In the Art Room: A String-Stitched Dot for Dot Day!

So all my students, kinder-town through 4th-grade-land, are participating in International Dot Day. I know several of you art teacherin' peeps are doing the same, amiright? I have absolutely loved dreaming up projects that I hope (fingers and toes crossed) have been artistic, creative, unique and inspiring (our feature Word(s) of the Week for these first four weeks of school). I'll give you a sneak peak of all our projects at the end of the week with complete lessons to come. In the meantime, lemme introduce you to my favorite dot lesson to date, the String-Stitched Dot!

Dude. After seeing this 4th grader's stitched design I've decided I wanna create a stitched color wheel! Doesn't this one totally remind you of that? I love his pattern.

I gave the kids three design options to choose from with the freedom to play with those ideas, change 'em and make them their own. I love how this artist used symmetry and color to create a sunset-esque  stitch. 

One of the ideas the kids could stitch was one we called "rotating squares". This was not an easy design to stitch but once you got the hang of it, it went by in a flash. None of the kids wanted to stop stitching so many of them thought of ways to enhance that design idea. I liked how Tony found a way to stitch a circle around this squares. 

For this lesson, we used the following:

* 10" X 10" cardboard (I did a lil dumpster diving for those)

* Paint and brushes (because the cardboard looked like, well, cardboard. We had to jazz it up.)

*  Florescent yarn (because this here art teacher is currently on an '80's kick, can ya tell?)

* Tapestry needles (what big eyes you have! The better to thread you with, my dear.)

* Stitching template (so we all end up with the same 16 evenly spaced lines)

* Masking tape

On our very first day of art, after covering all this biznatch, the kids painted their pieces of cardboard, "thickly and quickly". Meaning, since they had the option of using texture combs, they needed to make sure the paint was thick and wet as the comb can only rake the surface and create super cool textures when it is. Then I gave the kids of using florescent paint to add some splatters as, let's be honest, splatter painting is super rad. AND makes the first day of art just about the best thing everrrrr.

On our second day of art, after our Word of the Week/Artist Inspiration routine, we had to prep our board for stitching. For that, I gave the kids these old coffee container lids with 16 evenly spaced notches drawn with silver Sharpie. The kids were to make sure the circle was placed 2" from the top/bottom and sides (well, hello thar, math connection!) before tracing it and drawing tick marks for the notches. 

Once done with that, the kids were given such dangerous art supplies as push pins and needles. 

With the push pins, the kids put the initial holes in their boards where the notches were drawn. Because they'd be stitching with thick tapestry needles, I then had them go back and push the needles through the board to make the notches even bigger. From there, the kids had to start plotting their design...

For this, they got a worksheet. Yay, worksheets! They had to complete the directions of each design ("even if I don't want the other designs?!" YES. DO. IT. RIGHT. MEOW.) They were also given the option to come up with their own ideas, or mix and match the ones I suggested, on the right. 

To best explain this process, I created a lil video clip. There are several steps so I hope I'm making some sort of sense. I showed the kids the steps to stitching ALL three of these designs that way they could feel free to pick and choose/mix and match once they were on their own. 

And now! For a Totally Inappropriate Short Story!

Gather 'round friends, this one's a gem:

So, on that very first day of stitching, when I'm walking the kids through the steps, I thought it might be less confusing for them if I referred each of the 16 holes in their stitching board as a letter. This way they could remember stuff like, "I stitch from A to B, from A to C, back to A then to D", for 'zample. However, whilst in the midst of teaching, I may or may not have mistakenly said this several times (unbeknownst to my innocent babies!): 

"You first start at the A-hole. Then you go to the B-hole. Return to the A-hole. REMEMBER! If you are doing a radiating design, you always return to the A-hole."

And I think it was the phrase always return to the A-hole that actually stopped me mid-breath and caused a rash of red to creep over my face. My mind started racing: did I just say the words A-hole to my kids, not once but several times, and neither me nor the kids noticed?! If I don't call it A-hole, what  DO I call it? The "A-Spot"? What happens when we get to the letter G?! OMGeee, what am I gonna do?!

And it was then that we began to refer to the notches as numbers. And all was A-hole-free in art land. WHEW.

