Start your weekend with some charming cartoonsl

The sweet little old couple in the cartoon 'Pickles' are my absolute favorite.  

And maybe, just maybe, they remind me of my husband and me.  

Anyhow, above and below, Pickles cartoons about art.

And a Pickles cartoon about photography.  I think I may have posted some of these cartoons before, but I'm cleaning iPad photo files, since I keep getting messages about not having enough space to to update.  So I thought I'd give them one last view before I delete from my photo stream!

And Pickles cartoons about fabric shopping....  

Again, sounds a lot like me and my hubby.

And  a Frazz cartoon on education...

Back to Pickles, getting philosophical about various aspects of life....  

So many of these cartoons have specific personal meaning to me!

And three non-Pickles cartoons about art

And one last Zits cartoon, just because....

True?

You call that art?? - a Sunday comic

Sunday Comic #15

Four minutes left to Sunday, so I thought I'd post a Sunday comic since it's been a while.

Sunday Comic #14

Why am I posting a comic strip about substitute teachers?

I currently have a sub. I have been out of school since last Wednesday, and expect to return on June 8th. I know many of you will be done with school by then, but not me. Our last day here is June 24th, so I won't be missing the end of the school year. Don't worry, it's nothing serious, but I had a minor surgical procedure on Wednesday that had been put off for some time, and I'm happy to have it behind me. I'm recuperating well, my husband and son (who, after graduating college, is home briefly before moving to Boston in search of a job) have been taking good care of me, and I am looking forward to getting back to work in a little more than a week .

Last Tuesday, I stayed in school long after everyone else was gone (except the custodians) - actually until almost 8pm, putting the finishing touches on two weeks of sub plans, cutting paper, organizing materials, and generally cleaning up. Oh, and taking a bunch of photos around the art room so I'd have stuff to post while I'm out. You've already seen some of them in the last couple of posts, and I still have more left. So keep checking back, OK?! Even if your school year is already over!

Sunday Comic I think # 13?!

Gotta love Calvin!!

The return of Sunday comics and a blog award, all wrapped up in one post!

Here's 2 Sunday comics, to make up for all the times I haven't posted them. I've saved some more Calvin for next time.
And then, there's this:

I have been awarded a Versatile Blogger Award from http://sgpart.blogspot.com/. If you've never seen this blog, check it out. Her students have been doing AMAZING portraits of presidents! Teddy Roosevelt, George Washington, Obama, etc. You've go to see these - it takes an amazing teacher to bring this kind of work out of her students. Kudos! Anyhow, I'm going to break the award rules. I've gotten 2 of these awards before, and I don't want to keep naming the same blogs over and over so please forgive me for not passing on the award to 10 more blogs. I hope I don't offend anybody by not doing this. It's just not going to happen... If you want to check out the blogs I like, just look at the ones in my blogroll on the side. I added a couple new ones today, and I'm following a couple other new blogs that I'll add once I see that they are posting again. But I WILL try to tell you 7 more things about me, the other rule of the award:

1. I'm a fickle artist. I have too many artistic hobbies and so lots of stuff goes unfinished but I like trying new stuff. Someday... I'll finish a new painting, play with the free motion sewing capability of my sewing machine, take that class in making flamework glass beads, begin to build another dragon, add more dragonflies to my car, learn to use Photoshop, etc. You get the idea.
2. I'm neurotic in cars. I don't like driving over bridges, or in heavy traffic, and I feel a HUGE sense of accomplishment when I make it over the Tappan Zee Bridge which is 2 miles long. (It's sort of a gateway to the NYC area.)
   
3. My favorite color is alizarin crimson.
4. My favorite flower is the pansy. I love that they are so colorful.
5. I adore my goofy cat Isis. She is a house cat that spends a great deal of time outside on a harness & rope tied to the porch, and is happy. We call her "dope on a rope".
6. I have tiny fat feet with structural weirdness. It's hard to find shoes to fit and I get upset about finding shoes for special occasions. I wear athletic shoes to school most days.
   
