Update: Art Club Recycled Bottle Cap Mural!

With just a few weeks within my deadline (the end of school) the mural is finally finished!

I began writing about the Art Club’s recycled bottle cap mural back in January when it was just twinkle in my eye, so to speak.  I was inspired by the many beautiful bottle cap projects I’ve seen on so many of your blogs!  (So thank you!) 

I wrote about a long time ago, back in February to document and update you on our progress!  Since then there were no updates…because there was no progress. 

You see, each cap had to be anchored down to the backing board using screws, but not just any screws- a specific type of 1/2" self-drilling screw.

We had to special order them from a local hardware store, but they were on back order for a couple of weeks.  I only got a big bag of 15 boxes of 100 screws about two weeks ago.  Since then there has been constant progress.  You can ask my sore and bloodied fingers. (Technically only one got bloodied when a renegade screw decided to try and attach my finger to the board rather than a cap.  Ouch.  For real.)  But other than that one casualty, we were pretty good!

Before the big reveal, let me walk you through the process:

Materials:

-3/4” thick 4’x8’ sheet of standard plywood

-About 30 boxes of 100 self-drilling screws

-About 3,000 collected, washed and dried plastic bottle caps

-Elmer’s glue

-Chip brushes

-Acrylic paint

-Craft paper

-Charcoal

Run-down:

We ordered a ¾” thick 4’ x 8’ sheet of plywood from Home Depot as our base.   After deciding on using Eric Carle’s “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” as our inspiration, we used two 4x4 sheets of craft paper and charcoal for a practice run.  This is when we figured out our layout and major shapes of our design.

Once the layout and design was finalized, we re-sketched the design on the plywood with charcoal, and gave it a base-coat of acrylic paint.  It was king of like a giant color-by-numbers painting.  Since all of our caps are round, no matter how tightly we packed them in, there would always be a little diamond of the plywood visible.  Painting the sections first allowed us to keep the continuity of the final piece, but also served as a really handy map for where to lay out which caps.

Next, we had the kids work in teams of two using some chip brushes and Elmer’s glue to lather up each section, and place the coordinating colored caps in that space.  We knew the Elmer’s wouldn’t hold in the long-run, but it would definitely help keep the caps from flying in all directions when I started screwing them down.   It also helped keep the caps in place for when those curious hands worked their way across the surface, which seemed to happen every single period of the day since we started building it.

And finally, the drilling.  I took on 98% of the drilling myself.  I did use a few boys on random days where they were just too tempted by the sound of power tools to stay focused on their current projects (“My dad lets me use those at home!”), but the rest I did all on my own.  I packed as many caps onto this thing as possible.  I screwed caps into other caps where I could, and really tried to see the “big picture”- dispersing the light and dark blues for the sky, for example, trying to avoid a huge clump of dark or light here or there.  Same with the sun and the grass.  During the drilling process, I did have to rearrange some of the glued down caps to exchange them for other colors/sizes, but overall the plan of mapping and gluing worked well. 

And so here it is, ladies and gents, our finished plastic bottle cap mural…..

And some close-ups...

Just noticed a missing cap in the photo above....can you find it?!  

(I put a reminder in my phone to fix this!)

I'm so happy with how it turned out in the end, but boy was this ever a labor of love!  Glad to have 4x8 feet of my room back in working use, for sure!

Happy Memorial Day Weekend, everybody!

Consider Me Certified!

Last Sunday I joined my older sister (mommy-to-be!) and my own mom in taking a CPR and defibrillator certification class.

I've been CPR certified before.  I dabbled in the art of life guarding once when I was in high school. (I quit after just four days... it wasn't for me.)  But I still had to go through the three days of CPR and First Aid training.  I remember it being very intense, and a little bit overwhelming.  We had a couple different books, had to watch a bunch of training videos, take some tests, and then practice not only on a dummy, but on each other.  For a high schooler it was high-pressure and kind of awkward, and for whatever reason I didn't think I could handle it.

