Someone posted on facebook about how STEAM-connected "Pour Painting" is... My response was: "It's about as STEAM-related as throwing paint" (Meaning it's not). Unless you teach about fluid dynamics or viscosity within the lesson, it's not STEAM. To use the word because it's trendy, diminishes everyone.

​​When we do perspective, I take the time to talk about the geometry of what we are doing and the historical connections to the Renaissance. When we do plaster projects, I talk about endothermic and exothermic reactions. There are STEAM opportunities everywhere but it is up to you to choose to take the time to show the connections or to choose not to. I know every art lesson is STEAM connected but I also know that even without the STEAM connections being discussed, students can have great art experiences in their art class.
 
For me, as an art teacher in a public school, I have evidence that my students benefit from me overtly taking about how art is connected to all their subjects in school. My students outscore their peers of exams like the SAT by an average of 155 points the last time my district checked. To me it's not a trendy hot topic, but the way I have always taught art. It may be an educational fad at the moment, but it has been and will always be the way I teach art. There is a quantifiable benefit to an inter-curricular approach.

STEAM does not dilute what we do, nor is it a crutch or fad to justify an art department. Just look at the work of Leonardo da Vinci, his was as STEAMy as it gets. I think it's more honest to say that only in the last 100 years art has moved toward an "art for art's sake" attitude, when for hundreds of years before now, artists moved from painting, to architecture, to engineering, to biology as naturally and you and I breath. 

More about STEAM HERE, HERE, and HERE.
​As well as STEAM related art education resources HERE.

Is film photography dead as asserted by The Art of Ed blog? Do we waste our time with media that is no longer in fashion? Is it irrelevant? Do we not paint, draw, or sketch because printers are broadly available? Why sculpt or work with clay when 3D printers are now in vogue?
 
As art teachers, we know these questions are laughable. Of course the process is where learning occures! It is through the solving of visual problems that our students learn more deeply and in an enduring way.

Problem solving is at the heart of what art is. We have something to express, but how do we express that through a given media? It is the struggle of creating, working through a process, no matter how antiquated, that we connect, express, and learn.

Just because you can do it digitally does not mean it's a waste of time to work analog; preparing your work area, mixing media, using tools, working through the problem, connecting concepts from other explorations, discovering new paths to an answer. What can we discover along the way?

If the product was less than attractive what did we find out in the process? Must art be pretty to be valid? We know that most of our students will not move into art related careers. Why would someone who will grow up to be a doctor, cop, librarian, shop owner, maintenance person, senator, or even stay-at-home-mom need an art experience? What's the point?
 
Because the most successful and contented people in their field are able to solve problems in creative ways. Art ultimately teaches us to take a concept in our minds, plan potential solutions, put them into action, and evaluate the results: plan, create, critique, evaluate.

​(Or as the National Standards put it, Create, Present, Respond, Connect.)

​Are all art programs created equal? I wish that were the case. I have several blog posts on this topic as well HERE, HERE, and HERE, but in a nutshell, programs where the bulk of lessons involve copying an example, often referred to as "cookie-cutter" lessons, diminish the experience of problem solving. This is because the visual problems have been solved in advance for students. Students may learn how to use tools (ruler, scissors, glue, etc.) but they will not know how to find a solution to concepts on their own. They will be less engaged in the process as well because they have not had an opportunity to incorporate themselves into their work.
 
And what proof do I offer for my assertions? Much is listed HERE, but we know that students who have art score higher on their SAT exams than their non-art peers by an average of 100 points. My own students were recorded by my guidance department as scoring 155 points higher on their exams. I can assure you that this is because the process is far more important than the product. I do not have "cream-of-the-crop" students, but a mix of talented, to special needs, with most falling squarely in the middle. I'd say about 10% of my introductory students have a true affinity and potential talent for art, but I teach them all, and everyone benefits from the experience.
 
If you struggle to make art explorations personal, see my post HERE.

As I go through my archive of teaching samples, I found this drawing from back in the mid 1990s. I shared it with my Facebook Group and it seemed to garner a lot of attention so I decided to share it here as well.
 
I have found that some students are overwhelmed by doing a whole self-portrait, but doing a partial image seems less daunting. I had some CDs laying around and I thought they had an interesting prismatic mirrored surface. I had students trace the CD onto paper then draw their hand as if it was holding it. They needed to work from observation so they held it with their non-dominant hand. Tracing the CD helped eliminate the problem of scale. So often students want to work tiny.
 
For this exploration we focused on pen and ink with a bit of crosshatching for shadows. It can really be done in any media and any size. I am sure it would have been just as fun to make larger circles as well. It was not until the hand and CD were complete that I told them they needed to include a portion of their face. They could choose to hold the CD at arm's length to see more, or to hold it much closer and just include an eye and partial nose. They could squint, make a funny face, grin, or fake an angry look. When  those were complete we added the prismatic rainbows which, I think, gave it a nice pop of color. (The top image had subtle color and the bottom image just has the prismatic flairs.)
 
