Leading From The Heart

by Tracy Rosen, teaching & consulting since 1996, blogging about it here since 2007. All views are my own and you should take them with a grain of salt, I do.

Tag: summer

  • The winding down of summer vacation

    This time of year always seems rather unreal. Logically I know that my vacation is waning – the stark reality is that I head back to work next Wednesday but until I walk into the school, it doesn’t seem real.

    Even though I have definitely been thinking about the school year to come. I started two new blogs this week (I’m a little blog crazy, but I like them) – both to do with art and inspired by the winding down of summer vacation.

    Paint for 30

    paintfor30

     

    One morning I woke up and realized that I had not painted a single thing since moving here. One week of holiday left and not a paint drop to be seen, even with a whole room to dedicate to my studio! So I decided to do something about it. Paint for 30 is a way to remind me to paint for at least 30 minutes each day. Right now I know of one person who has it in her feedreader (my sister, who blogs/podcasts at Within a Quarter Inch. It’s freestyle podcasting on her latest quilty (and sometimes guilty) endeavors as well as commentary on other crafty blogs and living with 2 1/2 yr old twins and her husband in Athens, Ohio.) so just that helps me to paint each day. I’m finding the process helpful so far – both in the ‘just do it already’ area as well as the creative process.

    Tracy’s Art Class: doing. art

    tracysartclass

     

    I’m going to be teaching 3 sections of art this year. If I am not mistaken that might make up a heck of a lot of my teaching time and so I decided to start reaching out to the kids even before school started. A lot of my students are connected to me on facebook so after I made the blog I asked them to read it and start commenting. So far I’ve received a couple of comments and 2 images to add to the page. One of which may even need to become the class logo (yay to Evan for getting excited about art class)

    I’ll need to create spaces for the other 3 courses I’ll be teaching (holy crap. 4 courses, I was down to 3 but now I am back up to 4). Having sites for my courses helps me to keep them organized and alive in my head. Knowing that my students and I can always check in on them is reassuring.

    But for today I plan to set up my easel (I just splurged on an easel, probably paid way too much for it but I was too impatient to wait until I got to Montreal or Ottawa so bought it at the little stationery store in Alexandria), paint for 30 minutes, and then maybe do some gardening, tidy up this here house, putter putter.

  • Two Weeks and a Bit

    …to get so much in :) I am SO excited to start work again. At the same time, I have so much I still want to do this summer. It’s going to be a busy 2 weeks and a bit :)

    The 4 of us, the teaching and support team at Directions, met last Monday. We decided that I wouldn’t teach History this year. That brings my preps down from 4+ to 3+, which is a good thing though I will miss history. I’ll be teaching Art to grades 10 and 11, Ethics and Religious Culture to both grades, and Contemporary World Issues to grade 11. The more I think about it the more I LOVE this workload.

    I also have a new blog project in the works for September. More to come on that.

    Today I’m going to hang with my parents and some of their friends for lunch (always a yummy affair) and then head off to Day 2 of Under Pressure. I go every year. It’s an outdoor graffiti/skate/breakdance/dj event. It’s an international graffiti competition with all that other stuff going on around it. Sunday just about always happens at a club I worked at years ago for a number of years. A few of my old friends still work there so it’s always a hoot. Loads of fun. Just hope the rain holds off. Here’s a picture from last year, click on it to get to some others:

    Skating at Under Pressure, 2008, with some graffiti being made in the background. Fun times. Click image for source.
    Skating at Under Pressure, 2008, with some graffiti being made in the background. Fun times. Click image for source.

    I’m going to be starting the year with a focus on graffiti in Art class, so I’m collecting data ;)