Live in the Sunshine

It's been blizzardy here.  We had about 15 inches of snow.

We had school cancelled today and tomorrow because of the snow.  Before that I was at home sick for the 2 days prior.  I'm starting to get stir crazy!  I'm actually a bit bummed about having school cancelled the day before winter break (I know, that sounds crazy).  Usually the last day before school gets out, everyone is in a super cheery mood, lots of treats and excitement, handwritten Christmas cards from kids, and we were going to have our Market Day (where the kids sell their handmade crafts and sweets for each other.)   I have a pile of gifts and cards to give to some of the school staff and my student helpers.

So today I stayed home with my darling daughter and we played outside a little bit and made some chocolate pretzels.  Isn't she sweet in her kitty hat?  And catching snowflakes with her tongue, so precious.

“Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air.”― Ralph Waldo Emerson

I love this quote from Emerson.  I had been working on this collage painting for awhile and it seemed fitting to finish it today on a very dreary blizzard day.  

This is a hybrid art journal page.  The collage elements were physically cut and pasted in my journal. Then I scanned the page and added letters using Photoshop.

This is a collaborative art journal page made with my daughter.  She and I drew on the page with water soluble colored pencils, added water and spread the colors around.  Then, I collaged scrapbook papers and a sticker around the border.  Finally, I added acrylic paints to tone down some of the colors.  I'm in the process of adding words and other imagery to this page.

I signed up to do Reverb, but I haven't really done too many.  I did one or two as a journal page, but then sent that off somewhere and didn't take a picture of it.  Reverb gives you questions to reflect on from the year, to close out the year and start the next anew.

Reverb #6:   Compare the “you” from the beginning of 2012 to the “you” that you are now. What new skills or talents have you learned or discovered this year?  I have learned a few things about writing articles and interviewing artists for Featuring magazine.  It has been a great learning experience and a thrill to see my articles in print!  I learned the basics of Adobe Illustrator to create a design for my school.  I dabbled in glass fusing at a local shop and tried it with my elementary students.  I have learned to recognize my limits.  I have discovered that I have an abundance of ideas that I want to do someday, but I need to just pick one and go with it.  I've learned that when submitting your artwork to publications or competitions, rejection is a part of the process and that process shouldn't define my artwork or minimize my enjoyment.

Reverb #9:  What was the best book you read in 2012, and why? (And by "Why?" I mean: Why did you read it? And why was it your favourite? Although these answers could be one and the same...!)

The best book I have read this year was The Invention of Hugo Cabret.  Charming story, amazing cross-hatched drawings!  I love everything about it.  The movie was good too.  If you have not read it, take a look at it if only for the beautiful pictures.


Reverb #13:  Please post your favourite picture of yourself from 2012, self-portrait or otherwise!
This is one of my favorites because it reminds me of my trip to New York for the National Art Education Association conference.  What a blast!  This night I think was the night I walked about 50 blocks across New York city.  The lights.. the people.. so much going on.

More Reverb coming later!!

Linking to some of my favorite places:
Art Journal Every Day
The Answer is Chocolate
It's a Hodgepodge Life
Paint Party Friday

Project Life update

So much to be thankful for... lots of good friends.. a family who is very involved in our lives...
living in a beautiful city...  a job I really enjoy.

Print and color this card to give

Free Printable Christmas Card!

Marit, founder of Featuring magazine, suggested that we all make print and color holiday cards to post on the website.  For the past few years, I have made little cards from my artwork to use as thank you notes at school.  If a kid gives me a holiday gift or card I will give them one of my little artwork cards.  So, this was perfect, because now my holiday card is done for school.  Some kids at school saw me drawing this and they all said they wanted one, so I'm going to print off a bunch.

If you would like to print off this card for yourself or your kid to color, go ahead!

Do you make your own holiday cards?  If so, how do you do it?

Prayers and Love to Connecticut

Prayers and love to those in Connecticut.  I pray for peace, I pray for love, I pray for our country and world.  As a teacher, parent and human my heart is heavy today.

Here. Now.

