Goodbye Art Room, Hello Art Cart

After 4 years of having the luxury of teaching in a designated art room, the time has come when I will be transitioning to teaching in the regular classrooms and using an Art Cart to transport all the supplies. The good news is that the reason for this change is a reduction in class size in our primary grades, so that will be great for kids and teachers!!

 No doubt, I will miss this room with its patio and its Smartboard. They are definitely conveniences. However, all the classrooms have Smartboards, so I plan to carry my visuals on my keydrive and quickly download lessons (as needed) to classroom computers. Actually, that should be good for teachers because they will have those Smartboard docs to use as resources for themselves.

So, where am I moving?? Well, to several places!! I have 2 cupboards in the teachers' workroom where there is a sink. I emptied them out a few months ago. They looked like this:

Now they look like this:

I gave away all my acrylic paints (hope I don't regret that move!) and just kept the tempera and watercolors so it all fit, sort of:))

Then I acquired a storage area behind our stage in the Auditorium (up some stairs in back of the "green room.") While not nearly as spacious as a classroom, it turned out to be larger than it looks. My fear was that I wouldn't have room for all those "saved treasures" that teachers acquire and that I would have to throw a lot of stuff away. No worries there -- everything actually fit in these storage areas!! In my hurry to get moved I didn't get any "before" photos, but I finished moving this past week and now it looks like this:

 I was amazed to see how much mat board I had accumulated. This is the board that our local art framing store (L.A. Art Exchange) donates for me to recycle for most of our projects. I just have to make sure that the sharp edges all get trimmed before we use it.  I LOVE that they do this for us!!!

 Part of the reason I took photos was to help me remember where I put everything. I tried to put all the "wet" stuff in the workroom where the sink (and my cart) will be. Everything else is in this upstairs area -- which, by the way is very dimly lit by one overhead light. With the magic of photo editing, these pictures make it look well lit and cheery (well, sort of cheery -- I have plans to make it look more inviting for myself when I get back in the Fall).

 This area has a separate little room that used to be a bathroom. It has a narrow window, so when I open that door I get a little more light for the whole area. It has a couple of old 4-drawer files it it that now house my books and a few more supplies.

This will look better once I hang something on the bare wall, ya think???

 As I moved I made a record of where everything was going in a small composition book. I think I am going to thank myself for taking the time to do this. Otherwise I envisioned hunting for one little item like breyers, or rubber gyotaku fish forever!!

 I tried to move things one cupboard at a time, keeping like things sort of together to help me remember where things are. I also only moved for an hour or two each day to try to preserve my back. It took longer, but I never really got tired from the effort and before I knew it, I was moved.

Years ago a student gave me this wall hanging -- I moved it with me and hung it in this area to give me a little feel of familiar surroundings in my new digs:))

One last thing...  Back when I found out this was all happening, I Googled "Art on a Cart" and found that Mrs. C at Rainbow Skies and Dragonflies, a fellow blogger whom I follow, had posted this great article called "Surviving Art on a Cart" (see here). She has some terrific tips for those of us in this situation and kindly wrote and offered me encouragement. Thank you again for that!!! Believe me, I have been saving containers with lids and plastic shopping bags with handles!! 

I don't want to have to give up my messy painting projects and am thinking that if I am just organized enough it will all work out and we can continue to create our painted papers, gyotaku prints, etc.  All our classrooms have sinks, so how hard can it be, right..??!!!! Wish me luck -- this will be a new experience!!