Look at that adorable little bug! Isn't he the sweetest?! How can you resist those giant cog-eyes?!
In this Steampunk Workshop, participants will make bugs and other assemblages using metal gears, coils, clock parts, keys, trinkets, gems, hardware and junk drawer finds in Steampunk/Neo-Victorian Style. Steampunk lessons are highly engaging to students and flow easily across the curriculum while enhancing design-thinking and problem-solving strategies.
Melody Weintraub has worked as a professional artist for over 30 years. Her painting has been characterized as representational, evoking a narrative quality. Currently she is exploring mixed media and assemblage. She has conducted teaching workshops both regionally and abroad. She produced a watercolor video series, “Watercolor Painting Made Easy,” and is the author/illustrator of a children’s book, “The Little Bluebird,” published in 2001. She has been published in four issues of School Arts Magazine; “Art Rocks in Memphis” (Summer 2017), “Romare Bearden and Me” (Feb 2017), “Art After Hours” (October, 2016), “The Indispensable Art Teacher” (May/June, 2011), “How to Become a Highly Effective Art Teacher” (August/September 2011) and has five articles pending. Her article on, “Steampunk Bugs” is scheduled for the March 2018 issue of SchoolArts. She writes a weekly blog, “Art Teacher Tips” and has produced several instructional videos on her own YouTube Channel.
Melody Weintraub is an award-winning middle school art teacher at Briarcrest Christian School in Memphis, having presented both regionally through the Tennessee Art Education Association and nationally through the National Art Education Association (NAEA) Conferences. She is a member of The NAEA, The Memphis Germantown Art League and The Portrait Society of America. In 2014 she was named, “Tennessee Middle School Art Educator of the Year,” by the Tennessee Art Education Association (TAEA). She serves on the Executive Board of the TAEA as West Tennessee Regional Chair. She has taught K-3 through graduate level art education classes having served at The University of Memphis both as an adjunct and full-time instructor.
Other than teaching and painting, Weintraub loves spending time with her family at the lake house and she also enjoys acting as a second profession. She can be seen in several television commercials and also appeared as the history teacher in the movie, “The Blind Side.”