If a CD was unavailable I could imagine using a spoon, or other reflective surface would be fine. The Escher Sphere is a bit played-out for my taste, but it works great, and to many students, it's a new experience for them. This could even be part of a homework assignment, to bring in a reflective object that fits in your hand, even better if the object itself had some personal significance.

Unfortunately, I do not have any student images of this golden-oldie, but I may just revisit it soon. I do however have these two samples, and many other projects to share with you in upcoming blog posts!

If you wish to join my Facebook Group, please be sure to answer the 3 entry questions to get in. It helps weed out trolls and spammers. It is just for art educators though. For more of my resources for art teachers, visit Firehouse Publications.

​This week I got an email from a follower of this blog that someone on "Teachers Pay Teachers" was selling a lesson that used my blog imagery without credit. When I contacted "Abby" (Not really her name), she claimed she just found it on the internet, so she thought it was okay to use. Yet she labeled it as "cartoon drawing project I did with my 7th grade students." She didn't understand why I would be upset. My blog post is below and clicking the image will take you to the actual post.

Even my lesson was inspired by another artist who I do credit and link back to his work, Michael Paulus. I did not however use his imagery. I could have claimed I came up with the idea all by myself, but I didn't. Michael's work was the seed for this art lesson. Attribution is just the right thing to do! "Do unto others..."

​As an art teacher, we should be the most knowledgeable people about the fair use of images. It's important to teach our own students about it. We speak about plagiarism when students write reports, but do we also cover the idea of "fair use?" Here's a good short video on the topic:

A more detailed FREE online course is available HERE. "This is a course on copyright law offered for free through Harvard Law Berkman Center. All the lectures are avaliable free on YouTube. It was set up by Sheppard Fairey after the Hope (Obama photo) copyright lawsuit." (Thanks Remy E. for this info!)

​I put a lot of content on this blog to help other art teachers. I have nearly 30 years of classroom experience. I have a lot to offer new teachers, and for seasoned teachers who may want to try something new or in a different way. I am most inspired by my State and National Art Ed Conventions. When I see what others do, it inspires me to try new things, even after 30 years!
 
I am honored if part of what I do makes it into your classroom and helps students grow. I hope that credit is given, (Like when using images and not cutting off any attributes like my authorship or webpage address if it is within the image)  but in a classroom setting I am not going to lose one minute sleep if something is not properly attributed in that setting. HERE is my copyright policy for this blog. 
 
You probably know too that I have written more than 50 books, many of which are meant for use in the art classroom. You can see most of them at Firehouse Publications. If you like the content I post here, these books provide a ton more, AND purchases help support my hard work. When you buy direct, you get 30% off the retail price, and most give you copy-rights to make tons of copies for your own students!
 
However, if someone uses my material for their own profit or to promote their own blog without permission and attribution, that, I do have a problem with. Most people though "do the right thing." As a newbie teacher, I probably made similar mistakes, taking shortcuts, etc. We learn as we grow. I also think though, we should take at least one day of our teaching year to speak about this issue with our students. If you know of another good yet short video on this topic, please comment below.

As for "Abby," her store is closed. I heard from others, they too found their imagery in "her products." I appreciate all who follow this blog and the person who alerted me to the intellectual theft. 

PS: I just learned that published author and art teacher, Ian Sands did a similar lesson with his students back in 2010! He's pretty awesome and uses the TAB method of art education in his high school classes.

When an art teacher has to be out, we put our rooms in the hands of a sub that probably won't have any art background. I did some informal polls on Facebook with other art teachers. As you can imagine, the shorter the time out of school the more likely it is that a non-art person will be placed to cover your classes. For extended leave, things get better, but even for those who will be out for 2 - 3 months, report having an art qualified sub only about 50% of the time. When someone is out four months or more, there is a greater likelihood (about 70%) that the sub will have an art background.

These tutorials are super basic and are intended for those with no art background. When you follow the link, you are welcome to reference it for your sub. Though I prefer to do video notes if I will be out 1 or 2 days, others prefer to have their students continue working on their art. Every situation is different.

These short tutorials are meant to help these subs so they have some basic knowledge. These videos are meant to be paired with the book, "Sub Plans For Art Teachers" and "Extended Sub Plans For Art Teachers." (Extended plans book will be available in June 2018). These books and MORE resources for art teachers can be found at FirehousePublications and many free resources can be found on this blog.
 
This list has been added to 2 pages for quick reference. It is at the top of the list on my "Sub Plans" page (Link to the left) as well as at the bottom of my video resources page, again to the left. I will continue to update those links as I find or create more short tutorials. If YOU have a great go-to video or resource, comment below, and I can add it to our list!

Art Sub Tutorials:
Click the red title to be taken to the YouTube video.

Color Pencils Tutorial (Start at the 4 minute mark)
​Pencils (non-colored) Tutorial
Scissors Tutorial 
Glue Tutorial 
Crayons Tutorial 
Oil Pastels Tutorial 
Markers Tutorial 
Water Colors Tutorial
Acrylic Painting ​Tutorial 

​Here's the glue tutorial below as an example: