The Art Teacher does Art...

My HS students are creating works of art inspired by Kansas.  What started out being a sunflower or wheat theme became pretty open ended with some wonderful ideas my students came up with.  All art pieces created will be on display and sold in a silent auction for a school fundraiser for the art department.  The kids have done AMAZING work!  Many pictures to come of their work.

While coming up with this idea, I was told by fellow staff members that I should contribute to the auction.  So I joined in on the fun and worked with my students.  It was a great time, but I quickly realized how hard it would be to complete a piece of work up to my standards for myself while helping everyone else.  I got some done, but spent a lot of time at home in the evenings working on my pieces.  I came up with 2 ideas, one of a sunflower that was close up and more abstract, and this one.

Since this is my first year, I haven't really had much time to make art outside of the classroom for myself.  I really hadn't done much like this for over a year, prior to student teaching.  It felt good to do something I was inspired by and to make it my own.

I loved working WITH my kids at the same time although it did prove difficult to manage when they needed my help.  I think it is important for students to see that the teacher really is "legit".  My students were in awe of what I was doing saying "You're just so good" or "How do you do that?"  My response generally was along the lines of "Wouldn't it be important that I have these skills in order to teach you" and they responded "Well yeah".  Made me laugh.

My art auction isn't for another week, but the work went up today to be on display for the week.  I'm hoping it will be successful.  I'll have student pictures soon.