I gotta say, the kids loved this project. Especially my boys. Which I don't find that surprising as they are always the ones that love any weaving projects we do. It's that working-with-my-hands/math-mind that makes them adore these types of things. Is that sexist? Maybe. Is it true? Yes.

A coupla kids found ways to incorporate their initial in the design. This one kills me ask it looks like the symbol for Anarchy...and this sweet child is the furthest thing from a punky-Anarchist. 

I love how this artist played with our school colors to create her design.

And there you have it! A String-Stitched Dot for Dot Day! Do you think this is a project that you'd give a go in your art room? I do believe your kids would dig it.

For our display, I decided to connect the boards together with a coupla paperclips. I love how they look as a group...ready for Dot Day!

And what are you up to for Dot Day? I'd love to know what your kids are creating so puh-lease share, y'all! 

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DIY: A Warhol's Flowers Printed Dress

You know, being the uber professional and not-at-all shallow person that I am, when I was initially asked to teach a workshop at a local -n- lovely botanical gardens my first thought was, "OMGah! WHAT AM I GONNA WEAR?!" 

Not the lessons I was gonna teach or the examples I was gonna share. Nah. Because, you see, I'm about at deep as a nearly-drained kiddie pool. I ain't braggin, y'all. Just statin' facts, ma'am. And that one lone sir who accidentally found himself on this blog and is wondering, "how in the world do I get outta here?!".  Oh, hubs, if I've told you once, I've told ya a million times, hit the back button and return to the land of the non-crazy. Sigh.

In all (non)seriousness, when I was approached by Karen Kwarciak, Manager of School and Outreach Progams at Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art (holy cow, that was a mouthful), she mentioned that the workshop was on the very last day of the Andy Warhol's Flowers exhibit. Being that the exhibit was super fabulous, Karen and I thought it would be fun to base the workshop around Warhol's Flowers.

I mean, riiiiiight?! Super fabulous. Unfortunately, this piece is no longer available as it's hanging above my couch. Thanks for the discount, Cheekwood! Wait...what do you mean you want it back?! And, really, was it necessary to call the cops? I mean, suriously.

Since museums tend to get all huffy about folks "borrowing" their masterpieces, I thought we'd create our own Warhol-inspired pieces at the workshop! AND, being that I needed something to wear, I decided to print mine on fabric and use 'em to embellish a dress. I was super stoked with how these turned out so I thought I'd share the super simple process with you!

For this, you'll need the following supplies:

* A Gelli-Plate. If you don't have these as they do cost a small fortune, no worries! You can make your own version of a Gelli-Plate outta gelatin found at the grocery. I wrote a blog post about it a while back...go here for directions and it will yield the same results (I just wanted to say "yield the same results" because I thought I might fool you into thinking me intelligent. Did it work?)

* Fabric Paint. Only necessary if you plan to wash the fabric. Otherwise, acrylic would probably work.

* Brayer.

* Thin Cotton Fabric. I noticed that the thinner the fabric, the better. Or paper.

* Flowers. I used these daisies (that's what those are, right? I have two black thumbs so I've no clue).

For the first print, which will be the negative image, ink up your printing surface and lay a flower down face down. Place your fabric (or paper!) and massage the surface. Lift off your paper/fabric and VIOLA!

Groovy, right? But wait, there's more!

Now, remove the flower, apply a fresh sheet of fabric/paper, massage and BOOM!

Can I get an applause? Thank you, thank you vury much.

After pulling over a dozen of these prints, I decided I was ready to add it to a dress. So I skipped down to the local clothing-resale shop and found this super short-shorty for a mere $6. I thought the colors were perfectly suited for me prints.

I was so excited to begin, I only snapped a coupla photos. I did appliqué stitch the flowers to the neckline...

As well as quilt and attach these prints to the hemline.

For a quickie DIY, I thought the results were pretty fun. AND NOW I had something to wear for the workshop. Otherwise, I woulda just had to call in sick. 

So just what was the workshop all about, you ask? Okay, so you didn't ask but whateves, Ima bout to tell you. We began with a fantastic guided tour through the Warhol exhibit. Once finished, I introduced that aforementioned gelatin printing. If you've not tried this yet, it's one of those everyone's-successful/inspired/challenged type projects that we all love. This got a lotta oooohs and ahhhhhs. The process works exactly the same as that I showed ya on the Gelli Plate: negative print first...

