Milwaukee Art Museum

Disclaimer: I'm totally ripping off Mr. Leban's post about our family field trip to the Milwaukee art museum.  Want proof?  Visit his page at www.mrleban.com or the original post here.

Here's a collection of 12 photos Mr. Leban put together from the trip that he and I made to the Milwuakee Art Museum several weeks back. The architecture of the building is amazing. We even had the opportunity to see the building "open" while we were there. If you're ever up north, I suggest you stop in.


1. The lobby of the museum.

2. A pencil bag I bought at the gift shop.

3. Me on the bridge. The "sails" of the
building are open in the background.

4. A view of the courtyard from the bridge.









5. Chinese Contemporary Warriors
by artist Yue Minjun.
6. I'm scolding a Cy Twombly.

7. Andy Warhol

8. Roy Lichtenstein









9. "St. Dionysus" by Kehinde Wiley

10. Shadow box by Martha Glowacki

11. A cool sculpture but I forget the artist.

12. "Refrigerator Pies" by Wayne Thiebaud









We had a lot of fun on this trip.  We even took our dog with us!  He wasn't allowed into the museum, of course.  He had to hang out at the hotel.  I don't think he minded, though - he had an entire full sized bed to himself!

Have you been to any art museums lately?

Fun with Manga

My brother's girlfriend drew a portrait of me Manga-style.  I think it makes me look much younger and prettier than in real life!  I wonder if I could convince the yearbook staff to make it my yearbook picture this year... ?!!! Ha ha!

Elementary Art Visit

Yesterday morning, I visited Mr. Wesseler's art room at Hawthorne Elementary in Elmhurst.  He uses a lot of technology in his classroom (like an iPad, which I'm getting soon!), so I wanted to see how he does it.

 

Here's his room.  Actually, it's only the main part!  There's a special room just for clay off of the main room.  Then, off to the left in this photo (above) is a doorway to an outdoor courtyard.  Yes, you heard me correctly.  An OUTDOOR COURTYARD.  For students to make art.  No, I couldn't believe it either, and I was way jealous.

So, besides a swanky courtyard and a clay room, he also has a whole separate store room that's definitely bigger than my storage closet (I feel so inferior now!), and another room for the kiln that had even more storage.  Ugh, storage envy!

 

I love these painted brick walls and windows.

I was able to watch a fifth grade and a fourth grade art class before having to travel back to Sandburg for my own classes.  Fifth grade was painting monochromatic compositions, and fourth grade was drawing still life arrangements in oil pastel.

Mr. Wesseler uses his iPad on the digital presenter to draw on it, but he also connects it to an external monitor that students gather around when reading digital books.  He uses his MacBook Pro for projecting art examples via iPhoto.

One of the most fun tips I saw in action was a repeated alarm set on his iPod to alert classes when there was 5 minutes left of class and it was time to clean up!  It was a cute little twinkle sound that students had been coached to listen for to begin cleanup before the next (back-to-back) elementary art class began.  Smart!

Paper Sculpture

Each quarter, eighth grade sculpture students complete a unit on paper sculpture.  This quarter, we were short on time, so our traditional "star lantern" project has been replaced by an online paper sculpture project.  It's really fun - the site we're using is called Papercritters - and on this site, students get to design their own cube-like character to be printed out and folded into the final form.

Yesterday, we took a look at some other paper creations by Castleforte.  There's a book he's published, called "Papertoy Monsters" with the characters I've featured below.  I was lucky enough to meet the artist at C2E2 this weekend, and he gave me some samples (and a cool poster) of the neat paper monsters they feature.  Look how awesome these are!

This definitely gives me lots of ideas for paper creations of my own!  Can't wait to see what the 8th graders come up with.

New FREE days at the AIC

The Art Institute of Chicago is FREE on weekdays between now and February 4th!

It is also free on Thursday evenings (from 5 to 8 pm) between February 10 through May 26th.

However, the Art Institute will be changing its hours later this year.  After February 25th, the museum will close at 5 pm on Fridays instead of 8 pm.  Also, they will no longer have free Thursday evenings (after May 26th), but the good news is that the first and second Wednesday of each month will be free ALL DAY starting June 1st. 

For full details, see this Chicago Tribune article.

This is not my artwork...

 

...I didn't make this, but Mr. Leban did.  He has a project where students take logos and change them into their own names.  He showed me some of the really cool examples, but I hadn't seen the one he made until now.  Don't you think it came out cool?  Did you figure out that it's a spoof of the LEGO logo?  I think that's perfect for him, since we both love legos, both the toys and the video games!  Have you played Lego Batman, Indiana Jones, Star Wars, or Rockband?  I love them all!

I hope he won't mind sharing so I can use this image here at Sandburg too...!

Shops of Emerson

Hi!  Next week I'm going to be at Emerson Elementary School for the Shops of Emerson PTA event.  I'll have a table where I'll be selling some jewelry and hair accessories that I've made.  Come and visit me!

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.