Who is ready for another week of art-making! I'm pretty stoked about this week as it is based on my favorite thing: snacks! And, despite the fact that I'm not such a great chef myself (have you even seen Season 3, Episode 3 of Nailed It!?), we are going to be BAKING COOKIES on Friday! Which is all kinds of funny as the judges spit out my cookie that I made on T.V. Let's just hope y'all don't do the same. So get read for another fun week and be sure and share this with friends and family so they can join the fun too. We'll kick things off with a Chef Selfie!
On Tuesday, I'll be sharing a lot of paper folding and paper sculpture techniques in this Hamburger Sculpture project.
On Wednesday, let's make a Salt Dough Pizza!
On Thursday, I'll show you how to draw a 3-D cake! It's a piece of cake!
And on Friday, we are gonna bake! I'm so excited about this!
To join me live, you can find me on my Instagram and my Facebook page. If you miss the LIVE session, no worries. You can catch the video the next day on my YouTube channel! Be sure and subscribe. I'll be sharing lessons there (in addition to these) all week for Mother's Day!
Well, helloooo there, friends! Long time, no bloggity-blog. As you art teacherin' buddies of mine mightah guessed, I was at the NAEA convention this past week. It was a thrilling experience as those of you that attended can attest. I was determined to blog about my experience in fur realz time, but you know what? As soon as I got there, the phone, camera and laptop went away and I just dove right into the moment. That's right, y'all. I did the unthinkable: I lived in realtime. And I think my experience was all the better for it. Howeverness, I gotta tell ya, my photos are rather lacking and for that, I apologize. I do wanna give a shout out to all of you that attended and snapped a photo with me. Thank you! I loved meeting each and everyone of you and I was thrilled that you wanted a picture with my wackiness. I love y'all!
So in this here blog post, I thought I'd break down for y'all my experience. I had so much fun attending sessions and presenting (a whoppingfour times. Someone. Please. Remind me next year just how crazy I am, ermkay?). If you weren't able to attend, don't you sweat it, sistah (and brah), Ima be creating blog posts on my presentations (10 Exciting Ways to Introduce Vocabulary and Tiptoeing into Blogging) later this week. So stay tuned! And without further ado-ness, I present to you NOLA NAEA 2015!
So the amazing Tim Gunn was our keynote speaker. And he was seriously just that: ah-freakin'-mazing. Like, there was laughter, there were tears, there was loud coughing into the microphone by the interviewer (whut was that, y'all?!), it was ab fab. As y'all might recall, I interviewed Tim waaaaay back in December for the April issue of School Arts magazine. So, I gotta tell you this hilarious stalker thing I did after Tim's talk: I was standing around outside the auditorium with a bunch buddies rehashing the dude's awesomeness when we spot him! He's chatting with a small crowd of folks and my friends were all, "OMG, there he is! Let's get him!" And, being his new BFF, I lead the troops to introduce ourselves and say hellllllo. Did I mention that one of the buddies in my group was wearing a dress completely decked out in Mardi Gras beads? Well, imagine this if you will, we start walking towards Tim but he's leaving! So we start walking faster. Next thing you know, we are chasing the man and I can hear the SWISH! SWISH! of the beaded-dress girl behind me. Now, least you think I'm a total fool, the dude WITH Tim was waving us on! He was saying, "Hurry! C'mon!" So our behavior was totally encouraged, warranted and justified. When we finally reached Tim breathless and swishy you can tell poor dude is in a rush. He rapid fire shakes our hands and poof! disappears. I was mortified. I shook my clenched fist at the man who encouraged us and said, "You told me to hurry! You told me to c'mon! Now he's going to reissue his restraining order!"
Shortly after that awkward exchange, I was in Tim's class (so, duh, why didn't I just wait to talk to him then, right?!) which, I gotta tell you stressed me out, y'all! It was basically a condensed version of Project Runway. We worked in groups (I had The Best Group. Just sayin'.) and were given a table full of supplies (rubber bands, tape, scissors, clothes pins, highlighters, velcro, etc). Tim came around and handed each group a paper that said things like "T-shirt to Zombie Apocalypse", "T-shirt to Runway". Ours said "T-shirt to Purse". We had 30 minutes and managed to pull that cute thing together. I had to walk the runway which also made me a nervous wreck (whuuuuut?!). All that to say, after that experience, I had no nervous energy left for my presentation!
