In the Art Room: Let's Go to Paris!

Having haphazardly cleaned my art room at the end of the school year, I managed to hide all of the paintbrushes from myself. Seriously, I've no clue where they are. So this here window mural was painted in sponges, paint rollers, fingers, window paint markers and a sumi brush. 

Each year, students, their parents and faculty friends ask me the same question: "So, where are we going this year?!" I began this tradition of decorating my room around our theme of study many years ago. I'd say I do it (in my best Sally Struther's voice) for the children, but the truth of the matter is, I just love doing it. The bonus is they love it as well.

I'm so excited for them to see this year's theme: Traveling Europe. As you might have guessed, we are starting off our journey in Paris! Which is just a pinch different from where we traveled to last year...

This time last year, we were heading back in time to Ancient Egypt. I painted the windows, sponge stamped those dollar straw mats and created the batiks in the window and behind my chair. All of that's now packed away. Somewhere. Possibly with some paint brushes. 

I did learn something having lost my brushes: painting goes a whole lot quicker if you use a paint roller to block in the background. Another lesson learned: beware of paint-roller-splatter. Especially when wearing vintage, argh!

I began with a really rough sketch of how I was hoping the windows would turn out. The left bank of windows proved to be the easier side as I had a clear idea of where I was going: Eiffel Tower, some hot air balloons, a background of buildings and some flowers in the foreground. Not quite three hours later, done.

Remember I told you I was on a poodle kick?

This side proved to be a pinch more difficult. I knew I wanted a street, a bike and a poodle. I created an extremely rough sketch on my window with a washable marker and just went for it. Thankfully, I had plenty of photos from our trip to Epot and their version of Paris to help me out.

I love Epcot. There is nothing to do there but shop and eat. Which go together like hot fudge and ice cream, says moi.

Knowing that I'd be creating my room around this European theme, hubs and I went to Epcot on our trip to Disney at the very beginning of the summer. Can you spot my inspiration in these photos? Hello there, street lamp.

Another thing I love about Epcot is that they hire folks from the actual counties to work in that portion of the park. Or they manage to find people with really great accents. Either way, it's very cool.

Table for two? Oui, s'il vous plaît.

In between and above my windows are concrete blocks. Not exactly the Euro-vibe I was going for. In my search for paint brushes, I found that I had a mountain of French painting reproductions. So, I set about mounting them and creating some faux advertisement posters. I was inspired by the post of adverts I saw at Epcot...

From Epcot's Paris.

FeeFee and her suitcase, ready to travel the world.

Because my art room used to be a library, I have an enormous book shelf beside my windows. Normally I fill the shelves with treasures from the countries we are studying, but my stash of European souvenirs is pretty slim. So I scooped up this old plastic Samsonite suitcase at the thrift store and covered it with some royalty -free travel images I printed off the interweb.

Which was inspired by this display at Epcot.

My new favorite spot in the room. Now where is that waiter with my cappuccino? I hope he's not buried under paint brushes some where -- I'll never get my coffee!

So one area of my room complete! Notice I'm not sharing with you photos of the rest of the place...in my mad hunt for paintbrushes, I opened every cabinet and pulled out every drawer. It looks like a poltergeist swept through my room.

Au revoir, Jes! Do you remember our school mascot? He's traveled to Germany and the Netherlands and this week he was shipped out to France! I cannot wait to share photos of his travels with the kids.

It's such a relief to have one portion of my room complete. Now I'm just down to moving tables, prepping first week supplies and hanging up my class rules. I've already started to rewrite my rules:

Rule #1: Find Mrs. Stephens paint brushes.

Rule #2: What? Have you found my brushes yet? Then you need to revisit Rule #1, kid.

(Thanks for dropping by!...Cassie)