Art Teacher Inspirations

While I am sure we all spend our share of time surfing other blogs and Pinterest, I'll bet we get as many, if not more ideas for our classrooms from the world around us. The school where I teach is in an urban area, in fact, on a "shopping destination" street. Our nearest sights are not scenic vistas (except the ocean) or animals (although we can find some of these if we look hard enough), but rather, store windows.

I find that some of my best ideas are born when I am driving or walking alone. Once I see something interesting it will generally "percolate" for awhile as I work out the details (materials to use, Art Standards to incorporate, artists that might have related works, etc). Occasionally the art idea will occur to me immediately; more often it will lay dormant for days or weeks before becoming fully formed. Sometimes I use the photos I take in Smartboard lessons for kids to talk about and other times they just provide inspiration for me.

Since we all live in such varied regions and I enjoy seeing others' photos, I thought it might be fun to share what I see around me. Here are a few inspirations that I found today as I walked up the street from school:

I liked the patterns in this window display.

More patterns here, but I also like how they made their trees from old pieces of wood (or picket fence slats) just lashed together.

Love these stacked cube frames. Kids could make these out of painted papers  and stack their own sculptural works.

I'm not sure how I might use this polar bear, but I sure loved the window!!!