Today I tripped over a drawing board that was leaning against my classroom desk. I proceeded to totally wipe out in a sort of Chevy Chase circa the ’70s Saturday Night Live skit way. My students just shrugged it off, as if it wasn’t the stupidest thing they have ever seen a teacher do. I don’t know how to explain why I did not rip my tights except to say that Hue brand are amazingly durable. So stupid funny. I couldn’t stop laughing and even now hours later the laughter is bubbling up inside and…OMG! Here it comes again!
This incident happened a few minutes after lunch – I had been making a list of intentions: things I desire for my life, and one of them is to laugh out loud every day. That is either totally ironic or I am a fast manifester, lol. I guess it depends on how you look at things.
There’s always something funny going on in the art classroom. I keep saying I will write a screenplay one day. It is tentatively titled Middle School Musical. Oh and yes, there WILL be song and dance.
I’m currently wrapping up lessons with my first semester crew. Starting at the end of the month, I will entertain new students until the end of the school year in all but one class. My Studio in Art class will remain. They meet every day for the full year. Students just finished up a mixed-media lesson. I will do a post on it soon. We will keep the materials out and do a mixed-media sculpture/mobile next then on to a portrait lesson, watercolor and finally an acrylic landscape painting.
I didn’t have any Scholastic Art award winners this year (I entered eleven pieces) – a disappointment for sure, but it is not as much a reflection of the quality of the work as it is a particular judges’ whimsy. I think I entered eleven pieces last year and six won honorable mentions. The still life drawings we are currently finishing along with the Wayne Thiebaud-influenced drawings are looking very competitive, so I may hold on to some of them to enter next year.
Meanwhile, students have created the illustrations for the Ozstravaganza 2017 coloring contest and we are exhibiting the Lions Club peace posters in the Community Room of the Sullivan Library in Chittenango, New York through February 2017.
So, it is not all fun and games in the art world (we are working after all). It is only mostly fun and games, because that is what life should be – creative fun with A LOT of laughing out loud.
