Mavalus Tape

Part of the job of any art teacher is to display student work around the school.  I have a lot of issues with this, one being that the art work often gets destroyed.  Most of the time it is from the wear and tear of being up in the hallways where our students line up and lean against it all day long.  Sometimes, it ends up being vandalized, but not often, thank goodness.  Another problem I have is just the sheer effort of keeping the stuff on the walls.  I have been known to walk around with a stapler and a roll of masking tape around my wrist to restick, restaple, reattach and fix artwork that has fallen off the cinder blocks or bulletin board strips that line our hallways.

I have been on a mission this year.  A mission to deliver my school from the drabs and drearies.  I often joke that my school is painted in the lackluster colors of East Berlin but OH MY GOSH!  I am not kidding.  There is a black line, at chair rail height that circles the building.  It's about 12-14" wide.  Above the line the cinder blocks are painted gray.  Not light gray or bluish gray or a warm gray.  It's painted the gray that can probably found in the bowels of a submarine.  Below the black line, the wall is blue.  Not the bright, vibrant blue that we at Albemarle Middle School know as Bulldog Blue.  It's grayish blue.  It's dark.  It's like the whoops paint that you might find at Lowes marked down for $1.50 a gallon. It's not even close to our school colors.  Sigh.  It's depressing.

At the beginning of the school year, I found a neat little one day project on Pinterest.  The link is currently broken, but here is a link to my board: Index card 1 day Project.  I had all of my classes from first quarter create a small piece of art on a 3 x 5 plain index card.  I saved them all and did the same thing with my new second quarter students.  After they finished them, I had 200 + little masterpieces.  I mounted them on 24 x 36 construction paper and laminated them. They are heavy. I knew exactly where I wanted to put them but how to keep them up there was my problem.  It was at the other end of the school.  Upkeep was going to be a beast.

See what I mean about the colors?  Blah.

Enter Mavalus tape.  OHMYGOSH!  You guys!  This stuff is insane and has changed my life completely.  I know that sounds excessive but seriously, I am so not kidding.  Over the summer, I went to the teacher store at the big old mall in the next county over and as I was checking out, the girl behind the register noticed that I had a lot of art related items and asked me if I was an art teacher.  I guess it was obvious.  She asked me if I had ever heard of Mavalus tape.  I hadn't and she convinced me to buy a roll.  I really didn't think much of it until a month or so ago when I started putting things up in earnest.

I hung some fairly heavy quilled paper initials up in the foyer.  The wind has blown in on them for weeks and they are still hanging.  I hung posters in the hallway and in my classroom.  Despite temperature changes, mother nature and middle schoolers, they are still hanging.  Over the years, I have tried everything to keep stuff on the walls.  Hot glue (it works but it's a pain to remove), masking tape (most of the time it doesn't even stick to itself), sticky tack, double sided foam tape, command hooks, silicone caulk (I'm serious), duct tape and those little hooks with the sticky, gooey wax stuff on them.  Obviously, I have tried everything.

But no more.  I have found the Holy Grail of adhesives and it's name is Mavalus Tape.  It can be found online (I got a bunch from Amazon but it's locked up in my supply closet so don't get any ideas), at craft stores like Hobby Lobby, AC Moore and Michael's and probably at your local teacher store.  Get some.  It will change your life.

Even though it sounds that way, this is not an advertisement for Mavalus tape and I am not being paid in any way to endorse the product.  It's just that good.

Mavalus tape.  My hero.  Sigh.

Continuous Line Value Landscapes

We have been working our way through the Elements of Art this quarter.  We did some landscapes using line, color and value.  I discovered that value was a difficult concept for some of my students to grasp, but once they got the hang of it, the results were lovely.  Click on the link below for the Gallery Crawl.

Gallery Crawl

Positive and Negative space

We are about halfway though the first quarter and about halfway through the elements of art.  We did some beautiful continuous line landscapes that were colored in using value. I'll post some of those pictures soon.  

