Suminigashi Prints

I discovered Japanese paper marbling this year and I have been pining to do this project with my classes.  Finally, I got my hands on a kit and we've been going to town in the art trailer.  Here are a few of my favorite Suminigashi prints from 5th grade.  Suminigashi literally means "spilled ink" in Japanese.  Take a look!  The kits cost about 17 bucks online, and here is a link to the lesson plan in case you want to do this too. In my class, we create the Suminigashi monoprints on day one and then over the next several class visits, the students create a drawing that goes with their monoprint.  Lots of students chose to draw Koi fish, the Japanese symbol of love and friendship.

Snow day

Will it snow this afternoon?  I sure hope so!  Here are some snowy landscapes by my second grade artists. We read Robert Frost's poem, Stopping by woods on a snowy evening and then we talked about how atmospheric perspective can make faraway objects look soft and grey.  We also talked about space in terms of foreground, middle ground and background. I didn't tell the kids how to draw the animals, but many of them put in really cute little fawns and bunnies based on the illustrations in my book.

Who do you admire?

In kindergarten class, we created stamps of people we admire.  Here are a few of them.  The funniest thing is that one kid drew a green alien.  He never would tell me why he admired an alien. I tried to get him to talk. (Alien not pictured)

My little tigers.

I have been swamped since August. This is not an exaggeration or a lie-- it just is... when it comes to the life of a first-year teacher who is also trying to take graduate courses. My paintings have been selling faster than I can make them, but instead of painting more I have been helping petite Picasso's make some brilliant work. Check out my favorite second grade tiger collages.  These were made after we looked at Henri Rousseau's jungle art. Since my school doesn't have a big budget, we made glitter paper ourselves.  Check out the personality in these little tigers! Their little faces and expressions make me laugh.

Here are some 5th-grade versions created for a yearbook competition.  The kids are dying to know who won, but I can't tell until June!

The last one is a "Terminator Tiger." Gotta love the creativity.  One of the tigers with tattoos may be gang related, but to an innocent eye like mine, I loved the design and put it smack dab in the middle of the bulletin board... I have a lot to learn!

Old Lady Antebellum

My favorite house in Savannah is this one.  I've loved the lacy wrought iron balconies and the rusting intricate iron window-works since I first laid eyes on it.  I've always imagined the interior as a lavish home for a wealthy family.  The interior I pictured had grandiose staircases,  windows with yards and yards of richly colored silk draperies and plush velvet armchairs made for shipping mint juleps while cradled in the lap of luxury. The walls would be decorated with contemporary landscapes of live oaks, much like my own.  Ok, now I'm fantasizing that I own the place...Anyway, I never thought that I'd be able to waltz into the house on a sunny afternoon, much less poke my head around each corner on every floor.

Dave and I were in Savannah on our way back from the Podracky Christmas celebration in Orlando this year.  We were walking around and peeking into antique shops when we stumbled upon the open doors of Alex Raskin Antiques.  He owns this house!  Of course we went in, and when we did, we found piles and piles of dirty old treasures.  They were stacked to the ceiling, covering the walls and spilling out of the balconies of this wondrous old shell of a Savannah mansion.  Based on the condition of the stuff, we thought we'd hit a gold mine! Surely we could find an affordable treasure here!  It was not the case.  Every piece of hand-carved furniture and ancient photograph was priced at thousands of dollars.  So we crept around and looked and marveled at the treasures!


My favorite piece was a hand-carved Victorian mantle.  It was a mere $4,500.00.  Since it wouldn't fit in our trunk, I had to say no.  I also adored some stained glass windows that were propped precariously on the first floor in what I assume was the grand ballroom in it's hey-day.  The paint was peeling off in layers as thick as cardboard.  With the original chandelier still swaying eerily from it's dusty chain, this house was beyond anything from my wildest dreams.





We also found an early dress form with a painted doll's head.  Dave loved an ancient looking fish-tank from the turn of the century. He also eyed up some French furniture with aged paint patinas that cannot be mimicked, no matter how many layers of faux paint and crackle medium you try.  We laughed when we saw a "choo-choo" train that looked like it came from the carnival from the turn of the century (1900's, not 2000's).  There is no way to describe the magic of this place.


At the same time, there was an inescapable sadness to it all.  Every room was decaying. The ceilings were caving in on the top floor.  The stairway was held up by a metal rod that surely was not an original part of the design.  As the plaster and horse-hair concoction crumbled, you could see the wooden slats behind the walls and ceilings. With every crack in the wall, it became harder and harder to imagine the people that raised their families here.  I felt a sadness that the owner of this place didn't take better care of it.  Hopefully one day we will go back again to see that renovations from the historical society have begun.  If Dave and I ever hit the lottery, this is where you'll find us!