7. I like to shamelessly promote stuff having to do with my son. (Anyone know of any good creative job opportunities in the Boston area for a new college grad with a degree in Entrepreneurship and an interest in PR, event organization/management, and the live music scene?) His college band recently released a CD - but don't listen in your classroom (2 obscenities). The irony is that itunes labeled these 2 songs 'explicit', but there is NOTHING on the CD relating to sex, drugs, or promoting violent behavior, or anything else of the sort, as you hear in a lot of music the kids listen to these days. The song lyrics, while a bit cryptic, are all about social or political issues. There's not a love song among them. Anyhow, the boys felt those two words were necessary. Here's their website: http://theradiumgirls.bandcamp.com/

This is their CD.

Sunday Comic #10

I almost forgot to post this until I saw a really cute comic posted on another blog. After this, I'm out of cartoons for a while, so enjoy!

Sunday comic #10 & a bit of excitement

This comic, from today's Sunday paper, seemed just perfect! First, there's the winter eather so many of us have been dealing with.

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And then there's the fact that I'm in papier-mache world in the art room these days (though we're not making monster masks right now - but maybe later this year...)

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And then, there's thing that has had me all a-twitter all week - a comment left on my post "Messy Art Room Alert". The comment was from Dan the Monster Man, a 6th grade teacher and papier-mache artist living in Seattle who makes the most amazing monsters and especially (my personal fave of course) dragons! In case you can't tell, I'm smitten with his work.

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In the mid 1980's, I bought a book he wrote called "The Simple Screamer", which is now out of print. I don't recall where and how I happened upon this book, but I was sold from the get-go. I love the dry sense of humor that is evident throughout the writing and photos, and also the fact that, like in my house, there's always a cat in there somewhere, sitting on or destroying the stuff you are trying to use. Anyhow, some middle school students and I followed his instructions and made our own "screamer" (I'll have to find and scan a photo to show you, since one of the kids kept it. I know I have photos, but hey, it was 1986 or '87 when we made our screamer so the pics are pre-digital and are in a box or album somewhere - you understand I'm sure!).

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Anyhow, here's Dan's website (Dan, I hope you don't mind that I'm writing/posting this, but I figure if you have a website and a blog you want people to read it, right?) - anyhow here it is - http://www.gourmetpapermache.com/. Through the website you can find his blog and lots more, plus you can find his newer books on making monsters and dragons and such that are very much in print and available, unlike the book I have.

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Take a trip to his website/blog/etc and check him out - I guarantee you'll love what you see!

Sunday Comic #9 and some photo extras

Yup, I guess we don't need fancy technology to make us happy! I'm amazed by how many comments my little "I'm a dinosaur rant" garnered. Thanks folks, I'm fine. When it comes right down to it, my favorite demos are the "gather around" type, where you can pass the bucket of goo around the group and have each child "demo" what you've shown (I'm thinking papier-mache here, in case you can't tell). Can't do that on a Smart Board!

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And now for something completely different:
Two views of snow for no reason other than 'just because'...

The house on the left is ours. It needs some fresh paint.

Hubby and I, outside to shovel. (Well I'd better be honest - he did most of the shoveling while I was tromping around with the camera. But next time I'll shovel, I promise, since he just bought me a nice new shovel and a wonderful new long-handled snow brush for my car. Thanks, sweetie!)

Sunday Comic #8 - yet another favorite

Here's another example of not needing color for a really funny comic. I've had this one for years, couldn't find it, and tonight a light went on in my head telling me exactly where I had it filed away. And miraculously, I looked, and there it was! Enjoy! (Sorry about the poor quality of the image.)

This cartoon reminds me of the time I dressed as VanGogh for Halloween, bandaged ear and all.

Anyhow - to my readers, I hope you all had a lovely vacation, and are relaxed and energized and ready to get back to school Monday morning. Happy 2011!!

