Hey Apex High Art students!!!

I am the new art teacher here at Apex and am very excited to get to know all of you. Art and art students are very important to me and can't wait to see what you create this year. I am posting a picture of me (I am on the left), my son Rivers, my mom and Jeff visiting the Allegheny mountains in Pennsylvania this summer.

Please stop in and see me in trailer 11 when school starts.

Pins!

The only reason for this post is I wanted to put some photos of your art on Pinterest! 

Follow along at http://pinterest.com/iansands

A Little Recognition

Ms. Naif, an art teacher from California, came across our blog. She was impressed by the great art that you create and decided to share the blog with the rest of California. 

She posted several links on her state's Art Education Facebook page which I think was pretty neat of her. 

Thanks Ms. Naif!

Top 10 Artist I Told You About, But Maybe You Forgot

It's an art teacher thing, make sure we toss in a little art history with each lesson. We can't help it. 

Most teachers go the classic route with a little Da Vinci and some Picasso. However, if you've taken my Art History class, you know I think the Mona Lisa is overrated and well, let's face it.. Picasso was a jerk. 

I tend to go a little off the beaten path when sharing artists.... so who can blame you if you remember an artists but just can't recall his or her name? No worries, I'm here to help!

Here is my 2012 Top 10 List of Artist Every Art One Student Should Know...

#10. Andy Uprock: 

We haven't done a lot of cup rocking in the last few years. Primarily because it's so hard to get the PE teachers to let us use their fencing. Still, I tend to slip in an Andy Uprock video when I get the chance .. mostly cause I like the music that goes with the video.

#9. Buff Diss

Buff Diss is cool cause of his use of line. Plus, masking tape is a hard medium to work with since you can't really make curves. I know we looked at this guy's work before we created our masking tape murals.

# 8. Christian Faur

So a guy opens a box of crayons and figures out he can make art using them. Nothing special there until you see how he uses them crayons. Great artists to reference if you're doing something stupid like trying to make expressive self portraits out of Skittles... but who would do that??

#7. Jennifer Maestre

If we did any art that used pencil, I'm sure I showed you guys this artists. I like how her pencil sculptures look organic, like sea sea urchins. Organic is also a good journal word cause that guy on the clay video says it like 100 times!  

#6. Noma Bar

It's a dog, eating a cat, eating a mouse.. Oh! I see it! Yes, and what you see is great use of positive/negative space. Understanding positive and negative space comes in real handy when making stencils. Remember the threshold filter in Photoshop?

#5. Theo Jansen

Besides the fact that he is crazy and thinks these things will "live" on the beach, I like the way this guy says his name.. with that cool accent. 

#4. Ennio Marchetto

IDK? Did I show this guy when we did the textile (shirt) project? Any excuse to show this guy cause he is so freaky and like a train crash.. you know you want to but you can't turn away.

# 3. Patricia Piccinini

You know the artist you wanted to forget about but then I bring her up any way?  Piccinini and I both like hybrids. My Zonkey is cute and her ... whatever that is... is cute, right?

#2. Terry Border

Might have shown him when we were taking about forced perspective and using the cameras??? Not sure how but I worked Terry's art into class because his stuff is just so darn funny. LOL!

#1 Sjors Vervoort

I don't even now how to say that and not sure if it's a girl or a boy but it doesn't matter. What matters is how this genius artist incorporated both painting and animation into one of the coolest stop motion videos ever!

And, cause I'm the bestest art teacher ever.. here is a link to that very video!

Who should be on next years list? 

Comments welcomed!

And the Winner of the Prang Giveaway...

So I entered a lesson plan for the Teaching Palette June Lesson Plan Collaboration and Prang Giveaway and guess what..... it won!

This month they gave away four Prang Art Marker Master Packs, which include 200 washable Prang Art Markers! 

So see that box above, that will be in Trailer 11, how exciting, yes I know!

Now, guess which project I entered...

The Skittles Expressive Portrait Project! 

Yes, all those skittle are coming home to roost in the form of a large box of markers.

Check out the winning Lesson Plan here or see all the other lesson plan entrees here.