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 Recently I have been using a grid format in my artwork, so I decided to use the challenge of creating an artwork based on a circular structure. I taught a lesson on radial designs to my third and fourth grade students and they created beautiful and intricate mandala designs so I was inspired to use a circle in my artwork. I started this collage by drawing two concentric circles on a piece of paper that was already painted. I cut the circles to create a ring. Then, I glued this ring onto a new background. Using a compass, I drew another circle outside of the ring. Then, I photocopied leaves on a color copier and added words using letter rub-ons. Finally, I added color and depth with markers, white out pen and oil pastels. I chose to place these words on the image as a reminder that I am here now. I need to embrace the moment I am in and not worry needlessly about other times.  

Mixed Media Canvases with Kids

Thanks for your kind comments about my fingers!  They are actually healing much faster than I expected. 

From time to time, I do a cross-post for both of my blogs.. My other blog is Art is Basic, where I chronicle my adventures teaching elementary art.  I thought you might enjoy seeing some of the mixed media canvases I did with an after school art class!

I thought painted canvases would be a great gift for kids to give someone in their family, so I decided to do an after school art class which I taught today.  The kids in this class were in grades K-5, so I had quite a range of skill levels.  23 kids signed up!

1st grade artwork

I bought a bunch of canvases, scrapbook papers and paints on Black Friday (yep, I braved the craziest shopping day to pick up some cheap art supplies.)

5th grader

Each kid chose a 12x12" or 9"x12" canvas and a selection of scrapbook papers.

The kids cut out shapes and imagery from the patterned scrapbook paper.  These were decoupaged on to the canvas using Mod-Podge puzzle saver glue (the kind that you can paint on to a finished puzzle to save it.)  Paint underneath and on top of each shape.  Smooth any wrinkles out with your fingers.  When you are finished mod-podging, use a hair dryer to dry the glue. 

3rd grader

The kids used acrylic craft paints to add paint and designs to their canvas.  Colored sharpie markers were also used for fine details.  It is very important to make sure the paint is dry (with a hair dryer) if you are going to use markers anywhere near the paint.  It will ruin the markers if the paint is wet.  Some students chose to write words on their picture.

Do you see the "love Marcia" at the bottom?  so sweet!  (made by a kindergartner)

The class ran from 3:15-5:00.  The kids mostly all finished by 4:45, which was good because we had a HUGE mess to clean up.  If I did this again, I might split it into two sessions.  It was a long day for the littlest kids. 

Kindergarten-- Lots of expression!

2nd grade

3rd grade

Kindergarten

2nd grade  Great shapes!

1st grade  I love the colors in this one.

4th grade girl

The four seasons-- 5th grade boy

(I just got a twitter account if you're interested in becoming my twitter friend.)
Follow @marcia_beckett

Vote in the Art Ed Blog of the Year Contest

Exercise your right to vote! I just found out from Jessica over at The Art of Education that my art ed blog, Art is Basic, has been selected as one of the finalists to win "Art Ed Blog of the Year!" 

 

There are so many great blogs on this list and they are all ones that I follow on my blog reader.  Take a look at all the ones posted and you will get so many good ideas for your teaching. 

Art is Basic need your help to win! Voting is open this whole week from today through Friday the 14th. Could I ask you to take 30 seconds, follow this link, and vote for Art is Basic to win?! All you have to do is click on the name of my blog in the poll, and click vote.  Thanks for checking out the Art Ed Blog of the Year finalists.  It is so important to keep current on the latest in Art Education and these blogs provide a lot of discussion to the field of teaching art.    Thanks, Jessica, for hosting this contest and spreading the word about so many good art blogs!

Follow @marcia_beckett

Featuring magazine, a quote page, hot glue....

My posting is going to be limited for a little while.  I burnt four of my fingers on a hot glue gun yesterday and had to go to the urgent care.  Basically the glue dripped on four fingers on my left hand... I was sitting in the teacher's lounge peeling the hot glue off my fingers and crying.  Definitely a shock to the system.  They are ok now... just some throbbing on and off.   I ordered low temp glue guns because I am not going to use those anymore.  So, limited typing now..

Featuring magazine is ready for pre-order... Since it's hard for me to type, I am sharing Jennifer's explanation of the details:

From Jennifer,

"Holy Cow, we did it!! Whew! We at FEATURING have been working our proverbial behinds off, seriously. Maybe that's why mine seems to be getting smaller. ;o)  After the second issue took an extra month to get out to the public, our Head Honcho, Marit, decided we should really try and get the third issue out for Christmas. And low and behold, we DID IT!! It was a tonne of slaving over a computer, talking to a lot of incredible artists and writing, writing, writing. But we did what seemed impossible just a few months ago. Issue 3 of FEATURING is HERE and available for preorder.

