My exciting news is that I have found a safe, secure way for my students to share their Every Day Drawing Challenge drawings. Our online gallery, Artsonia, has a new feature for teachers to make exhibits open for students to upload their own work. As you may know, I have been looking for a sharing site like this ever since I started the Every Day Drawing Challenge in January 2013. I’ve been sharing on Instagram and my class Facebook page. Two hundred and eighty drawings later, it’s here…hallelujah!

On Artsonia, I created an exhibit called, “Every Day Drawing Challenge” and opened it up to my students. The link they will use to upload their artwork is www.artsonia.com/class. Once there, they must type in a pass code. Expect an email from me within 24 hours with the passcode. Once the kids type in the code, they first identify themselves, and then upload their artwork. The title for the artwork will be the date, task number, and the task, for instance as above: “October 8 #279 Draw something you don’t see every day”. They will then be directed to write an artist statement about the artwork. We will be working on expectations for these statements in class. For now, a simple description is fine, such as the caption to my drawing above: “Last night’s weather forecast was for some intense storms. We got a lot of wind and rain, but none of this…scary and amazing, all at once….” And that’s it! The post then waits for my review and authorization and then is officially on display!

Check out the exhibit thus far: http://www.artsonia.com/museum/gallery.asp?exhibit=690927 I expect it will grow as the days go by!

Here’s what we did together in class to make it easy for the kids to do the drawings and upload the art: over the past two days, I have had 6th grade students use their iPads and Safari to open the link: Artsonia.com/class. Once there, we saved the link to the home page, thereby creating an icon on their iPads. I had the classes type in the pass code and take a screen shot so he/she will have the pass code stored in the photo library.

We then opened a new tab and typed in www.tinyurl.com/mzt5xnn. Once there, we saved the link to the home screen creating another icon, which brings students directly to the current link for the Every Day Drawing Challenge. Of course this link will be updated each month. Now students may look at the task list and choose a task to complete and post without having to scroll through lots of other content.

I put both of these links on the classroom iPads so fifth grade students are all set to do this while in class.

While we are on the subject of iPads – here are two tips for parents and students. #1 – cut the tips off of the fingers of an inexpensive glove to wear while drawing. This allows you to rest the side of your hand on the ipad while drawing and the iPad doesn’t sense it. It is a big help:

The other tip , #2 – if you can afford to, buy your child a stylus. Styluses (stylii) are a giant help in making you feel like you are drawing with a pencil or utensil. I bought 30 cheap styluses from ebay this summer and they are already worn down and breaking. Styluses by Griffin or Targas are reasonably priced and available at department stores, office stores, and online. Two examples:

My own preferred styluses are the Adonit Jot , which is priced between the models above, and the Sensu Brush, which is higher priced.

Parents – please look for an email with the pass code for the Artsonia exhibit. I am looking forward to seeing your child’s artwork in the exhibit!