Thursday, February 2, 2012

The Joys of Pinning!

I am not usually inclined to recommend websites unless they belong to wonderful artists, teachers or cooks. OK, I take that back. I can blather on endlessly about an awful lot and I probably DO end up recommending sites. But not on my blog.
A Group of Boards on Pintrest

I must now make an exception. Pintrest. My new obsession. I thought it was just a cute idea at first: a site that allows you to pin virtually any picture or link onto virtual bulletins. I started with a few of my favorite subjects: Making Stuff, Vintage Cereal boxes, Roadside America, etc. Then I noticed that Art Teachers were using it to collect lesson ideas. So I set up ONE and only ONE board called Art for Kids. It grew. I started finding wonderful ideas. Crazy imaginative people were out there pinning and I could repin their pins. They could repin mine. Some late night frenzied pinning was going on. I became a pinatic.

Now I find it downright inspiring. AND helpful. I have many many art lesson boards now: broken down by grade, subject matter, even material. I found myself sort of getting to know other artists and instructors by their pins. I see a wonderful lesson and think "Oh, that Abigail is so clever" or "Wow, Thadeus is really edgy". And I steal their ideas. Legally. Woo hoo!

It might only be my virtual reality but Pintrest makes me feel organized and inspired. Heck, how often can you say that about a website?

If you're a fellow pinatic please comment and let me know what you like the most about it.

4 comments:

  1. Yes, I am Pin-addicted too. I love that I can gather together lesson ideas, and then click back to the source material. And it is amazing to find such a large community of visual people!

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  2. I agree, clicking back to the source material is invaluable. It's given me access to many art teacher blogs in other countries, ones that I wouldn't have found otherwise. I'm starting my session of Winter classes today with a project based on one that I found on Pintrest! Look forward to seeing you on the boards, Phyl!

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  3. Ha ha! Phyl, I just went to look at your wonderful blog and saw that my first lesson that I grabbed off of Pintrest is a version of your Dali mustache project! I plan to do it as a self portrait for the kids, they will have to apply a mustache and a hat. I LOVE how you used the black oil pastels. I may have to steal that...do I have time before class starts in half an hour?

    If anyone reading this has not read Phyl's amazing blog http://plbrown.blogspot.com/ please take a look!

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  4. I admit that I am hopelessly addicted to pinning. I have to go back and reorganize my boards by media, grade level or Artist. I LOVE Pinterest!

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