I'm a Rainbow Today- All the Colors of the World

I hope this isn't too shocking for any of you, but I have a confession to make.... I'm a total nerd. At first glance or meeting, many wouldn't think that about me. That doesn't make it any less true. Those of you who know me well can attest to the fact that I am indeed, very nerdy. One example of my nerdiness? I LOVE new office and school supplies! (new folders, pencils, erasers, post-it notes... the list goes on) They make me so happy! I partially blame my mother for this. Due to my special brand of "Art Nerdiness" this love exponentially increases for new art supplies. (Paints, fancy tapes and adhesives, charcoal- you name it!)

You can imagine my excitement then, about my recent purchase of a set of 132 Prismacolor Pencils! That's every color that Prismacolor currently makes. For those unfamiliar with these pencils- they are super high quality colored pencils that blend amazingly well. They are one of my very very very favoritest art mediums. The reason I had to buy them is actually a little sad. The large set that was given to me as a gift in highschool somehow disappeared. I'm still hoping that it is only temporarily misplaced, because it was a huge set that I added to... worth lots of money and very important to me. My mother and I were unable to find it in either Utah or Idaho though, so I had to buy a new set to use for a school project.

I'm so in love with them! Look how pretty!:




More examples of my nerdiness:

1- They didn't come color sorted like that.... I did that myself.
2- Logically one would just sharpen them as needed, but I was so excited that I sharpened every single one of them before I ever used them.

I used a very effective electric sharpener for that process. I was not crazy enough to try to sharpen them all using this little guy that came with them:



I also am not sure why they included a couple of blue oil pastels... there was no advertisement or explanation included. And I actually haven't tested them yet so they could be something else, but they look like NuPastels.



So what project did I need these for? It was one I developed myself for my Secondary Methods class. I designed my own project and lesson plan for a drawing class and then created an example of what my students would do as the assignment. The drawing itself is fun and cool and all that jazz, but I was most excited about the feedback I got about my lesson and project development. Both my teacher and the class hotshot gave me lots of great feedback about the appeal my project would have to students and how well it incorporated the 4 components of Discipline Based Art Education. After that critique I called my mom and cheerfully announced, "I'm going to be a good art teacher!" Here's a photo of the final product:




*New Prismacolor set------------------------------------------------------ $115
(actually a really good deal)
*Drafting Tape and Illustration Board-------------------------------------- $10
(ish)
*Feeling like I may one day actually be effective in my chosen career?------ PRICELESS