Remove the leaves, print again and positive prints second. Not only did the participants play around with the gelatin plates but they also tried their hand at printing on the Gelli-Plates. They created prints both on paper and on fabric. I loved their results.

And, being the awesome art teachers that they are, they totally came up with their own ideas! For example, several experimented with using the flowers as a stamp.

For the image on the left, the artist stamped onto their negative print paper with a flower. It turned out the flowers held the paint for a pinch thus making this possible. I do believe that same idea was used on the right.

I thought the flowers looked pretty amazing after this process! So Warhol-esque!

These images were created on fabric. The one on the left was created with that stamping technique. I also had puffy paint available for those that wanted to play around with outline or design ideas.

That morning, I also introduced a leaf relief project that is another one of my faves. If you follow this link, you can read all about this simple yet super-amazing looking process.

After a super delish lunch and some down time, we jumped right back in for more crafting. This time, I introduced a stenciled embroidery project that I can't wait to try out with my students. I also showed 'em my fave craft in the whole wide world -- needle felting!

I tried to keep the afternoon projects super open-ended. I thought this would be better for the teachers to visualize what might work best in their art room with their resources and curriculum. I loved the variety of felted fun they had! I think felting was their fave.

Here's an example of an artist using her stenciled piece with needle felting. The fabric paint dries quickly so no one had to wait before attacking with the felting tool.

Y'all know I loved this piece!

And so, there you go! A Warhol-inspired dress for a workshop full of artsy mess! Special thanks to Cheekwood and Karen for hosting the fun. Chat soon, y'all!

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What I Wore #113 and A COSTUME CONTEST!

Magnificent Monday: Not gonna lie, having an extra day added to my weekend was simply splendid. I clocked more pj's -n- crafting hours than usual which was at the top of my To Do list for the weekend. I did manage to look presentable on Monday but only because I needed to make a craft store run. dress: Anthropologie, old; sandals: Target, old

Whut is UP, party people? I dunno about you but, while I love me a nice long three-day weekend, it does leave me feeling a pinch frazzled and fried. When I got to school on Tuesday, it was like waking up with amnesia. I was all, "Who am I? Where am I? Why do these strange children keep coming to my art room and messing the place up?" I tried putting a CLOSED FOR BUSINESS sign on my art room door but neither the kids nor their teachers were buying it. 

Given my aforementioned frazzled -n- fried state, I only managed to snap three photos of what I wore this week! I started to pile just too many things on my plate as the days went on and, well, snapping pics of my outfits just kinda slipped off the plate, I guess. Howevers, this leaves me more room to share with you a couple of exciting things:

** The Winners of the Best Dressed Art Teacher Contest are recognized in the October issue of SchoolArts Magazine! ** 

I'm so excited for these awesome art teachers and their chance to be recognized in a publication that means so much to the art education world. Congrats, y'all!

** I'm hosting a Dress-Like-a-Famous-Artist/Artwork Costume Contest! ** 

That's right, ya'll! The Best Dressed Contest was so much fun that I thought an Artist Costume Contest would be fab. You know, Halloween is right around the corner. This would give you a chance to come up with something fun to wear in your art room AND share with the rest of the art teacherin' world on this here blog. Not only that, but Nancy Walkup, editor of SchoolArts Magazine has agreed to feature the winners! Here's the deets:

1. Dress like a famous artist or work of art! (duh. That's kinda the name of the contest.)

2. Snap a high resolution photo! SchoolArts can only produce such photos in their magazine. If you have no idea what "high resolution" means, I'm going to walk you though those steps in this post!

3. Submit your photo and a brief description of your inspiration to my email address! (cassieart75@gmail.com)

4. Submissions due by Sunday, November 2nd! 

5. Vote on this here blog! Winner will be announced mid-November (it's too far ahead for me to actually give you a date. My brain is small.)

6. Winner will be featured here AND in SchoolArts Magazine! And how cool is that, y'all?!

I hope you are just as excited about this idea as I am. And I can't wait to see what you come up with! How fun will this be, y'all?!

October issue of SchoolArts Magazine where you just might be featured!