Today, we started prepping for some work using positive and negative space, line and pattern. I found this idea on Pinterest but I can't find the link that I got the idea from.

Students will use a template from a 3x5 index card and repeat it on both sides of a 12 x 18 pice of construction paper.  

Today, we are making zentangle resource sheets.  Using about 6 pages of different tangles that I have found all over the net, students are filling in a page of 30 1.5" squares with their favorite tangles to use on their project which they will start tomorrow.   I am looking forward to seeing what they come up with.  As always, I will post pics of the finished projects.  

My Art Room

We've been back at school for about 2 1/2 weeks and I think that I finally have my classroom in order, the way that I want it.  For now.

I haven't changed too much this year.  I think that I finally got my art history timeline that is above the whiteboard up in a way that it won't be falling down by Thanksgiving.

One new thing that I added is the shelving unit by the front door.  I am using it to hold the bins that I have for work-in-progress for each class.  So far, it's been one of the smartest things that I have ever done.  Kids line up along the wall in front of the door and drop their work into their plastic bin that I set out on a desk under the telephone as they walk out into the hallway to go to their next class.  When students come into class, one person gets the bin and passes out all the art work.  So far, no projects have been lost, and students know that if they didn't get their work handed to them, they probably forgot to put their name on it.  Two problems solved for less than 20 bucks at Home Depot.  Best investment I have made to date.

This is as organized as my supplies table will be this year.  My desk sits right behind it and I have a cozy little nook to sit in when I am doing my planning.  Of course, I also am trapped in there if I happen to be sitting at my desk and a student comes to me for help.

Sometimes, I think my classroom might be a little bit cluttered and busy, but when faced with the stark gray, battleship blue and black colors in the hallway, I think I am just making up for the shear bleakness in the other parts of the school.  My classroom is bright, colorful, stimulating and fun.  I especially love my little reading corner in the middle right of the above picture.  I still need to bring my houseplants back in to put on the ledge under the windows.  It's a miracle that I didn't kill them over the summer.

I am so happy to have this great space.  So many art teachers don't have a classroom at all, so I know that I am very lucky, indeed.

My theory is that I spend most of my day, the awake part of it at least, in this room, so I might as well make it an enjoyable space that I feel comfortable in.

I love looking at how other art teachers have decorated their rooms.  I think that any school's art room is the place to be!

This Year's Art Brochure

Every year, I redo my rules and procedures to try to best reflect what I hope to do that year in the art room. Below is my art brochure for this year. I'll share it with my students the first day that they are in class. I hope that they bring it home to share with their families. As always, I hope that I have covered everything that I need to cover so there aren't any questions about what is expected but I am sure that I have left something out. It's hard to streamline everything into just one page and put it into an interesting format. How do you inform your students and their families about what is going on in your classroom? Do you send home a parent letter, let the kids know or just hope for the best?

Crayons

I teach Middle School and we don't use a lot of crayons, but I have to admit that I LOVE them. Did you know that crayola produces nearly 3 billion crayons a year? That's 12 million a day! There are over 120 colors (not including specialty colors) and blue is the favorite. I love everything about crayons. I love the colors, I love the names and I could get lost in the scent. Everything you want to know about Crayola but aren't afraid to ask. Who thinks this is the best Back-to-School supply, ever?

Today, I might just go get myself a nice box of brand new crayons. And then I will sort them by color in the box. Anyone else ever do that? Okay, just me. Never mind. What is your favorite Back-to-School supply? I'd love to hear from you!

I walked into school the other day for a meeting, a few days before teachers officially return on Monday, August 19th.  Out of habit, I went through the office to check my mailbox (a couple of catalogs, not much else) and I glanced down at all the boxes on the floor.  One of them has my last name scrawled on it with marker.  A box from Blick art supplies. 

My heart leapt a little bit.  A BOX OF ART SUPPLIES.  For me! 

I don't want to admit it, but I am a little bit excited about getting back to school.

Mercy, they are going to take away my teacher card if they find out.

Who else is excited about the upcoming school year?