Zentangles

Very cool - meditation & drawing all in one - anyone can do it: Zentangle.

Google Wave for Art Teachers

I am looking for other art teachers who want to use Google Wave to collaborate on ideas, teaching methods, and lesson plans. If you are interested, let me know!

Tim Burton's Drawings

For my Art II students:
Tim Burton's Drawings on Display with a cool animated trailer - check it out!

Moving Things Around

I have been wanting to start blogging again for a while. Blogger is now much faster than it used to be (or at least faster than I remember it), and I am finding all kinds of cool stuff both online and in the real world that I would like to share. Plus, I miss typing really long sentences like that last one.

So, I have pulled a few relevant posts from older blogs, and started this one. I also have a knitting blog that I update occasionally - link in my profile.

I have also been using Twitter - I am @Astabeth there.

Time Lapse Painting

Here is a quick video of the rain barrel I painted for the Huntsville Art League's fundraiser:

This Summer

This summer went by entirely too fast! We spent a week at the beach and Miss Priss loved it - she is very much a beach bum. She had a pirate party for her birthday. It was a lot of fun. If anyone is taking kids to Panama City Beach, the Pirate Cruise was the best money we spent all week. We can't find enough good things to say about it.

During July I participated in Ravelry's WIP Wrestlemania. For those who don't knit, a WIP is a work in progress. I have way too many, and I got about 12 of them completed during the month. I played on Team Tardis.

I also painted a butterfly for Decatur's public art project, Arts Aflutter:

I am also painting a rain barrel for a similar project in Huntsville.

That's all I have for now - I have been putting most blogg-ish stuff on Facebook, so my blog has been neglected!

Plexiglass Drypoint

I am planning on spending 6 weeks with my Art II class on printmaking next year. I wanted to create an intaglio lesson plan - we have a small, seldom used press. I had heard of using plexiglass for engraving, but didn't know if it would work well with water-based ink. I did a little playing around to try it, and it will be fine for high schoolers.

I've never done anything but collagraphs and relief printing, so this was new to me. I did a little doodle & some scribbles to see how it would work.


I added waterbased printing ink:


and scraped it into the cracks with a piece of plastic (an old driver's license):


Then I wiped off all the excess ink with old phone book pages:


My brand new press didn't work right, but I managed to get a semi-decent print - the only bad part is it's very light. Once I get my press fixed (or replaced) I will experiment a little more and see if I can get it darker. Maybe if I don't soak the paper. See how light it is?


It only bled in a couple of places, though. I should be able to tweak it to use in class.