Speaking of being featured, special contrats to the following awesomely dressed art educators (clockwise): Natalie Friedl, Michael Kantor, Lindsey Ostafy and Ashley Hammond. Special Thanks with Sugar on Top to Nancy Walkup for sharing these art teachers with the art ed community in SchoolArts Magazine! In case you can't read the copy, here's what it says: Art teacher and blogger Cassie Stephens is widely known in the art education community for her amazing homemade art-related outfits. This year she decided to hold a contest on her popular blog highlighting the very best of the artfully dressed. In the end, six art educators were named "Best Dressed Art Teacher." Here are a few of the winners. 

Putting a face with a name, here's the also-awesomely dressed Nancy Walkup! I need that zigzag dress in my life when I teach line, Nancy. Hook a girl up! It was so fun meeting Nancy at NAEA...I can't wait for the next conference to chat with her again.

Last Days of Summer Tuesday: Even though the temps here are still well into the 90's (with an extra dose of humidity, thanks to some pop-up storms), the leaves have started to fall and it seems the whole world has become a Pumpkin Spice Paradise. I figured this just might be the last time I could wear this week summer number. dress: Bernie Dexter, scored on ebay; sandals: Swedish Hasbeens, sale at Anthro last season; belt: Anthro sale, now

Now, let's chat photography, shall we? When Nancy and I met at NAEA and I took out this Scotch-Taped-Up ole Canon Power Shot of mine (that's at least 5 years of age), Nancy took a step back, sucked in her breath and said, "Is that the camera you use for all of your photos?!" Um, yep. I ain't fancy, y'all. I'm all about the cheap. Now hubs did upgrade me recently...but I still only travel with this guy. You see, you don't need a fancy camera to take great photos. You just gotta now what you're doing. So, lemme show you a couple things that will make snapping your costume pics a bunch easier. 

First of all, you'll wanna take photos that are high resolution. That means Nancy will be able to use them in SchoolArts without them being too pixelated. To make that happen, press the "function/setting" button on your camera. On my camera, when I do that, it looks like this. Do you see where it says M2 at the bottom left? Use the arrow button on your camera, scroll down to that so you can change it. M2 is the size of the photos I use on this blog but it is not big enough of a photo for a magazine.

Now, scroll across to the L setting. If you look closely, you'll see that L has some dimensions above it: 3264 X 2448. That's the printing size. Meaning that's how big you could print that image and have it look good. If you look at the dimensions on the M2, you'll see it's smaller. It cannot print as large of a photo without getting too pixelated. On my camera, to select this new setting, I press the "function/setting" button again.

You'll also need to adjust your "fine" settings. So on my camera, I just scroll up one and scroll across to the Superfine. Cuz that's how I like to consider myself: supah-fine. Once you've gotten "superfine" and "L" set, you're good to snap away! Now, this will bog down your memory card...so if you go back to just snapping normal pics, you might wanna readjust your settings.

If you are snapping photos on your iPhone, check your settings as well. I do not own such a phone (I like to live in a the early 2000's with my dim-witted phone) so you'll have to play around to figure out those correct settings. Personally, I always think a camera is better than a phone photo but that's just me.

Another tip: Use a tripod! AND use your camera timer! I take all of these photos of myself, by myself. A tripod is great because it can be adjusted to find your best angle (c'mon, ladies, you know it's all about the angle!) and it's STILL. How many photos do you have that folks have snapped that are just too darn shaky? None of that with a tripod. Also, set that timer. I use a 10-second timer on my camera and it works great. 

I hope those tips are helpful! I know if you take the time to make something magical, you'll want your photos to be perfect. 

 Tiptoe Through the Patterns Wednesday: I know what you're thinking, "What kind of art teacher steps on kids paintings?!" To answer your question: The kind who also posts countless photos of herself wearing something wacky every week. You know the kind. Ahem. Speaking of these paintings, my friends in first grade worked in groups of two to paint 'em. It's all apart of the big fat Dot Day mural they are creating. They'll be ready to be hung this week (I don't have a choice, our Open House is this Thursday and I've gotta get 'em on the walls!) so I'll share the finished result with you very soon. top: garage sale; beaded necklace: made by me, DIY here; skirt and belt: Pin Up Girl Clothing; shoes: thrifted

Can't wait to chat with you again! 

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