Seurat & Color Run!

Last week was the final week for the Seurat project! If you don't know Georges Seurat, he was a famous painter known for pointillism. He painted using all dots. He made over 500 small paintings in dots and 7 large paintings in all dots. His most famous painting is probably "Sunday afternoon on the island of La Grande Jatte". Pretty amazing work! So I had the studens use the stick end of the paint brush to create dots on a sail boat dream template I printed off!

 

I said I would post the proportion/symmetry square collage picture

when it was all finished..so here it is!  I think they did a great job!

 

These picture is above is the template example that I did.

The one below is Seurat's famous circus dot painting!

Pretty cool, right?!

 

For my Thursday, Valentine's Day class we made valentine's cards! The kids had an awesome time and it was so funny to see all the kids running around the classroom telling each other about the different crushes they have. The teachers I talked to later that day said their kids were all grossed out with each other and girls have cutie's, etc., so they thought it was funny that as soon as they came to art class they were all lovey dovey. It was quite funny. Below is a picture of a project I helped some of the students do instead of making cards. We cut out hearts and weaved strips of paper through them. It was fun and most of the students understood it! Yay!

 

Now, on to the....COLOR RUN!! Best thing ever!! My friend Cailtin saw last month that the color run was happening here in Vegas! So she asked me if I wanted to do it with her..of course! Cannot pass that up! I dont think either of us really trained for it, considering it was really a fun run and I don't know who would really run it competively, also because you try to get as much color on you as possible! Regardless, we did run the whole thing! And had a blast! It was a 5k in downton Vegas, off of Fremont street. There are stations throughout the course where volunteers have bottles and bug spray containers, etc and they throw color on you. (It was pretty much edible chalk, corn starch) The first was pink, then orange, yellow, green, red, and then blue. Afterwards, they had people handing out water bottles and protein bars. Caitlin and I made our way to the front of the Color Run stage to enjoy free prizes and a ton of color! We both caught free color run socks and Caitlin caught a t-shirt. Pretty cool! Waiting for all the waves to finish there were little dance competitions and other entertainment for everyone. There were several countdowns, as well, to have the audience throw the color packets in the air..you know, so we can't breath and get all dirty! Pretty sure everyone was spitting and blowing black snot out of their mouths and noses! Despite the two hour shower and many noses cleanings afterwards, the race was super awesome and I'd do it again in a heartbeat! Enjoy the pictures and video!

 

Before and after Pictures!!

 

Art Projects

Van Gogh Pastel pictures I did for examples

I've been teaching for almost four months now and have gone through a few different projects in my art class.  My sister thought it would be a good idea to post about them on here, well I think its a great idea too! When I first started working there, the students were finishing the color wheel, and that was great to come in on! So from there we went into Andy Warhol. Not too exciting..and neither was the video we watched. Andy Warhol is an old artist who painted modern art, such as, the 100 Campbell's soup cans. So, the kids took their name initials and made a repeating pattern with them on construction paper. Nothing amazing, but something easy to get in to. Next we worked on Vincent Van Gogh! Everyone should know that one! His famous painting, Starry Night. We watched a movie on him too and that was..scary. Van Gogh was a very sad, depressed, and angry person. He killed himself...and cut his ear off, which I think is the only thing the kids really learned. Oh well, that's really all there is about him, and he painted well... So the kids used pastel on card stock and copied one of Van Gogh's paintings. They used short lines to form the painting. I didn't get any pictures of that, but the kids did a pretty good job on them.

Square collage example I did

After those two projects was Christmas break and returning from that we started a proportion and symmetry project. 3rd-5th grade did a square collage, which is: I took a picture and cut it into six small squares. Each student got a square and had to draw and color it on a big square. The proportions on the square and where the lines fell on the square had to be close to exact, because at the end we put all the big squares together to make one big picture. It turned out pretty well I think. Majority of the students understood it, but you do have the occasional that just don't care and its hard, but I do my best. And the K-2nd learned how to make symmetrical shapes. I taught them what the word symmetrical means and they all got to pick out different colored construction paper, fold it in half and draw half shapes on the crease, then they got to cut it out, open it and see the whole shape. These kids...their faces..they would just light up when they finished cutting out their shapes! They were so excited they could make a perfect heart or square! It was awesome. After we cut the shapes out, we glued them on a separate piece of paper in a unique pattern. It was a lot of fun! I'll post better pics next time!
We are now working on Georges Seurat! What do you know about him?!

3rd-5th grade did these ones! They did a good job!

