I'm going to get better at this blog thing...

I have been so bad at keeping up on this blog. I really want to do it, I really want to post, and share and I actually enjoy the writing. I just can't seem to remember to squeeze it in between grading projects, hanging projects, taking projects down, grading sketch warm ups, grading yearbook logs and journals, updating yearbook ads scanned, oh yeah - finishing that college class I HAVE to take because the state says so. Ugh, I know - we are all doing these things.
So, here we are, May 2.... End the the year, well close to it. We are holding our 7th annual art auction/dinner. I decided to try the dinner part again. We are having pulled pork sandwiches, yum! This year we are sharing the limelight with our new Science teacher so it is--------Art Auction / Science Fair Night.
I am excited, hopefully a lot of people come and check out our student art work and science projects. It's been difficult working on art auction pieces this year, feels like we always have a project to get through. I think it has something to do with larger class sizes I have this year. 31, 26, 28 - and then there's that class of 12, that's the senior class that is comprised of about 5 kids that either have not had art before or don't want to do assignments that I assign, they want to just draw, with pencil, what they want to draw, and not work on any kind of practicing of skills. So, that's been a tough group to inspire.

Ok, enough crying.
Here are some of the awesome art projects that will be featured at this year's art auction.

Art Auction Fall 2012

I'm getting a little nervous for our Art Auction. I always do.....feel nervous. I hope parents come and see the artwork. I hope they LOVE the artwork. I hope my students get excited about the whole thing.

This year, we are holding the "Annual" Silent Art Auction during our Fall Parent Teacher Conferences. Really, this is my way of trying to get as many parents as possible to see our students' art. In the past we have held dinner during the Silent Auction. This year, not doing the whole dinner thing. We are going to have appetizer stations throughout the hallway, outside the teacher's classrooms. Or - we might have all of the appetizers in our Middle School Music Room. We don't have a music program, but we have some amazing volunteers that come to the school and teach our students how to play the violin, cello, and percussion. Three different volunteers in the community. Isn't that AWESOME!!!!! Why have our appetizers in this music room, well we want to show the parents that this program is happening. My art class was asked to paint a little something on the walls, to make it feel a little more like a music room. So - they created this big beautiful 3 section piece of art. I will post picts later today. I had help with the entire production. I have a volunteer, from the community, a retired art professional that donates her time and money to my art students. I think this is such an amazing thing to do. She doesn't have to come here and spend her time or money on these kids. But she does. And she has some amazing talent. So, she gave us the confidence to pull this whole HUGE art piece off. Ok - --- - I HAVE to get the picture up today.

Whole point of this post - We are having the art auction November 29. This little canvas was painted by one of my students last year, and we forgot to put it in the auction last spring. So it will debut in this auction.

More Art Auction

I have two more pieces that are ready for the art auction. I am so excited about these paintings. Yay!! We are really going to have a nice group of items ready for our Fall Art Auction. We spend so much time in the spring getting ready for the art auction, I didn't know if we could pull it off in the fall.

Art Auction

Some of my talented students are working hard on individual pieces for our Fall Art Auction (November 29th, during Parent Teacher conferences).
Here are some more examples of completed pieces.



Weaving piece made from a hula hoop. Could be used as a centerpiece on a table.




Weaving




Made from paint chip samples.




Watercolor painting created from beautiful landscape near our school.




Wreath - made from coffee filters. (Thank you Pinterest.)



Art Auction

So- every year for the past, maybe 6 years, I have held an art auction to help pay for art supplies. Usually we have our art auction in the spring. This year we are having a fall art auction, during parent teacher conferences.

Here is a little preview of one of the pieces painted by one of my students.

Art Auction 2011

Every year we hold a Silent Art Auction/Dinner. When we started this it was is May, I believe. We had a good turn out. But the weather was so nice, and we had a long winter that year, and many students/parents were outside enjoying the sunshine. The following year we moved it to the beginning of April. Wow, that year we had record breaking temperatures of 80 degrees. Again, everyone was outside. The next year we had it on March 31. Can you believe we had 80 degrees that year? So.....this year we had our Art Auction on March 3rd, also the day of our Parent/Teacher Conferences. This was a great day!! We had more participation for conferences than we have had in many years. We had 60 pieces for the Art Auction, which, for as small as a school as we are, I was worried this was too many pieces. Oh, no......it was great! Everything sold and we made a bunch of money for art supplies. Yay!! We now have new chalk and oil pastels, watercolor paint, more glue sticks, and paper!!! We were running out of PAPER! So, on behalf of the Wolverine Art Department, THANK YOU - to all that participated, lended a helping hand, and supported us by purchasing these fabulous students' art work! This is all of the work, I thought a post with 60 images would be kind of a lot

High School Art Auction

Okay, we all know that money is tight for education. So, how do we get money for supplies? We find other ways to get money. We can write grants, but most grants will stipulate that the money cannot be used on classroom supplies. So, we fund raise. But the communities are up to their eyes with fundraisers. This is our third year holding a Silent Art Auction/Dinner. The high school students create artwork to be auctioned off and raise money for art supplies. This year we had 57 pieces of artwork. That is a lot of art work for our small school. Some pieces just amazed me. Here are some of the pieces of artwork that were auctioned off.

Wolverine High School Students, I want to hear your voice. How do you feel the art auction turned out? How can we make it better? Any critiques for the artwork posted here? Any critiques or stipulations for next year's auction?