See that teeny tiny speck in the background? That's me talking about teaching vocabulary in a 25 minute session. I was thrilled that so many folks showed up (thanks, guys! Y'all made my day!). It was standing room only. I was worried I wouldn't get through everything so I told everyone I was gonna talk fast and I finished in 15 minutes! So I opened up the floor and so many awesome art teachers shared their vocabulary cheers, chants and tricks. I couldn't have planned that better!
Now I gotta tell ya, this is like my 5th conference or something. And when I first went, I didn't know anyone. Which can be pretty lonely even when you are surrounded by thousands of other like-minded folk (in fact, it can feel even lonelier!). If you had even a pinch of that at the convention, I'm so sorry! I know I felt very shy (imagine) and intimidated when I first started attended and hardly spoke to anyone. If you attend, please don't let that be you! Strike up a convo with everyone! Talk, share, swap war stories and phone numbers. The connects you make are priceless (me with my buds Laura and Nic!).
After the vocab session, I waited in line a long line to meet Tim Gunn. Again. The poor dude. All kidding aside, he stood and signed autographs for well over 3 hours, y'all. That's after being the keynote speaker and leading a session. He's perfectly awesome. AND he signed this here article!
On Friday, I presented a session about blogging with several other art bloggers. That was a tremendous amount of fun! But as Phyl of There's a Dragon in my Art Room pointed out, it's too bad we couldn't have attended each other's presentation to learn from each other! Again, I'll be sharing my chat in a blog post later this week.
After that, AOE hosted a blogger meet and greet. It was so fun to chat with the AOE team (so much awesomeness! Jessica has some great taste!), meet blog readers and chat with bloggin' buds. Some of these bloggin' buddies of mine feel like long lost friends (Nic!Laura!Phyl!Hope!) and new best buds (Tim! Andrew! Sheryl! Theresa!). I love this meet up.
Thank you so much, Jessica, for arranging this fun!
I love these two ladies! Being around so many art teacherin' besties is good for the crazy soul, I tell ya.
Of course, I had to get outta that convention center for a lil bit. I roomed with a couple of friends of mine from Memphis (thank you, Debbie and Kim for being the best roomies everrrr). On Friday, I did manage to skip away with them and another buddy to do some serious credit card exercising. Trashy Diva was my fave place to shop on Magazine Street!
On Saturday, I decided to hit the French Quarter with some buddies. We met some incredible street and gallery artists (this city is so full of talented folks, it's nuts!). Of course, eating a late lunch of seafood gumbo and monkey bread pudding on a balcony overlooking Jackson Square was a must!
That evening I taught a ticketed event on needle felting. I do believe I officially got 25 lovely ladies addicted to a new craft. To introduce needle felting, I had each create a palette hair clip (as you often see me wearing...DIY post to come).
I love how this artist had a "mixed colors" palette! So clever!
Then each was given a blue apron to needle felt their individual design upon. We also had give aways, crazy story telling, chocolate consumption...it was a big time all around. Special thanks to all that those who missed part of the masquerade ball to attend.
If we look a lil cray [that's cuz we are], we are trying to show you our palette hats! None of the ladies finished (felting takes longer than just an hour or so) so they took home enough roving to finish their masterpiece. Hey attendees! When you do finish, email me a photo so I can share it here, please.
After that, we decided to crash the ball with some other buddies! It was so fun, I'm so glad we went. The night may or may not have ended with some serious Hurricane consumption...I'd give you the full story but what happens at an art convention stays at an art convention. Until next time!