My Classroom, room 25

Now..January! It's already over!

My New Year was great! I went to a Party, saw some awesome friends, danced, and I wore my red pants! Can't get any better right?! A resolution that I have is to learn Spanish and to speak it fluently by the time my brother Josh gets home from his mission in Nicaragua, which will be June of 2014. It's coming along pretty good so far. This past month things have clicked for me and its such an awesome feeling! I can read Spanish pretty well, but I have a hard time speaking it. It just doesn't come to me fast enough and I get nervous. My students are helping me. I ask them how to say things or if I'm saying it right, they're great help. One time in class, I asked a second grade student if I was saying the instructions for our project in Spanish right and they said some of it was right, but some of it wasn't and they helped me fix it. Then a little girl raised her hand while we were saying all of that, and she embarrassingly asked, "What if we don't speak Spanish?" I smiled and said, "It's okay, you don't need to know Spanish in Art class. I'm just learning it is all." It was cute. Anyway, I have plenty of other resolutions that I wouldn't want to bore you with, so I'll move on! In the month of January I had a lot of fun! It went by so quick, it's just so crazy! I went to the new Blue Man Group show, went to Ben Folds Five Live Concert, taught my students proportion and symmetry, spent time with family, went on a few fun dates, made a lot of new friends, got a church calling, and made my apartment feel more like a home! All of those things were awesome and so great!! It's pretty much all explanatory in the names so I'll just post the pictures, enjoy!! 

 My best friend Cailtin and I, partying!!

Ben Fold's Five!! So Awesome!!  

UNLV Rebel Game, they won!

The new Blue Man Group Show..with Balls!

 I went on a date to the Kiss Mini Golf and Arcade..I won! 

Pictures of my new apartment!
My Room and closet...

 The guest bathroom, which is also my bathroom...

 The kitchen..

The dining room...and living room..

Yes, my television is playing The Office :)

Oh my Goodness....Too Long!

It's been MONTHS, since I've written! Gesh! So much has been going on!!
So to start off--December!!
Main highlights of December were: My littlest brother, Nathaniel's Birthday and getting to see my little brother Josh on Skype from Nicaragua! OH and my teaching job here in Vegas!
For Nathaniel's birthday, my father took him and I to California to play paintball! It was awesome! We went to this place called SC Village. It has like twenty different set up courses to play on. Such as, an Iraq scene, Bosnia, Vietnam, and many more! It was scary though because I felt like it would really look like that in those places and plus we were competing against people we didn't know! It was so much fun though and I know Nathaniel loved it as a birthday present! After we went paintball-ing for hours we finally got to eat and rest. The next morning, Nathaniel and I went to Santa Monica beach for some fun. Took lots of pictures, walked on the pier, and of course messed around on all the cool playground gym equipment. We had a really fun time and a great birthday for Nathaniel to remember!

Next, was seeing Josh! It was so great and I told myself I wouldn't cry when I saw him...that didn't work at all.  As soon as his face popped on the screen I balled!! I miss him like crazy! It was so great to see him! This was the first year that family was away for Christmas. Hillary was with her in-laws, and Shelby was with her in-laws, Josh was gone, and my grandparents were with my Uncle, it was my parents, my little bro and sis, and myself home for Christmas. Extremely small, considering our big family! We were all able to group Skype together! It was awesome! Josh is doing great and loving it there in Nicaragua. Language has been difficult, but I think he is finally getting it. I am, as well, learning Spanish. I think it would be awesome to speak fluently with Josh when he gets home. That's my goal anyway!

Christmas was great! I love spending time with my family... and... I think.. my family loves spending time with me too! My nieces and nephews are getting so big! They are growing so fast! It's crazy to think the my niece Zoie will be 3 years old this year! And my nephew and second niece, Elliot and Charlotte will be turning 1!! It's amazing how time flies..I don't really like that. 

 

Grandpa feeding Elliot Protein!! Big Boy! And Elliot giving me some love!

One last thing to add to the month of December...I moved into Vegas, got a new roommate, and started my new teaching job!! I'm an Art teacher for Brookman Elementary. It's down the street from the LDS Temple! I love it! I really enjoy teaching these children..most of the time. They're really creative and a lot of fun! My roommate's name is Diana and she is awesome! We informally met a couple years ago at an Institute luncheon and now we formally met in our single's ward, both looking for a place to live and decided to search one out for us to get together! She is a Great roommate! We both like things clean and tidy! The month of December was a pretty good month! Good way to end the year!