Summer

I'm beginning to understand the important role summer time plays in the life of a teacher- it is a time to relax, refresh and be inspired.  Here are some highlights from this summer:

Art in the Alley - I organized a booth at Art in the Alley for Free Minds, where alleygoers could learn about the good work of Free Minds while sending positive messages and comments to our members.

Budapest, Belgrade, & Athens - I got a chance to marvel at some amazing architecture, eat delicious food, and visit good friends.

Cincinnati - Took a trip back to my hometown to hang out with my family, indulge in eveyone's favorite chili & cheer on the hometeam.

My adorable family

Eastern Shore - Drove over to the eastern shore for some relaxing time away from the city and to visit the much famed Duck Decoy Museum

Pure joy @ the Duck Decoy Museum

Epic Yoga & DC Arts Center - What do Epic Yoga and DC Arts Center have in common? Both have Ellen Stedtefeld original artwork on display this summer!  Epic Yoga has 6 works from my collage series in their reception area (along with the work of the talented Paris Goudas) and DCAC has a set of 3 small landscape paintings I created for my art education course at GW in their 1460 Wallmountables exhibit.

Capital City Public Charter School - Next Monday, I begin training for my new job as the middle school visual arts teacher at CCPCS.  I am excited for this new experience and am keeping an open mind to all the new possibilities this job will offer. 



From one of the early days @DCPS

Congenial Spirits

Have I mentioned lately I love working at the Phillips Collection?  I may only be there a few hours a month but I appreciate how they foster learning, even in their staff, by encouraging us to write for the blog.  I'm happy to share my latest post here. 

I apologize for the lack of posts lately but I will be posting some news in the next week or so!

Intermission

Over Spring break, I added to my series. 

Figure Drawing Part 2

Part 2, students create sketches in pencil, charcoal, and colored chalk on manila paper by looking at student models.  They start with the skeleton, add bulk, clothing, and details.

Figure Drawing Part 1

 I attempted figure drawing this year! Part 1, students folded a paper in 8ths and drew the skeleton showing that figures are "8 heads" tall and have a series of joints connected by muscle and bones.

Still life

I love this simple colorful still life.  This was a one day exercise in practicing blocking out values.

Best of Portraits

I've featured some great portraits on here before so this time, I want to look at portraits that were successful for other reasons.

Class critiques have not always gone well for me. Students don't want to share their work, they don't want to talk about another student's work, sometimes they can't explain why they like or don't like something; I've come to dread critiques to the point of avoiding them. After watching a teacher at another school do a class critique with his middle school students, I was inspired to try again. This time, I put up EVERYONE's artwork on the board (the artwork was not quite finished, it was due that day) and had students choose a work that they liked because something in it worked really well- I explained that the entire picture might not be good, but the texture of the hair, or shading on the eyes, might be excellent and worthy of praise. After stating what worked well, we chose something that needed attention or needed to be fixed during the class period. I also included a drawing I did so that they could choose my artwork to comment on if they were shy to talk about another students' work.

It was miraculous, after the first few comments, students began opening up and discussing each other's work (and often times they picked their own to critique) and giving great advice on what to work on and applying successful techniques in their own work.

The two artworks below are two that completely transformed after the critique. While they do not look exactly like the celebrity they were trying to draw, they are great efforts. Tupac is shaded in such a unique smokey way (he added the background shading after the critique), and Rihanna has such careful highlights and shadows using erasers and smudging. Great efforts. I also included my work in process that they critiqued of Keyshia Cole.