Studio Hacks: Free Drying Racks, Paint delivery, and more

 

Recycled nursery racks are free and make wonderful drying racks
for the days when I run out of space on the regular drying racks.
These racks store pretty flat when they aren't needed
and even kinders can handle them.

To handle about 800 art servings a week, my students are using a lot of markers, pencils, paper, and paint. Here are some of the hacks I've been using this year to manage markers and paint.

Four paint wheels fit on a microwave
plate from the dollar store.
Students sometimes use the plates
as palettes.  When the plates are stacked they keep leftover paint fresh overnight.

Sharpie caps glued into a toner cap.

Those toner caps again.  This time Sharpie caps are hot glued into the sections.  I have only lost one sharpie all year. 

Mr. Sketch markers.  Caps are hot glued into the holes.  I drilled them into 2 x 2 redwood and it took me about an hour to make 6 trays like this.  The downside is that sometimes kids hold them upside down to pretend they are machine guns.   But I have lost very few markers this way.  I can see immediately what's missing and send the class out on a hunt for the missing markers. 

Paper clay holds these marker caps into a paper bowl.  Not very pretty but this was the prototype for the version using a recycled toner cap.