want you to remember that when I was in art school, all of those jobs that are listed above were done the OLD FASHIONED way.  By old fashioned, I mean without a computer.  And yes, I know that means that I am older than dirt, but luckily, because we now have programs like Photoshop and Photopea, that just means that I can digitally manipulate my face and pretend that I am young again.  It also means that I am by no means an expert and I will be learning along with you as we explore this realm of digital art.

Follow the links to get to Photopea, and tutorials here, here and here to get you started.  

Have fun!  Play around with the program and see what you can learn.  I can't wait to see what you come up with!

Day 15!

Welcome back from Spring Break.  I hope that everyone had a relaxing and fun time during break and that everyone made the best of the time off.  I know that it probably wasn't the Spring Break that everyone was wishing for but, hopefully better times are in the near future.

Today, all I would like for you all to do is take the survey about what art supplies you have available to you at home.  Find it in our Google Classroom.

Day 14

Today's challenge is to create an art history meme.

Follow these steps to create your own meme and then upload it to Google Classrooms!

1. Go to The MetKids Time Machine. Pick a time period on the left, push the red button on the bottom right of the screen and then search for an artwork that you want to meme.

2. Save the artwork to your drive.  Make sure to give it a name so that you can find it easily.

3. Go to Make a Meme, click on the upload image icon at the top and then click on the beige rectangle in the center that says 'Click here to upload image'.

4. Find your artwork that you save to your computer, click on it and then click on open. Your image should automatically upload.

5. Scroll down a bit.  Put your text in the gray bar that says 'top text' and/or 'bottom text'.  You don't need to put text in both, but you can if you want to.

6. Scroll down a bit more and click 'Make the meme' in the green bar.

7. Save your image and then post on Google Classrooms.

Here's the meme that I made:

Day 13

Today's challenge is to learn a little bit about one of my favorite contemporary artists, Melissa McCracken.  I know that most of us enjoy listening to music in the AMS art studio when we are working and that it can change the mood in the classroom.  I so miss listening to you sing while we are creating and I even miss our occasional dance parties.  Read a little bit about Melissa McCracken, look at her work and let me know what you think over on Google Classrooms. I think she is amazing and I'd love to have one of her pieces hanging on the walls of MizzSmiff's house.  I'm saving my pennies, and in the meantime, I would love for you all to put on your favorite tunes today, break out whatever art supplies you have and just listen to what the music tells you to do.  Do you have synesthesia?  Probably not, it's pretty rare, with only about 4% of the population being aware of the condition.  But, research does say that it can occur with prolonged sensory deprivation, perceptual isolation and removal of stimuli and goodness knows, over the last few weeks, I would say that we've checked all of those boxes.  Let's make today a musically creative day!

Day 12

Day 12.  Today's challenge, after you read about Vincent Van Gogh and his paintings of his bedroom in Arles, is to show me your favorite space in your house.

This is Vincent's painting of his bedroom in Arles.  I love all the colors.

This is a picture of MY favorite space in my house.  A few years ago, I added this sun room and a deck to the back of my house and this is a picture of one of the reasons that it is my favorite space.  The checkerboard floor!  Many, many years ago I went on one of those tours that they have of fancy houses and one house, which was actually down the road from the school where I taught before I came to AMS, had floors just like this. In that house this floor, which is made of cork tiles, was in a third floor 'media' room.  When I saw those floors, I said to myself, 'Self, someday you are going to have a house and in that house you are going to have floors like this.' And now I do!  This picture is just when they were finishing the room. Now, it is filled with books and plants and art supplies and the comfiest couch ever.  One of my goals for this summer is to put blinds up on those windows.  When it was first built, I didn't need them because my house was surrounded by woods. Now, I have neighbors on one side so I need blinds.

Read about Vincent's bedroom here.  A few years ago, The Art Institute of Chicago recreated Vincent's bedroom in a one bedroom apartment that you can rent and stay in for one night.  I think that would be a fun thing to do if I was ever in Chicago.  There is also a hotel in The Netherlands in the town where Vincent was born and spent most of his young life that has recreated his bedroom where you can spend the night.  My list for visiting places has become much longer now that I am stuck here in one place.

I can't wait to see your favorite spaces!