A Talk about Clay with Professor Keller

ABOUT PROFESSOR KELLER

"Elizabeth F. Keller is noted for her narrative ceramic sculptures and whimsical teapots. Her work has won awards both regionally and nationally, and has been featured in solo exhibitions, numerous regional and national juried exhibitions, in severalCeramics Monthly publications, and in two recent book publications, 500 Animals in Clay and Teapots: Makers and Collectors. Her life interests are in Art Studio, art education and bonsai/penjing cultivation. She joined the art faculty at Coastal Carolina University in 1994." -Department of Visual Arts, CCU 

Keeping Students Honest in Image Use

As we use more and more technology in the artroom, the issue of copyrights and originality often comes into play. Hannah Coale, a digital arts teacher, has a tip for keeping students honest when they use image sources from the internet.

"When I teach any project in my Photoshop classes, which require students to turn in work they have created independently by borrowing parts of online images… (we can do this because we are an educational institution), I also require that they include, usually on a separate page, something which I call an “Imageography.”

Find the rest of her entry here, on Adobe Education Exchange.

CCU Bowl-a-Thon Gets a Little Messy

We had a great day making bowls for the nationwide "Bowl-a-Thon" initiative. People got their hands dirty for the first phase of "Empty Bowls," a project where artists and art organizations work on a community level to fight hunger. The bowls will be fired and glazed before being sold this Spring, filled with some yummy soup. All the proceeds will go to benefit local food banks. 


If you weren't able to make it in create your own bowl, don't worry. You can still help the cause by coming out in May to pick out your favorite and help the cause.

Sneak Peak at Portfolios, opens Dec. 1

No snow outside yet? Time for a winter landscape lesson:

Winter Watercolor Landscape:

Grade Level 1-8: Students will learn about the wet-on-wet watercolor wash technique and how to create texture using a sponge and acrylic paint. They will also learn about landscape composition, atmospheric perspective, watercolor painting skills, and will paint their own simple compositions using different colors, shapes, and overlapping skills. Check out the watercolor presentation for great "how-to" tips.

Great day for the Kingston Elementary Book Parade!

Over 30 homerooms full of students selected books for the annual Kingston Elementary Book Parade. Students dressed up in costumes inspired by the books they selected for their class. We saw some really creative costumes like Dr. Seuss's Thing 1 and Thing 2, prairie dogs covered in neon tennis ball fuzz, and a classroom of pirates!

Thanks to all the teachers, students, and parents who came out to watch the parade. Some of the books featured in the parade were: The Cat in the Hat, The Polar Express, The Night Before Halloween, Charlotte's Web, The Great Fuzz Frenzy, A Pirate's Guide to First Grade, and many more!

Let's socialize!

Head to our Facebook page and like us! While you're there, you can check out some pictures from the Burroughs and Chapin Art Museum's Day of the Dead celebration in Myrtle Beach.

You can also let us know about upcoming events in your area or post some pics of your own artistic endeavors!

South Carolina Art Education Association Conference 2011

By Sara King - The 2011 SCAEA Conference wrapped up Oct. 30 in lovely downtown Greenville. The theme this year was STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math) - With STEAM being the new nationwide initiative that is invading public education in America. The conference was planned around it in order to help educate art teachers on this important movement. Guests include independent game designers Twisted Pixel, creators of such video game hits such as The Maw, S'plosion Man, and Comic Jumper."


As a first-year member of the SCAEA, I was really impressed with the conference. There was a great variety of discussions and workshops taking place. Topics included everything from film and animation for at-risk youth to a stained-glass box workshop. I had the honor of being a first-time presenter with my "Hats Off To You" workshop, which focused on creating hats as forms of visual communicators and identity. It was a great experience and the wide array of hats were delightful. Thank you to everyone who attended! 

"Hats Off To You" workshop

Batik workshop

10 Lessons the ARTS Teach, by Elliot Eisner, Art Education Researcher and Scholar

1 The arts teach children to make good judgments

about qualitative relationships. Unlike much of

the curriculum in which correct answers and

rules prevail, in the arts, it is judgment rather

than rules that prevail.

2  The arts teach children that problems can have

more than one solution and that questions can

have more than one answer.

3 The arts celebrate multiple perspectives. One of

their large lessons is that there are many ways to

see and interpret the world.

4  The arts teach children that in complex forms of

problem solving purposes are seldom fixed, but

change with circumstance and opportunity.

Learning in the arts requires the ability and a

willingness to surrender to the unanticipated

possibilities of the work as it unfolds.

5  The arts make vivid the fact that neither words in

their literal form nor numbers exhaust what we

can know. The limits of our language do not

define the limits of our cognition.

6 The arts teach students that small differences

can have large effects. The arts traffic in

subtleties.

7  The arts teach students to think through and

within a material. All art forms employ some

means through which images become real.

8  The arts help children learn to say what cannot

be said. When children are invited to disclose

what a work of art helps them feel, they must

reach into their poetic capacities to find the

words that will do the job.

9  The arts enable us to have experience we can

have from no other source and through such

experience to discover the range and variety of

what we are capable of feeling.

10 The arts' position in the school curriculum

symbolizes to the young what adults believe is

important.