8th Grade Video

Check out this cool slideshow I made on Animoto! You can also view it on our Artsonia gallery site.


Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Steff Bomb.

Hi.  I'd like to tell you about this really cool local artist today.  Her name is Steff Bomb, and she makes little plush guys (mostly).  They're really fun, because they're things like carrots, corn, tree stumps, and mini hamburgers (called "grumblebuns").

I've seen her selling her art at a few local art shows, and if you get the chance to see her, say hello because she's really nice.  I found this video that shows how she makes a plush carrot.  It's pretty cool, so check it out if you have a minute:


This is how I make a carrot! from Craig Shimala on Vimeo.

Her stuff is for sale on her Etsy site, if you were interested, too.

Something cool.

I have to share something non-Sandburg related today, and it's my husband's webpage for his school.  He bought his own custom domain, so it's easy to get to his website:

www.mrleban.com 

...and it's awesome!

Mr. Leban teaches Applied Arts at Gwendolyn Brooks Middle School in Oak Park.  He's an art teacher, but he teaches in a wood shop.  Nope, he's not a "shop" teacher either.  Most of his projects are sculptural and functional, they make fun things like marble maze games and boxes.

He has a student teacher right now, so he's been putting up some really neat things on his webpage, like videos and photos done with his iPhone.

Check this out:


Pretty cool, huh?  Do you think I should go buy mrsleban.com?!

Save the Arts!

As "Evening with the Arts" grows closer (Friday May 21st! - Mark your calendars!), I think it is appropriate to share the following video I found on YouTube about the importance of arts education:

Martin Scorsese discusses the importance of Visual Literacy

In this interview on Edutopia.com, Martin Scorsese talks about the importance of visual literacy in today's students. Watch the video below:


Hooray for art class!

Where the Wild Things Are...

Sixth grade classes are completing a project insipred by the children's book, "Where The Wild Things Are" by Maurice Sendak. We're making black and white sharpie drawings of monsters using lots and lots of texture, crosshatching, and stippling. You'll be able to check them out soon on our Artsonia gallery.

This project is fun because it makes me look forward to the movie version that's coming out soon! Today, I found this article on Wired.com that talks about the monsters in the movie and how the moviemakers combined costumes, animatronics, and computer-generated effects to create the incredibly realistic monsters in the movie. You can check it out here:

http://www.wired.com/entertainment/hollywood/magazine/17-10/pl_screen

The official website for the movie is really awesome, because you can check out the trailer and look at photo galleries from the movie. Here's the official site: http://wherethewildthingsare.warnerbros.com/

09.09.09

On 09.09.09, I went and saw the movie "9" with my husband and my mom. We went to the premium cinema, which has cool recliner chairs and waiters and waitresses to take your order. (There's me and my mom in our seats!)

It's neat because the entire theater only seats around 60 people, so you need to have reservations. The bad news (for middle school students, at least) is that they only allow adults in (21 and over) and it costs more, too.

But since the movies are so expensive nowadays, I figured a few dollars more for a cushy seat was worth it. And this theater usually plays movies that are drama or action or suspense-type movies - not usually PG-13 stuff, let alone an animated movie! So I jumped at the chance to go this time.

The movie itself was pretty good, but kind of dark for a "kids" movie (so was Coraline, though, and I LOVE that movie!) - but it is also a film that Tim Burton helped produce, so I kind of expected that. He's the guy who made "Nightmare Before Christmas" and "Corpse Bride."

(There's Mr. Leban... he approves of this film - thumbs up!)

Teachertube

I'm trying to migrate my art videos to Teachertube because we can access it here at school. (Students can't access Youtube from school.) You can check for the latest here:

teachertube - msmillerleban

...but right now I'm frustrated because the site keeps running really slow and/or freezing up. More on this later.

stop motion

i made a new stop motion film today using my new robot pencil sharpener. i posted it up on you-tube. here it is:


also, a student was asking today about stop-motion software for macs. i started searching (hopefully for something that was FREE...) and i found this pretty good review site for different stop-motion software that's available. if you're looking for a program to use at home, you may want to try out one of the programs reviewed here:
http://www.stopmotionworks.com/stopmosoftwr.htm

i made a clay movie.