Today's Artistic Inspiration - Helmut Sturm

Helmut Sturm, Untitled, 2001

Mini Monkeys!

 I made these with my older elementary students awhile back, but had forgotten about the pics until recently.  We made these stylized mini monkeys out of Sculpey clay.  The kids had been learning about the art of Canadian artist Emily Carr.  After talking about Carr's love of animals, especially her sidekick pet monkey Woo, we created our own mini monkeys.  The kids had such a blast, even creating back stories and personalities for their monkeys.  I took these pictures before the monkeys went into the oven to harden, which is why I have a not so lovely scratched baking sheet as a background.

 This monkey comes with a coffee cup.

Very stylish bow-ties and mohawk hairdos

 A tired monkey with its blanket

 The green monkey is chilling with a coconut drink and the monkey with the pink hair was called Professor Wiggles

Art News - New Coupland Sculpture Gives You Something To Chew Over

I just wanted to share this story I read about a new artwork by Canadian artist and author Douglas Coupland.  Coupland has used everyday objects in his art before, such as Lego, but this time he's created a 7 foot tall sculpture of his head that he wants the public to cover with their used chewing gum!  The interactive self portrait, titled Gumhead, will be outside the Vancouver Art Gallery until the end of August/early September.


So what do you think is it ewwwww or awesome?

Art Fun For Fridays - Make A Chihuly Macchia

This week pop over to the online hot shop and create your own digital Dale Chihuly macchia.  This online activity is a great way to understand and 'experience' what goes into glass blowing.





Click HERE to begin.

Leonardo Da Vinci Dragons & Flying Monster Sock Puppets

My younger students created these puppets while learning about Leonardo Da Vinci.  They were originally meant to be dragons, but ended up looking more bat-like.  I think that the addition of some sort of tail next time will give them a more of a dragon appearance.


I started by sharing this tale about Leonardo Da Vinci with the kids:

One day a caretaker working in the Medici gardens found an enormous and strange looking lizard and brought it to Leonardo.  "This reminds me of one of your painted dragons," he told him.  It reminded Leonardo of his paintings too, and he started thinking how he could improve on this lizard to make it look like a dragon.  First, Leonardo made some wings for the lizard, covering them with real scales.  He glued the wings to the lizard's back and when the lizard moved the wings wagged.  Then Leonardo gave the lizard a beard, and a pair of horns.  Happy with his new pet dragon, Leonardo would show it to his friends to both amaze and frighten them.


To create our dragons, I used some of the same techniques that I did with my sea monster puppets.  I had the kids create the individual parts which I then hot glued onto the dragon bodies.  We also decided to add jewels to the wings, since what dragon doesn't love treasure?

Today's Artistic Inspiration - Eyvind Earle

Eyvind Earle, Midnight Blue, 1983

Vote For The Best Dressed Art Teacher

***Disclaimer this post contains shameless self-promotion.

Dear readers,

Do you like voting?
Love seeing art teachers dressed in wacky outfits?
Then head over to Cassie Stephens' blog and vote for the best dressed art teacher - p.s. that would be me. 

To see the rest of my Andy Warhol outfit (yes there's more!) and vote for it as your favourite Click HERE


















Want more art inspired outfits?  Check out these awesome artsy Halloween costumes.