Well, with the nephew due in just two months (ahh!) my sister wanted us to all get re-certified.  I was really glad when this came up, and two hours later, I found the whole thing much easier to understand than back when I was in high school.  There were about 30 of us in the class (lots of expecting and new moms) and we were all trained in how to administer the Heimlich Maneuver, CPR, and a defibrillator to adults, children and infants.  It was really great, but it go tme thinking...

Why isn't it mandatory for all teachers and students to get CPR certified?

I know, I know, like we teachers need one more thing to add to our list of mandatories, but really, every school year we have two or three days of back-to-schoolness: we welcome/prep new teachers, review yearly objectives, etc., etc. Why not add a CPR certification into the mix?  And while we're at it, why not an epi-pen administration certification class?  Or general First Aid?  I can't tell you how many kids I have who carry around epi-pens.  I was trained and certified by our school nurses to administer the epi-pen last year, and the whole process took 20 minutes.  Why aren't these things mandatory?  More importantly, why aren't they provided to us by our schools?

Additionally, why aren't we teaching these life-saving skills to our kids?  The high school kids, especially.  We have a great health and wellness program at school where the kids learn about physical health, mental health, dating and relationship health- all very important things.  But what about CPR training?  Why don't we give our kids the know-how to literally save a life?

I realize all of this costs money and time, but I just feel like these are really valuable skills that are relatively easily attained. My 2 hour class cost $60, and I learned how to save lives three different ways!  And yeah, my certification will "run out" after two years, and it'll be up to me to take a "refresher" course, but really, you can't unlearn this stuff.

The odds of me ever having to use any of what I learned on Sunday are low.  (The woman giving the class has been certified for 10 years and has only ever had the opportunity to save one choking infant and one unconscious woman, and she did!  Both in the same week, no less!)  And I hope I'll never have to use any of it at all, but now I know that if I ever do, I don't have to be afraid, because I can be useful!

Maybe there are schools out there that already provide this type of training to their staff/students?  If so, let me know!  I plan on working up some kind of proposal to hand off to someone at school to see if we can get these wheels in motion for next year, or at least, to be considered next year and put into the works the following school year.  Not sure who to approach, but I'm going to start sleuthing around this week.  Any suggestions on how to do this?

Spring Art Show

Now that I've had about a week to recuperate, here are some shots from the Spring Arts Show!

Here is a shot from our opening night, last Tuesday.  We had a pretty good turn-out, and it helped that it was also the night of the spring vocal and instrumental concerts (hence the lady in front with the flute.) The Fine Art Show hung all week long and was enjoyed by many.  It also was huge: three hallways totally decked-out with art, just like this one.

Here's a shot of the hallway in-between classes, nice and empty, so you can see how long it is.  We did three  of theses!  That's a lotta hanging! That's a lotta Command Strips, too, which, by the way, I would recommend to anyone and everyone.  All of these works were hung with just two, and in some cases, only one single itty-bitty command strip, and in the week they've been hanging, we've had exactly zero pieces fall off the walls.  They're incredible!

This year we decided to hang the work in smaller groupings as opposed to the straight gallery-style of hanging.  This helped us utilize the space much better as each student who took an art class this year had at least one piece int he show.  Also, my School Mom and I were assigned one hallway to share, so before the hanging began, we mapped out the space using computer paper to label each section as "Underclassman Cluster" or "Senior Cluster".  See, School Mom has the seniors, who were allowed to have 6 pieces in their clusters, and I had a lot of the underclassmen.

Here's a shot of one of my Underclassmen clusters.  I was able to fit about 10-12 pieces in each one, which worked out really, really well.  I tried to pick the most diverse projects- different subject matter, different mediums, different classes- to exhibit together.

And here is one section of our beautiful, custom-built shelving unit (one year old this spring!) displaying some of my best Fine Art I Spring Flowers.

Today begins the de-hanging and re-organizing of the hundreds of pieces we organized and hung just a week ago.  It's an equal amount of work, but much less stressful as there's no real timeline to adhere to.  The Spring Arts Show was a huge success, and our last art show of the year.  While we're always proud to boast about our student works, we are oh-so-happy to be done.  Let the countdown to summer begin!

