Now from Italy-pics!

The first day in Italy was Wednesday. We went to the Colosseum, The Roman Forum, Spanish Steps and Trevi Fountain. We had a super good meal at a nice restaurant, and enjoyed a lot of people watching. I had also been fascinated by the Colosseum from art history class and movies, so it this was one of the highlights of the trip!

Metro system...it was SO PACKED at rush hour! Sweet graffiti too!

Trevi Fountain

Pretty tree at the Roman Forum

Big picture=Roman Forum

The Arch of Constantine

Palantine Hill

Ruins that are just laying accessible to touch!

The Colosseum

The Spanish Steps

Temp looking cool under a street light

I will be putting my most artistic shots on flickr this week...but these will do for now. 

More tomorrow on the blog

More from Spain

We blew out our power cord for our computer, so this may be the last post before we come home...down to 26% on the battery.

The Crystal Palace at the gardens...almost like a greenhouse on the inside

The Royal Gardens

Enjoying Spanish ice cream

More gardens, but in a train station. What a cool concept!

The Prado Museum, The Third of May by Goya. So cool to see in person, it's a lot bigger than expected.

Great day of museum and park. Bummer on the computer though. Tomorrow-ITALY!!

Greetings from Spain

Templeton looking at a map over Madrid, we took a cable car/sky bucket to get here.

Reina Sofia museum, lots of cool stuff

Like Guernica by Picasso, thing is HUGE!

Egyptian ruins given to Spain as a thank you for their help.

Headless man in Plaza Mayor, the biggest most popular plaza in Madrid

One of things we were dying to try, churros with hot chocolate. You dip these in the hot chocolate, super good!!

One more day in Madrid, then Wednesday we go to Rome. The weather is beautiful, and we're having a good time!

Revenge, a year later

So, back in April of last year, my co-worker Knox did this to my car. Blog entry if you click here.

It took me a year to get revenge, only because he was constantly waiting for it. April Fools Day was that special day.

So many kids wanted to help, so I got my National Art Honor Society and my 7th block to help me. We wrapped every item on his desk and his whole desk with 3 rolls of Saran Wrap!! His class was in the other room, I told HIS class to not let him come into my room (where HIS desk is). So I would say about 50 kids were in on it, and NO ONE leaked!

Wrapped the desk, when he finally got to his computer under the wrapping, I had made a screen grab of a our grading website, and made it a desktop wallpaper, so when he kept clicking on it, nothing worked.
Little that he knew today, but I also put old hole punched circles at the top of his projector screen, so when he pulls down the screen, he will be showered with confetti!!
Here are some pictures from the great event:

The kids getting their picture taken after all of their hard work!

It took him 25 minutes to unwrap...he was impressed I got him!

DIY Home Decor with the Elliott's

Fun with Lightroom

Vases from the Clack wedding put to use. These flowers are in our backyard and Temp had the great idea of bringing some indoors!

More from the yard

We had been looking for a frame for this mirror the former owners left us. After months of searching, we decided to build our own using crown molding and metal spray paint. Super cheap and we got to make what we wanted. Temp did a great job!

Close-up!

Making baby clothes

Our friends Brendan and Rachel had their baby shower this weekend, and we thought it would be fun to custom design some onesies and bibs for them using some of their favorite things. Bob Dylan, a music favorite, skateboarding-Brendan favorite, and the theme of the baby's room is owls.

recycled art

my student made this for me. he said he knew i was into the environment so i would appreciate it. it's a flower made from a plastic soda bottle

making some art

ok, so now I hate wordpress. I tried making that new blog for just artwork, and it's stalled out multiple times with simple commands. I may have to drop that blog and stick to this one.

Mixed media collage.

Quick 15 min. sketch of old man...was just craving to draw with pastels.

Why the schools need more attention

You may have to click on it to see it. This assignment was for the kids to critically analyze a famous photograph by Sebastiao Salgado. She seriously replaces the word "a" with "uh". I gave her a zero and said rewrite the paper with proper English and essay format.

Fun finds at IKEA

Templeton and I went to IKEA to get some small decorating things, nothing big this time. One thing I wanted to get is a number of matching placemats. We have had some dinner parties where I needed a large number.

Recent potlucks with friends have inspired me to get some cool serving trays. I love this one, it reminds me of Charley Harper.

Needless to say I had a lot of fun!!

Screen printing with the students

The kids were required to come up with a word that means something to them. I had them come up with a word because I limited space on limited screens. They had to have a story behind their word. Then they had to either draw or type out their word, considering font, upper or lower case, or any additional decoration. The kids had to turn 5 prints on 5 different surfaces, then produce a collage with their word printed on it. Here are some of the examples:

Perspective, yellow ink on red felt

Loving, pink ink on light blue tissue paper

Life, red ink on mirror

I Am Evolution, orange, yellow and green on transparent paper

Procrastinator, lavender on beanie hat

Perspective, mixed media collage. 

new art blog

I am working on a new art blog, it's just in the beginning stages right now. I just really want to push myself to make art since I know that is what makes me happy. I dedicate each day in the classroom to teaching others, but I need to work on my own stuff as well.
Here is the link: http://kellette79.wordpress.com/
I will be updating both blogs.

Valentine gift

It may sound weird, but one of my all-time favorite movies is Toy Story. Templeton found this Toy Story lego set and gave to me as one of my Valentine gifts. We built it together, I really enjoyed.

Toy Story 3 comes out on our 4 year wedding anniversary--stoked!!

Valentine

The best Valentine date ever...off to Sirena's for dinner

Cabin Fever Rearrange

We like this arrangement a lot better!