I think this issue is the best one yet. Issue three is jam packed with colourful and intriguing artwork and informative articles. You don't believe me?? You say you want proof?? Hmmm, pushy aren't you?! Hehehe. Ok, since you begged and used your puppy dog eyes, I guess I can give you a sneak peek. But don't tell anyone, you'll get me in trouble, ;o)

Here's a link to a preview of some of the fantastic pages in Issue three. You can read more about many of the articles in this issue here. Here's a list of the articles in this issue...

• Paper Paintings
• Monotypes go Mainstream
• Full Disclosure
• Poetry, Hidden and Found
• Somebody’s got to do it
• Stephanie Drömer
• An Artist in Berlin
• Create to the Music
• The Art of Motherhood
• They Call Me Mr. Hosta (an article about my own art, YAY!!)
• Spontaneous Acts of Creation
• An extraordinary exhibition
• Three journals
• Featured Blogger
• Love Me Do
• Into the Studio
• View of the World

A great piece of news is that we at FEATURING have figured out a way of lowering the cost of shipping outside Europe!! Since much of the the magazine is sold to individuals living outside Europe, the owners at FEATURING worked hard to give those people paying the highest shipping a break this Christmas. Cool, huh?

This would make a terrific Christmas present for any artist. Preorder your copy of Issue 3 here. You can still also order Issue 1 and Issue 2. Also, if you want to keep up to date with all things FEATURING, then click here to sign up for the newsletter. Now you'll be in the know about when the newest issue is coming out and any other cool FEATURING news."

Families Journal Page

This is a family.

What is a family?

People need families.

People need people.

Some of the layers I used in this art journal collage were:

ink doodles on deli paper

scrapbook paper

rub on images

a losing powerball ticket, lol

patterned tape

cut outs from a vintage children's book

I visited my old college town a few weeks ago (Normal, IL).  My friend, Beth, took me to a charity book sale.  The sale ran all weekend, with books donated from bookstores and other people.  On the last day of the sale they had a $5 bag book deal.  You could fill a paper grocery bag with as many books as you'd like for $5.  They had so many books.  There were a lot of brand-new good quality books, plus an equal amount of used books. If you are a fan of Dean Koontz, Mary Higgins Clark or Danielle Steele you would have been very happy.  I picked up about 10-15 novels (including a couple MHC, Jodi Picoult, some true crime, and some chick lit books).  I found about 4 books for my sister-in-law who is collecting all of the Stephen King books.  Daria picked out a stack of children's books.  My husband found only one book he wanted.  He's a little bit more discriminate about his reading.  Then, there were so many vintage children's books.  I spent a long time debating about which ones to choose.  In retrospect I should have filled another bag, but my husband was already not entirely happy about me picking up over 30 books to add to our already full book shelves.  I found 4 vintage picture books that I thought would be interesting to add to collages.  That is where these words about families came from.  It was a children's "family studies/social studies" type of book.  There is charming writing on various pages of the book, which I enjoyed looking at.

Currently, I am reading (and almost finished with) The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair.  Wow, is it a powerful book!  If you ever think your life is hard or your job is stressful, read this book!  You will totally think your life is easy after reading it.  If you don't know what it's about it is a classic novel about the early years of the 20th century in the meatpacking industry.  It follows the life of a hard-working struggling immigrant who encounters difficulty and tragedy.  It exposed the terrible working conditions and led to massive change in America.  

Just Journals Linky

What have you been doing in your art journal?

Sometimes I just like to make backgrounds if I don't feel like thinking too much!   On these pages, I tore pieces of scrapbooking papers and other random papers to create a frame.  I'm trying to leave a bit more white space than I have in other pages.

If you have read this far, what I do here the first Friday of every month is post up a "Just Journals" Linky.  Visual journals, written journals, scrapbooks... they all count as journaling. If you are reading from a blog reader you will have to pop on over to the actual blog post.



Grab a button for your page:

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My Guest Post for Artists in Blogland + 25% off coupon code for my Etsy shop

Today I am the host artist for Artist in Blogland's challenge:  Fall, Fearless and Fly.  Visit the website to add your link if you participate in the challenge and for a chance to win some great prizes!

NOVEMBER 26

Headline Prompt: Lifelong Fan:  What or who have you consistently valued or looked up to in your life?  What lessons have you learned from people you admire?