Big Brother is Watching...

Teaching digital photography is so much fun, but it certainly isn’t without its challenges.

The biggest challenge I find with teaching digital photography is the temptations of the Internet.  Typically the classes are on-task for the first half of the course, and somewhere around the middle, I see a lot more YouTube videos, or shopping websites open than I would like.  And don’t even get me started about what goes on around prom season.

Initially I would give the kids warnings when I saw that they were on websites they shouldn’t be.  After a while I started taking points off their grade- but honestly, it became such an awful beast to battle, I sort of gave up.  These last few weeks of school have been pretty brutal in that sense.

However, I made an accidental discovery today, and it’s got me already chomping at the bit for next year.

See, I have a school-issued laptop.  It’s super convenient, because I travel between two classrooms all day.  It’s also great, because in Friday I introduce our new photo project using my laptop and projector set-up.  I like to use the projector, because it gives the class a central focus- we’re all learning the same lesson at the same time.  However, even for the 5-10 minutes of presenting, I find myself saying, “Eyes up here so I know you’re listening,” or “I shouldn’t hear any typing right now,” or “Alright, everyone, log off the computers, you can log back on when I’m finished.”

My Photo roommate has a school-issued desktop computer, because that classroom is his only one, his “home base” if you will, and he doesn’t need a laptop.

Well, yesterday I wanted to give a power point presentation on our new lesson, but another teacher was using the projector.  I told my photo roommate about my problem, and he generously offered to let me use his desktop computer.  I thanked him, but pointed out that the computer wasn’t the issue- the projector was.

Then he said, “Yes, but you can use Faronics Insight.”

I had no idea what he was talking about.  And then he showed me.  And changed my life.

Apparently my school invested (ever so wisely) in a program called Faronics Inisght- a computer management system where all 24 of the student computers are hooked up to his desktop.  At any point in the day, he can open up the Faronics Insight window and not only see what is on each individual student computer screen, but also control what is on each individual student computer screen.

Someone’s perusing YouTube when they should be editing photos?  Exit window.

Someone’s shopping for the perfect shade of pink pumps to go with their prom dress? Exit window.

Someone’s completing a webassign for a different class? Exit Window.

Someone’s on facebook after the billionth time of being told “no facebook!”? Exit window.

I’m sure you can hear the grumbling and mumbling already, but as the kids whined on, I did the happy dance!  I had no idea this thing even existed, let alone was accessible.

Aside from the pure joy of refocusing students by x’ing out of their open windows, I could also use the setting where all of the students could see what was on my desktop.  Rather than set up the projector and set up the screen and open the power point presentation, I just opened it on the desktop and like magic, it was on every single computer screen in the room!  They couldn’t x out, they couldn’t minimize it, all they could do was pay attention!  Pure, undivided attention- the attention I’d been asking for all year!

I used it that very class and while there was a good amount of grumbles and mumbles, I found that I had a lot more questions about the assignment than other assignments- they were interested!  They were paying attention, because they had no other choice! Victory!

I hung around to ask my roommate about more options the Farnoics Insight had to offer, and he said he often uses it in a situation where a student knows an easy trick in Photoshop that he wants to teach the kids, he can take that kid’s computer screen and make everyone else see what he’s doing.  Kids teaching kids.  A teacher’s dream!  Then I searched around the internet and found this super useful video explaining all the wonderful possibilities this program has to offer:

Before the end of the school day I booked it to our IT department to inquire whether or not I could get my laptop hooked up to/installed with Faronics Insight.  The short answer “yes,” the longer one- I’d have to hook my laptop up to the main server every day using an actual hardwire, which could cause issues in the long run.

I think what I’ll do is make friendly with my photo roommate and get his approval for use of his desktop when I’m in there (only one period a day).  

Watch out, kids...Big Brother is watching...

via.

Our Potential Solution: Traveling Exhibits

As if dealing with Spring Arts Week and moving isn't enough, my work BFF and I were recently approached about a big, ugly, blank hallway that sits just above my room. 

