Texas Texture: 2013 Ice storm

When I left school on Thursday... this was the view inside my Mini.

We went to bed knowing school was canceled as the freezing rain continued

Thursday night and Friday morning.

This was our view at sunrise as we made coffee in the kitchen

As I walked around the inside of the house I heard cracking from outside.....

Our beautiful Live Oak!

My husband had spent hours last weekend cleaning the yard and decorating.

I am still so sad over this tree.

We bundled up and went out with a neighbor to start cutting limbs to avoid more damage.

We ventured across the street to the school. More limbs down,

but I was blown away by the texture the ice created on various surfaces.

It was in the 80's last week.. leaves were still on the trees and

Knock out Roses were still blooming.

It hasn't gotten above freezing today, so we have been house bound.

We are so thankful that we didn't lose power. Many teachers I know are still without power.

The temps are to warm above freezing tomorrow. Yeah!!

Stay warm and safe everyone!

Kandinsky Trees

My first graders really need help with their fine motor skills this year. After completing a very successful Kandinsky Concentric Circle painting lesson noted below, I followed up this past week with a tree inspired lesson. Once again, I found my inspiration from Jen Draw the Line At and I used her lesson suggestions for this very successful lesson. My student's used Crayola Metallic crayons instead of the Crayola Construction paper crayons and we used juice lids for some bigger circles in the stamping part of the lesson. Day 1 On day two constructed the trees and circle leaves. I passed out a 12 x 4 inch piece of black paper and had two different sizes of square paper for the circles. Yes, this was a challenge since we did not use pencil, but we drew with our scissors. Day 2 I will definite repeat lesson for next year! I will be displaying these soon. Displayed artwork is posted HERE ...

Monet's Pond

The Dallas Museum of Art has a wonderful Monet Painting in a beautiful gold frame which inspired me to create this lesson for our Big Art Day which is fast approaching in Texas schools. For our Big Art day this year I have a Theme....Circle Art! Themes are the way to go when organizing events. I love this new lesson that was inspired by one of my favorite artists, and two favorite bloggers: Painted Paper and Cassie Stephen's who also use themes. I ordered the 10 inch cardboard circle rounds for this lesson, the same size Cassie used in her Dot Day Art . School Specialty has various sizes. The kids loved painting on this canvas instead of paper. We read about Monet's garden and look at prints of his masterpieces. I even show them some of my pictures that I took when I visited his garden in France. On day one, we painted the pond and the water ...

Clay and Weaving!

I'm brave, I tried a new lesson again.... I can say as we are completing these clay frames that you have to follow some basic rules or you will have broken frames. We have had only 3, but I did make extras. My 4th graders tackled this lesson with stoneware clay, and finished them with oil pastels, one color of watercolor paint and I painted modge podge on them when dry. The texture is the key part of the coloring process! I have rollers and rubber texture mats. At least pencil think and more than 2 fingers in width. You need some lid tracers and a pin tool. Don't try to cookie cutter it. I strongly recommend 15 or 19 holes punched with a straw. You must have an odd number!! If they go hole craze, pop out the clay from the straw and plug the holes. I found the directions for weaving the warp threads here on Cassie Stephen's blog. I am also doing her plate weaving at the same time with...

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