I tend to teach drawing lessons by starting with echo drawings.  You know, teacher demonstrates step by step on the board and students copy at their desk.  I find this to be the quickest and easiest method to teach a large group how to draw using their knowledge of basic shapes and lines.  Though, if I'm not careful the drawings tend to turn out very similar.  I've gotten better over the years at using a couple of key ideas to get more unique, personal, and better drawings out of students.  

I found that encouraging students to draw lightly in pencil makes them more apt to make changes later.  For one, I think it reinforces the idea that the original drawing is not permanent and easy to erase.  Without those leftover heavy pencil lines, kiddos are happier to make changes on their drawings and take a leap of faith to try out an idea.

There are an incredible amount of inspiring blogs out in cyber space.  I can spend HOURS "surfing" the web; gazing at beautiful images, being taken in by a wonderfully written tutorial, or being cought up in to researching how to make all these wonderful ideas transpire in my own home or classroom.  I regulary take inspiration from the blogs in the list to the right.  Below are a few that I've really spent a lot of time on this past year.  I encourage you to take a look on this freezing cold day!  

What about you?  What blogs do you relaly look forward to being updated?

les petites tetes de l'art: http://lespetitestetesdelart.b...
- Although in French, the images are so inspiring it drives me to copy and paste the text in to google translate. Centered mostly on early childhood learning it's obvious that creativity and growth through exploration take center stage.

Deep Space Sparkle: http://www.deepspacesparkle.co...
- Patty Palmer always is there to provide a beautifully illustrated tutorial on a wide range of media and topics. I regulary look to her website to freshen up my curriculum.

Mini eco: http://www.minieco.co.uk
-Although, not a traditional art education website, the crafts on Kate's blog are so relevant to many art standards and techniques that I find myself regulary being influenced by her tutorials and style. A must for paper arts.

Colossal: http://www.thisiscolossal.com
- I check daily on Colossal to get a quick look at what's relevant and exciting in the modern art world. It's a great way to keep up to date on current artists and I regulary bring back images and stories to my elementary classroom to further inspire students.

Arte a scuola: http://arteascuola.com
- Such a visually appealing website, filled with project ideas and tutorials. I have taken many ideas of this middle school art teacher back to my elementary classroom with great success. Her blog is easy to navigate and beautiful to gaze at.

I attended the Art of Education online conference today.  I have to say it's a great thing to get great PD while also painting, eating leftover thai food, planning for the upcoming week, and giving your 4 year old a bath.   A great, productive Saturday!

P.S.  I used the great app, montage to create the collage

My fifth graders have been looking at the work of Gustav Klimt, particularly his Tree of Life painting.  They worked in small groups to come up with a description of Klimt's style.  Using that description fifth graders were asked to re-interpret the tree of life.

I provided students with an oval template printed on colored cardstock and we discussed the difference between realistic, stylistic, and abstract.   Students were instructed to create a stylistic tree that represented their life, thus far.  They were to interpret Klimt's Tree of Life painting in their own way, while still retaining similarities in the original. More specifically, student's were to use similar subject matter and color in their interpretations.