As the 2017-2018 school year has come to an end, I finally have time to reflect on the highlights of art experiences that happened.

With the seed of encouragement and support from a couple of colleagues, I lead two in-house social art workshops.Not only was it perfect because it was Fall at the time, but a no fail project as such mono printing leaves means that everyone, no matter the artistic level, will have a lovely piece to go home with. Using nature as our starting point, our mind and body as the mechanism to compose our picture planes, the artworks came out varied as the individuals that we are. Once the white printing ink dried on the contrasting paper there was an option to color in with primacolor stix or color pencils.

I believe it was the success of this impromptu workshop that granted me the nomination of Teacher of the Year at my school. The workshop was so revered and needed that I just had to do another to pump up morale. So, in February I planned a collaborative Black History project with all the teachers and then hung up the work around school. This one require a little more prep work than the previous project and teachers didn't get to keep their individual work, however, I also cut out stencils of Martin Luther King and Obama so that teachers could take a watercolor sprayed version of either if they wanted to. Now we have artwork that can be hung every year and we can always add more to the collection of Black History figures.