THE STORY
When you are stuck in an inspiration dry spell it helps to have a topic for a visual journal page. Turning to an art teacher lowlight was the jumping-off point for this work of art. I recommend making a list of things about you when you start your journal. If you ever get stuck in a visual journal block you can reference the list to see if anything inspires you. Typically, I will give out one or two visual journal assignments to my students over the course of a semester or year. One of my standard assignments is to create two pages, a lowlight of your week, and a highlight of your week.
ART TEACHER LOWLIGHT
This page is my lowlight of the week. I have four sinks in my classroom, and I love my sinks. I appreciate them because in the past we have had two art teachers at my school, and one always had to be in a room without a sink. If you know anything about teaching art you know a sink is practically a requirement. However, in addition to my long job list as an artist, teacher, maid, counselor, and the list goes on, I also have to add plumber.
It seems not all students understand you can’t shove every unused art material down the sink. You need to throw excess in the trash (or even better save it for later or don’t start with an excess). Every now and then (and by every now and then I mean at least once a week) one of my four sinks gets clogged and fills with water. Plunger to the rescue.
Even though unclogging my many sinks is a lowlight, in a way I can still look at it as a highlight. Once all the nasty clogged mess is out of the way sometimes beautiful splashes of paint remain. A collaborative work of art is left behind.
HOW TO
- I used gesso to create a hazy base.
- Next, I drew the sink outline with a pencil, and added value to create depth. I used India Ink in the dark areas to emphasize the darker value.
- After I added the shadows I went back with gesso to emphasize the highlights.
- To create the paint splatters I used bleeding tissue paper and blew it to create the splatter effect.
Thanks for checking out one of my early visual journal pages, check out more here. Interested in tools to help make your teaching life easier? Check out my art education resources here. Don’t forget to connect on Instagram and TikTok for tutorials and more.
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