Spring and Picasso

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In my classroom, I arrange as much greenery and out-doorsey pictures as possible. 

There are no windows in my classroom. We have computers and desks, carpet and nicely painted walls, but no windows. So I must hang the view I want to see as I teach. My city-kid students are not accustomed to meadows and mountains, cacti, and deer. Pit bulls-- they can tell stories about those.

One of my students remembers a farm in Honduras fondly. Some have traveled widely. Others have never seen much outside of Houston. They all respond to beauty. 

I am not an art teacher.  I teach reading and do reading interventions. I also do inclusion across the curriculum for middle and high school.  

This week, my class analyzed "Bulletproof Picasso" by Train.  To understand the lyrics, we looked up Picasso paintings. These 6th graders were appalled! Their reactions to Picasso were hilarious. 

"Miss, this guy is weird!" 

Beach inspiration

I started painting this while on Spring Break.  We stayed in the Florida Keys, on Islamorada, to be precise.   It's no great secret that beautiful scenery makes plein aire painting possible!  Several issues are not immediately well-known, however. How many mosquitoes will there be?  How about wind?  Is it better to take photos and work in the comfort later? 

I usually work from photos. However, it's great fun to be someplace inspirational and capture, not just the look and the colors, but the exuberant mood, the romantic breeze, the desolate roar of the surf, the edge of the storm.

I hope you can see how the sun sizzled up. It went from cool and mysterious to bright and hot within about 15 minutes. I will never forget that sunrise!

In the same locale, I did this porch scene from a photo.  It was much more of a challenge. Architecture is not my forte. I probably need to draw the lines recommended by experts, making use of vanishing points. But, dang, that's a lot of work!