My boss told us that the new principal would like to "pretty up" the place- and I couldn't agree more.  I mean, just look at the blankness of it all:

My boss refers to this hallway as "The Subway," and rightfully so.

He was also interested in "prettying up" the windowed hall that connects to "The Subway":

It's a rough time to be planning for a job that big, but that doesn't mean we haven't been.  However, the criteria for the hallway is a bit unclear.  There was talk of murals (which got me so excited!), but then the word "temporary" kept coming up.  They want a colorful, inviting space, but they don't want it to be permanent.  Hmmph.  There was talk of creating a "lounge space" for the kids, and the words "educational" and "interactive" were thrown around a few times.  Double Hmmph.

We're still in idea-mode, but my work BFF found a potentially awesome solution:  Traveling Exhibits.

She heard about them three or four years ago at an arts conference and somehow remembered them when this whole "pretty up the school" idea came about.

They're a bit pricey, but pretty much exactly what they were looking for: mural-esque, temporary, interactive and educational! 

And check out how easy they are to display:

As of right now, they have 32 different exhibits to choose from- many of which are arts based, but several have to do with science and social studies- which is pretty perfect considering "The Subway" is in the new History/Physics wing.

Check out their site if you get a chance, and spread the word!

Hell Week

This is Hell Week, the longest, most stressful week of the school year.  Spring Arts Week.

Monday - I almost finished preparing 150+ works for the art show, while teaching 4 classes and sending other student work out to traveling shows.  Also, I had my last Watercolor Graduate Class!  I spent the evening packing.

Tuesday - Today I'm hanging 150+ works for the art show, while teaching 3 classes.  I'll be staying up at school from 7am - 9pm. When I get home, I'll pack a little.

Wednesday - After barely recovering from the night before, I'll be back at school for a full day of teaching, followed by a lengthy department meeting, and then heading out with my work BFF to pick up the student work from one of the traveling shows.  I'll head home for some dinner, and continue packing.

Thursday - Teach all day, then get to a follow-up doctor's appointment, then pack up some more, and end the day with band practice as we've gained a new member and need to teach him the ropes!

Friday - Teach all day, then stay at school to check out the Dance Ensemble's spring performance until about 9pm, go home and pack.

Saturday - Continue packing, and start moving.  Because, oh yeah, we're moving this week.  This is what that looks like:

Sunday- Continue moving,  take a break from 2-4:30 to get CPR certified with my older sister and mother, continue moving.

Summer, where are you?!

Colored Pencil Flowers

My Fine Art I group has just finished our colored pencil unit- quite possibly my favorite unit to teach.  I love showing the kids how colored pencils can be used beyond scribbling in some stick figures on a poster board.  Working with colored pencils is very much like working with paint, which at this point, the they have become very familiar with.  For this lesson, we reviewed some basic color theory, and I explained how one can work in layers, or by burnishing, and off they went!

What was really great about this year is that when I asked students to bring in original, close-up, clear photographs of flowers (the more exotic the better!) I had one student who brought in nearly 50 beautiful photographs taken by her grandmother, who has a gorgeous garden (and apparently, a sick camera!).  This really saved us as it's rather difficult to go out and shoot photos of flowers when it's late February/early March (a.k.a. when we started this project.)

As usual, each class had really unique results.  I stressed attention to changes in value and detail as they worked on their 8x10 illustration boards. I also explained to them how the brand of colored pencils we use in school- Prismacolor - are made up of different materials than the ones they're more familiar with.  The Prismacolor pencils are much easier to blend, and go on more smoothly than other brands.

I'm so glad these are finished and ready to display for Spring Arts week!  A lot of the kids asked if they could take their flower pictures home as Mother's Day gifts, but I just couldn't let them go.  The kids (and moms) had to settle for a cell phone snap shot and an IOU until the end of next week.  Sorry, moms!

Period 1:

Period 4:

Period 7:

So proud of all my groups.  These get better and better every year.

Happy Mother's day to all the moms out there! Hope these flowers put an extra spring in your step today!