Blog
2/14/24
Happy Lunar New Year!
One year, I received a donation of fluorescent yellow 14 by 204 paper. So, I made this pen and ink drawing of a tiger, dragon, and a goldfish drawn by a hand and pencil. Years later, when my children were toddlers, felt they should add to it:)
A Website Story Video
10/8/23
Creating a website can be a great deal of work, but also has a lot of benefits. This video shows how I started mine and the article below explains what to look at for. There are many videos that help with some of the logistics. One I liked for making the site searchable was Add Google Sites and I paused for each step and followed the directions. Below the article is the workbook template.
Workbook Template
Leaf by Caroline Nay
Harpy Eagle by Caroline Nay
2/3/23 Sammie by Caroline Nay
Scratchboard
Scratchboard used to be a project I did every year at the high school level. The leaf was a warm-up that required students to have subject matter with a scratchboard side and a pen and ink side with the different texture techniques. The harpy eagle piece is scratchboard with watercolor added to the white areas. The project was inspired from an art lesson I saw in Southern California during my student teaching (more than 25 years ago). The original project had portraits. When I taught it, I had students draw animals. They had to draw the animal on tracing paper and then they drew a grid on the animal to fit the words. The grid needed to curve with the face. Then they wrote the story of the animal with block lettering. Next, they graphite transferred the design onto scratchboard and then scratched the image. I did recommend furry animals, so, that students just needed to add fur in between the words.
1/18/23
The next project
This was a challenge to figure out, but I am excited to see what students come up with. It combines shading, perspective, figure drawing, and robots. Stay tuned for the warm-up assignments.
1/2/23
Cool Art Book
Ken Vieth's, "From Ordinary to Extraordinary: Art & Design Problem Solving is a great book to have for art teachers. I love the way he looks at a concept and creates a lesson that challenges students for technique building and creative expression. The lesson that seems to be the most popular is the pencil lesson. Draw an animal as pencils. The lion to the left was my example to show students. One color suggestion to help with shading on the pencils has to be purple. It helps give richness to the drawing.
12/1/22
The Artsy Alphabet
I thought it would be great to have students design a letter of the alphabet every week as a homework assignment. It worked out o.k. Looking back, I should have had a final grade for when it was time to arrange all of letters on a poster. I still like what I made as the example, and I put it together as a video.
11/11/2022
Outside of the classroom
Years ago, I wanted to develop a lesson for students to learn how to draw glass. As a result, I have made many glass drawings and now use the same technique for a new collection that I am developing. This video shows the process and where I am going with it.
11/3/22
Mom:)
I have always liked art pieces of parents with children such as Mary Cassatt and her Impressionism work. So, naturally, I have had a lesson in which students had to make an animal and its offspring. My example here is of a t-rex mommy holding a teddy bear while looking at her babies hatching out of their eggs. I did a lot of low relief carving to create the scales. After the bisquefire, I added black underglaze, sponged most of it off to leave color in the carved areas, and fired again. Then I applied sheer glazes for the glaze fire.
10/28/22
I used to teach ceramics:)
I taught high school ceramics for thirteen years and like many art teachers, it was not my major in college. I decided after college to take another class on it to make sure that I was ready to teach ceramics. Such a great decision and lucky to find the teacher I had. Amy Kline of amy@klineglazeservice.com is an amazing artist and the best ceramics teacher I ever had. Her technique for wheel throwing is perfect for beginners and is what I used to teach beginners. I saw a much higher success rate with it. Most ceramic teachers wait until the second year to teach it, but this method is so good that I taught it the first year and it helped to build the program and get the word out that it was a worthy class to take. I did write three books for the ceramics program, and I am working on uploading it into this website.
hologram.mp410/19/22
Hologram Projector
This is a really cool STEAM project. You can make a mini projector to go over your phone while having a hologram app on. There are many YouTube video tutorials for tis. You just have to pick the one that you like. Material wise, I did go to a craft store to the toy model section to get thin sheets of clear plastic that is normally used for making windows for a dollhouse.
10/18/22
The Penny Trick
As, teachers, we are always asked to do ice breakers. I try to switch it up with a game. The penny game is pretty fun and gets students to work together. The have to have to arrange six pennies into two rows of four. The video shows the answer
10/14/22
Why art education?
I have known since I was five, that I would have a career in art. Basically, since I could hold a pencil. But why art education? I started doing some community service in high school and more in college and I loved it. I did major in graphic design in college, but I didn't fall in love with it. Then I took one education course and realized that it combined my two loves: art and community service. I was asked recently, "Where would you like to be in five years with your career in education?" . I responded, "Still teaching art, because I love it.".