Artist~Teacher... tishalou

I just attended the VAEA 2013 Professional Development Conference in Falls Church. It was only about 45 minutes away but I was able to get my school to pay for the registration and a hotel for two nights. I roomed with 2 other art teachers from Fauquier and we always have a great time together as well as learn a lot from each other! Seven teachers from my county attended.

It is always great to catch up with the professors and fellow students from the MAT program at George Mason too! It is like a built in support systems to see them at my session as well as attend theirs.

I know embarrassingly, I have not posted here for a year, but frankly every time I tried to sign in I could not figure out how to edit my blog since everything on Google changed! This time I was determined to make it in!

I wanted to share my resources with the wonderful educators who attended my session!

First, there were a few blog posts from when I taught the electives class.

• Friday Electives ~ Off and Running
• Faerie Houses 

You gotta love Teacher Appreciation Week! Our PTO is awesome and arranges breakfast everyday, a luncheon on Thursday (including volunteers to cover our classes) and goodie bags! Each day of the week the students were to bring us flowers, thank you notes, a small school supply and summer fun items. So I had to share a few of the great notes I got!



I have been so far behind on posting and not sure where to start! So thanks to Phyl at There's a Dragon in My Artroom for starting the topic of District-wide art shows.

Here are posts about last year's Art Festival in my county.

Each year in Fauquier County we have a county wide show where art teachers from our 11 Elementary Schools, 5 Middle Schools and 3 High Schools display work they have chosen. It is billed as an Arts Festival so it also includes music and choral performances. I think these are on a volunteer basis of the music teachers. Each art teacher is tasked at bringing cookies, crackers and Ginger Ale for punch.

For the past three years that I have been in the county the show has been at Kettle Run HS because it was just built and the county wanted to show it off. It is also where our 'lead art teacher' works. We also have a traveling art show where each teacher brings 6 pieces of artwork and it gets divided into 3 different shows. These shows travel to different schools throughout the year to showcase work from around the county. All 3 shows come back and are displayed at the Art Festival as well.

Since I started I have been of the opinion that each school should showcase their program and keep their school's work all together in one place. Currently each teacher mounts their work and then it gets hung anywhere within the main hall or gym of the HS. The HS Art students help hang the work - so a lot of times even the art teacher that brought the work does not know where the work is hung. This causes problems when the student and their whole family come to see the work and it cannot be found. In the past it was done this way so that parents would look at all the work and not just their child's. I don't think you can force people to look - and they are there to see and support their child's work and school.

Here are pictures of my display all in one place on 1/2 inch foam core boards.

It is official! I have some funding from my school and I just officially registered to attend the National Art Education Convention in Seattle, Washington.

1. This will be the first National Convention I have been able to attend since Grad school. I went to Boston in 05, Chicago in 06 and New York in 07. George Mason helped pay for those travels.
2. I live in Virginia and my Mom, step dad and my sister and her family live in Kirkland, WA.
3. My mom turns 60 on March 12th. I surprised her in Washington on her 50th 10 years ago so it is kind of a tradition! 
4. I miss my family (my nieces especially) and look forward to seeing them! 
5. I love getting new ideas and new perspectives on Art Ed. 
6. Signed up for a Chihuly tour! 
7. Will I get to meet any of my blogger buddies?? 

Top Art Teacher Blogs, South Region
I made the list, too!

I see a lot of my blogger friends posting that they got an email about making the list of Top Art Teacher Blogs, South Region from the Teacher Salary Website. Well I didn't get the email - maybe it is lost in junk mail filter land... but I am on the list!

Teacher Salary Info

• Snippety Gibbet
• Art With Miss Rachel
• Art With Mr. E
• Ms. Art Teacher
• Texas Art Teacher
• Elementary Art Fun
• St. Martha Catholic School Artists
• Tishalou
• Miz Patti's Art Room
• Art At Herod
• Art and the First Year Teacher
• MNPS Chiuly Art Lessons
• Art Gallery
• The Small Art Teacher Blog
• WKE Art Smarts
• Bolivia Arts
• Elementary Artist
• Murch Art with Miriam Cutelis
• Abbotts Hill Art Studio
• Art Talk from Mrs. Woodlief
• Art at WHS
• Lake Hamilton Art
• Riverwood AP Studio Art

I must say I have had a very blah week and have been just trudging through ~ you know you have them once in a while! Today I went to a Teacher workshop on simple book making and it was great. Being in a room with other teachers learning and creating!
Here is what I made in just 2 hours:
Here is the star book ~ Which I already knew how to make and posted a how to on it here.

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All of the county buildings/schools are closed on Fridays in the summertime. So our camps only run from Mon-Thurs. On Friday we planned a nice little get together at one of the teacher's homes. She recently graduated from VCU and lives with her dad in Remington. http://www.remingtonva.org/ What an amazing place they have. It is right on the Rappahannock River and her dad is a real artist himself.

Our crew consisted of 2 recently retired high school teachers, two current HS teachers – one our lead art teacher for the county and then two elementary teachers. We met rather early as it was already pretty hot and humid at 9AM!

Most set up and got to work painting. I brought all manner of drawing materials and started out sketching a nice overturned tree stump. I also took lots of pictures. I got started on a doodle technique from a book I just got called Zentangles. Check out the official site for it: http://www.zentangle.com/