Color Prompt:  Your favorite color now or from childhood or both!

Quote Prompt:  "Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator; but among those whom I love, I can:  all of them make me laugh."  W.H.Auden

 _____________________________________________________________________________________________________

I created a mixed media art journal page using the headline prompt of people I looked up to.  I have always looked up to my teachers and especially my art teachers.  I had a professor in college who really encouraged me to pursue art as my major, although I had never thought I would be able to make art as a career.  I decided to major in art education and the professors I had were amazing.  The courses were really, really thorough, rigorous and grounded in art education theory as well as practical teaching strategies.  I don't think I would have been prepared at all for teaching without the education I received.  The art education professors I had were very professional and encouraged us to become involved in our own professional development.  They stressed the importance of being involved in art education associations on a state and national level.  With our art ed. classes, we traveled to many art workshops and art educator conferences. 

Several years ago, I bought a vintage art education textbook off of Ebay.  I cut out and photocopied two of the images to play around with while doing this challenge.  The first was a poem that read, "Of children so glad they 're learning to draw, are n't they the happiest ones you ever saw?"  The other was a row of children with the text reading "How many historical figures have we drawn?  Let us draw each other." 

The shell image I chose because one of my professors was a ceramicist who used shells in all of her work.  She would press the shells into the sides of her pots and use them as a textural element.  I think it had something to do with where she grew up.  Anyways, she came to my wedding (6 years ago) and as a wedding gift she gave me one of her lovely pots (with shell imprints on the sides) and it is sitting in our display cabinet in our living room. 

I think I have discovered a new theme to explore in my artwork:  creating art about teaching art to children!

 Prizes! Everyone who joins in will be entered to win fabulous goodies!  We'll randomly draw one name to win it all this week!  From Marcia, we have a packet of paper ephemera (vintage imagery, text, scrapbooking papers and embellishments).  You can check out all her goodies in her Etsy shop here. 

*** If you check out my shop, I am offering a 25% off discount coupon code (just enter it at checkout):  "HoHoHo"  ... good until the holidays.  I just added a few Cloth Paper Scissors magazines and more packages of postcards.  I have some big dreams to add some prints and more original artwork to the shop, but that is going to have to wait until later! ********

Blue Moon Scrapbooking  has generously provided a $25 gift certificate for this week!  They have a wonderful selection of scrapbooking and mixed media supplies!  





In order to participate in this challenge, you need to head over to Artists in Blogland to add your artwork! 

Project Life Scrapbook Card Tutorial

The other night I decided to make some scrap cards that can easily be used in my Project Life scrapbook.  Many people use the Project Life system to scrapbook a layout a week.  There is no way I could ever keep up with that and if I did, I would end up with shelves and shelves of scrapbooks. So, I just use it as a regular scrapbook, adding things whenever I feel like it.

One way to save time is to pre-make a whole bunch of scrap cards.  Then, you can add a photo to them later with some journaling (if you want) and then be done with it.  Making the cards will go faster if you have all of your materials out at once and just make them in stages.

Project Life Scrap Card Tutorial

As you can tell, my scrapbooking style is like the rest of my art... hodge-podgy, random, not overly concerned with precision.  MORE IS MORE!

1.  Start with a piece of colored scrapbook paper, cut to the 4"x6" size.

2.  Here, I started to layer on strips of other scrapbook paper.

3.  I tore a piece of floral paper for the top and added a striped piece of colored tape at the bottom.

4.  The blue transparent flower tape was added and 

I used a variety of rub-on letters and patterns around the edges. 

A piece of black polka dotted tape was also placed in the middle.

5. Two more torn pieces of floral paper were added and a few more letter rub-ons.  I think that's enough stuff on this one!  So, now to use it in my scrapbook I will add a photo and a caption about the picture and then it's ready to go.

 

Here are several of my finished scrap cards.....

Now, add some photos and any other finishing touches.

Arrange your cards, plus any extra photos or journaling cards in your Project Life scrapbook.

I assume if you've read this far, you are really interested in Project Life.  Here are some more links to get you started:

8 Tips to Get Started on Your Project Life Scrapbook

My Disneyworld Scrapbook

Starting the Disney Scrapbook

My Pinterest Board on Scrapbooking

Becky Higgins-- What is Project Life?

 Project Life Printables (search for Project Life on Pinterest for TONS of ideas!)