I didn’t add a lot to my art journal this time for a few reasons; I am very stressed, crunch time for midterms is here and although I don’t have any big tests, I have a lot on my plate with activities to do, lessons to plan, and projects to finish. I also felt like this week was an extension to last week where I talked about the focus being on external factors rather than internal philosophies.

I decided to add to a previous self portrait because I feel it was representative of the teaching I did this week. Let me explain; In both practicum and art education, I was observing, preparing to teach, or teaching. On Monday we observed the TAB classroom at Beattie. Tuesday me, Ashley, and Kelsey taught stations for the 8th graders who were beginning their pet portraits. Mine was wet media (watercolor, acrylic, and tempera), Ashley’s was dry media (graphite, charcoal, colored pencil), and Kelsey’s was a presentation on composition. I think it went very successfully, both our mentor teacher and professor commended us on our lessons, I had a lot of fun doing it. Wednesday, we peer-taught in preparation for Polaris, Ashley and I fixed some little kinks in our lesson and I believe it will go smoothly this coming week. Thursday at Webber I helped a special needs student work through sketching and painting his pet portrait using techniques and media I taught on Tuesday. I also got to talk with Ms. Ruiz afterwards about leading a critique for that project in the coming weeks. Then Friday, Ashley and I did our last Brainy tours.

The Golden Ratio and spiral are built off the Fibonacci sequence. 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21… and so on. The sequence takes the past two numbers added together to create the following number. It starts out slow but once the foundation is built, it gets big quick. I feel somewhere in the 5 or 8 range in my art education abilities, like I’m on the verge of coming into my own and really understanding how to do it. I get more and more comfortable at Webber every week and the opportunities given through art education challenge and build me up in new ways all the time.

As time goes on, I connect more and more with Studio Habits of Mind. And as Colorado art standards move more toward SHoM I get less and less overwhelmed and freaked out by working with and meeting standards. When I was first introduced to SHoM, I attached to it immediately. I was able to look back to my own art making both in and out of school and see all of them. I saw the ones I use the most, which I value the most, and those I need to focus on more. As I get further in teaching and have my own classroom, I want to revolve everything around SHoM. I’m excited to try out this philosophy with the critique I lead at Webber.