Trying out my tablet and stylus

Here are a couple of examples of what I have been doing with my new computer and accessories. :)

Multimodal and 21st Century Literacies

I am currently working on my second class and it is about curriculum design for the art classroom. Being that I do not just teach art but a variety of classes I am interested in how to integrate art across the curriculum and then by also integrating technology. I recently read an article titled "Learning Through New Eyes: Rethinking Media, Popular Culture and Art Education" by David Darts of New York University. He advocates that through using media and popular culture (in art education) teachers can raise issues that students are already connected to and teach them to think more critically about the media that is ingrained within society. This got me thinking about the subject of 21st century literacies and the question of engagement that keeps coming up in my school and in my district. I Googled the term "21st century literacies" and found this video of Howard Rheingold. He has some interesting things to say that also support Dart's views, that don't simply support integration of media skills in art education, but in all education.

One class down!

I am officially finished my first class for my Masters of Visual Art Education degree! It was a very intensive, 9 day studio class. I haven't produced so much art in such a short period ever in my life. It was wonderful!
Here are some pictures from the work I did in the two week class. The guitar is from an exercise we did on the first day- 50 drawings in 50 minutes. I think I drew the guitar 32 times! My friend Maggie ended up making a very short animation with pictures of my drawings she took with her cell phone. The next two are from my sketchbook, it isn't quite finished but these are a couple of examples of what I did in it. The last two photos are the paintings I did. They consist of 4 small landscapes with photo transfers and collage (measuring either 1 X 2 or 2 X 3) that I painted independently and then connected together and a large self portrait (3X4). It was strange but my sketchbook and the paintings ended up being about family history and identity. I wasn't expecting them to go in that direction but I think the overall results were successful.
Watch the animation

Shoe designs

I've been using some of my art to design shoes on zazzle. So far I am pretty pleased with the results.

Chirtlb Shoes