This is me.

One of my second grade students drew this during class while we studied art about communities.  In second grade, there's a big push to learn all about community helpers like firemen, policemen, teachers, construction workers and even business owners.  We talk about all the community helpers we can think of and I show some examples of Norman Rockwell's illustrated pictures of community helpers from the Saturday Evening Post.

When we got down to business with our pencils and markers,  one of my little kiddos drew ME!  Here I am at my teacher's desk with my pink insulated cup of Diet Coke sitting nearby.  All the students are smiling and busy as they work on their drawings and as you can see, there are lots of drawings hanging up around the room on a clothes line-- just like real life!

Oh how can I begin to describe how happy this makes me?  This is why I'm here-- to nurture, to support, to encourage this kind of sweet innocent talent until it takes off full speed ahead! Have I mentioned that I love my job? I do.

Run, run, as fast as you can. You can't catch me, I'm the donut man?

It all started in September 2010, when I took a nasty spill down the stairs thanks to a ginormous load of laundry and a slippery step.  After writhing on the floor for a few minutes, I figured that I'd try out my throbbing ankle to see if I'd broken it.  It hurt, but  I could walk ok and I didn't see any bones poking out.  I even grabbed some frozen peas to ice it down and prevent swelling before I limped off to finish my wifely duties at the grocery store for the day.  

That night it hurt so bad I couldn't even get off the sofa to go pee! I had to scoot on the floor from the sofa to the bathroom and lord knows I had to take the stairs by scooting up one at a time on my rear. The next day I made it down to the couch for breakfast and I didn't move again for 36 hours.  It took me three months to go see a doctor-- Why, you ask?  Because I'm like that. I kept thinking it would heal on its own. After all, it was only a sprained ankle. The doctor that I finally saw was a podiatrist.  He wanted to jam a needle in my ankle and give me a cortisone shot.  I said no thanks (because my Internet research had told me that cortisone actually impedes ligament healing time and I hate needles) and limped out with a brace instead.... a brace that cost me the last bits of my ankle mobility and nearly 400 buckaroos after the freaking insurance monies paid.  Yes.. after insurance that dang brace was $400!  In January, I made an appointment with an orthopaedist.  He told me the brace made my ankle worse by weakening it further and prescribed some physical therapy.

Finally I started to see some improvement!  I went from not being able to walk without a limp to being able to walk gently uphill and finally to being able to jog again.  At this point, It had been 5 months since I'd gotten any cardio... 5 months since I'd run a mile or even been able to walk a lap around the neighborhood.  Don't let that happen to you friends.  It's not pretty.

In the springtime when I was able to run one mile again (albeit wheezing and breathing like a banshee), my friend talked me into signing up for a half-marathon in October and I said yes because I needed a big goal to get back to my old self... my wedding self if you know what I mean.  All spring and summer I huffed and I puffed and I ran my tush around the neighborhood so many times that I swear I wore a new path in the asphalt. The months flew by.  I was doing great. I could run 3, 4, 5, even 6 miles at a time!  Then I got this thing called a "new job," and I started this thing called a "new semester" in graduate school.  By the time October rolled around, the furthest I could run was still 6 miles...less than half of the 13.1 required to complete my upcoming race.

You know what?  I did it anyway.  I wasn't happy about it, (I was pretty anxious about it which turned into pretty up tight about it which turned into pretty annoying to be around) but I sucked it up and I did it.  You know what else?  2 hours and 13 minutes of running later I had a lot of fun.  In fact, that's a picture of me at the finish line! I did it!  Now I know why crazy people run marathons.  They may be crazy, but man when you complete something like that it's like nothing on earth can stop you.  When I crossed the finish line on my half marathon I felt relief and joy like I haven't felt since I graduated high school.  Grinning ear to ear, I couldn't believe I had it in me.  My legs were telling me no, but my head kept saying yes!  After the race was over, my wonderful husband brought me a pink donut-- one that matched my pink running shirt and my pink half-marathon medal.  He's the one who really deserved the donut for listening to me whine about my ankle and about running all year.  He's the best, really... and so are pink donuts. In honor of Dave and donuts, I think October 16th should hereby be known as Donut Day.  I plan to celebrate annually (after I go for a run, of course).