Sunday Comic #7 and random extras

My son got me the best holiday gift! I love Scrabble, Boggle, Upwards, and similar games using letter tiles to form words. My new game, being guarded by our sweet cat Isis, is Bananagrams. It took only a minute or two for everyone to catch on, and it is quick and fun. A Scrabble game can linger for hours, but a round of Bananagrams will be completed quickly. It's a great game, and I highly recommend it. Thanks, Ben! You know me so well...


Now here's today's comic:

Another thing - perhaps you can help?:

If you read my blog regularly, and wonder why I keep changing my "this is me" blog photo, let me explain my frustration. I'm not one to like large photos of myself; I prefer to be on the other side of the camera, and I'm sort of embarrassed by the giant photo of me on the blog. I'd rather not have my giant photo plastered all over cyberspace, and I'd rather the focus of the blog be my students' artwork.

But I don't want to eliminate the photo completely, because once when I did, someone assumed I was male. So why can't I get the photo to show up SMALL??!! I feel like I have tried everything. For example, this most recent image is cropped from a much larger image. Then I reduced it in size, again, and again, and again - by increasingly large percentages. But it still shows up BIG on my blog. Can anyone tell me why?

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OOH - I just found these photos I never posted, of a fun holiday project. We didn't have much time, so they were really rushed and I think could be much better, but the kids were happy with them. I am anti-glitter, but I do allow glitter-glue and the kids were thrilled to use it to add some sparkle.

Stuff a paper bag, staple it shut, add a construction paper roof, and then have fun! We've used colored bags, white bags, and brown bags to make gingerbread houses with "candy" trim. With limited time, we used teeny bags, and I let the kids decide totally how to decorate them.

Sunday Comics #6 - my favorite art cartoon

Just proof that a Sunday comic doesn't need to be colorful to be funny! I'm teaching Picasso later this winter and I suppose I should have saved this one till then, but no... I couldn't resist!

Sunday Comics #5 - a little perspective

My students are currently using VERY basic linear perspective to create a simple checkered hallway, as part of our Surrealism lesson in the 5th grade, so this comic seemed appropriate. I have a soft spot for Calvin & Hobbes.

Sunday comic #4 & some Surreal-y good resources for teaching Surrealism!

(OK, it's still Saturday night as I post this, but we'll still call it a Sunday Comic...)
My Artist of the Month bulletin board currently highlights two Surreal artists for December: Salvador Dali and Rene Magritte. My third graders will actually be creating paintings of surreal food to put on our very own Salvador Deli bulletin board! Melting hamburgers, flying pickles, ice cream sundaes with eyeballs on top... can't wait to see what they come up with!

Friday I introduced Surrealism, Dali, and Magritte to my 3rd graders by reading this book (one of my absolute faves), and as always, they LOVED it!

And for my 4th, 5th, and 6th graders, I've shown them the movie Get Surreal with Salvador Dali. I have a different project planned at each grade level. As for the movie, it's an absolutely WONDERFUL resource, available FREE to educators from the Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida. Here's where to get it:

http://www.salvadordalimuseum.org/education/for_educators.html

If you click on this link and scroll down, you'll find instructions for requesting your free copy of the DVD.

There's a great collage project in the movie that I adapt for my 4th graders. And time permitting (ha ha), students at various grades will play the drawing game "Exquisite Corpse" (which I call "Funny Foldies" with the younger kids). It's also mentioned in the movie. Busy busy busy!!

Sunday Comics #3

Sunday Comics #2

I hope this is readable.

The punchline: "Hey, art teachers live in their own weird world". Yeah, I guess we do!

Sunday Comics

Over the years, I've collected a handful of art and art-teacher related comic strips. I saw this classic Peanuts strip in the paper yesterday, and it got me thinking that it would be fun to share the ones I have. So (if I can still remember a week from now) I'm going to try to post one every Sunday for a while - until I run out - call it our Sunday Comics!