Maniac Monday: Some crazy man (aka Ginger Jesus) decided to photobomb my outfit posts this week. During my first photo attempt, I was outside snapping pics. When I scrolled through the photos, I noticed that SOMEBODY was in the background pressing his large white belly against the glass window. So I decided to snap some pics inside and he found his way into this picture. I'd say he should do a daily What Ginger Jesus Wore but it would just be a repeat of the previous days as this dude is always in head-to-toe brown. If ever I have to file a Missing Persons it will be "Sasquatch Man Last Seen in Brown". on me, top: garage sale; skirt: etsy; shoes: Target, last season; bangles: gifts; palette hair clip: made by me. On hubs: t-shirt: army surplus; shorts: thrifted
Well, hello friends! I'm proud to say that I made it through my first full week back in Art Teacherin' Land! It was a super fun week and I can't wait to share with y'all what we've been up to. Howeves, if I learned one thang this week it's that I have to let go of my late nightin' ways. No more hitting the hay at 11pm only to rise and shine at 5am. Cuz ain't nobody shinin' when they crawl outta bed looking like a drunken zombie. So! Lesson learned. This week my new bedtime is 10:59pm.
Speakin' of this week, I'm super excited to announce that the Apron Sew-Alongstarts this coming week! Yippie! So many of you all have shared your fab fabric choices and I cannot wait the finished results. In this first week's Apron Sew-Along post, I'll share with you how to create your own pattern, cut your fabric, stitch a pocket and attach that bad boy to your apron! You can follow along with me if you wanna or create an apron design all your own. I'd love it if you'd join the Apron Sew-Along page and share your progress with the rest of us.
In this here post, along with my Back-to-School attire, I thought I'd give you a sneak peak of our first couple of days in art class and just what we've been working on. Teacher buds, did any of y'all head back this week? What are your lil artists creating? More deets on this projects soon. In the meantime, have a great week and I'll see you at the Apron Sew-Along!
Have y'all heard of International Dot Day? It's a celebration based around the Peter H. Reynolds' book The Dot. This book is a fantastic beginning-of-the-school-year book as it celebrates a young artist who once thought she was not. International Dot Day is September 15th and kids all across the globe are creating dots in celebration. We celebrated last year and got a great response from both the kids and adults. So we're back at it again this year. I'd love to hear if you and your student are celebrating and what they are creating in honor of Dot Day.
My first grade kids started painting during their first week of art. No sense wasting any time, right? These guys painted many a masterpiece in kindergarten so we didn't have to use too much time chatting about painting dos and don'ts. That totes had this. Instead we painted about our artist inspiration: Wassily Kandinsky and made concentric circles, aka circles that hug each other! More on what is to become of these paintings soon.
Cat's Butt Tuesday: If it's not the hubs doin' the photobombin', it's the cat. Here she is showing you her better side. top, shoes and skirt: vintage, thrifted; belt: Pin Up Girl Clothing
In second grade land, we are making reversible paintings on pizza rounds. I know, right?! I decided that we'd also use Kandinsky as our inspiration and remembered there being a REVERSIBLE KANDINSKY painting featured in the movie Six Degrees of Separation. And I was all I'M A GENIUS! Check out this clip:
Guess what I learned after doin' a wee bit of homework? Kandinsky never painted a reversible painting. GAH, what?! A movie LIED to me?! What'll I find out next, that there is no Wizard of Oz?! Aw, well. We're still making reversible paintings. Humph.
Kindergarten Wednesday: We had an invasion of the littles on Wednesday. I had two 45 minute classes of the just-turned-five-10-minutes-ago set and they were amazing! Seriously! We took a tour of the art room, learned the Word of the Day (deets to come), found that we are artists and that we were gonna create a sculpture! What I love about these little guys is their enthusiasm. It's like pure joy. I wish I could bottle it. Like, seriously, sometimes, I wish I COULD bottle it and put a cork in it but on this day, it was precious. sweater: thrifted; heart top: Target, last season; skirt and shoes: Anthropologie
Every the kids heard the word of the day, which was artist, we all gave a "whoop-whoop!". We took a ride on the art train, chugged around the room admiring everyone's sculptures and proclaimed each kid to be an artist...after which they received a "whoop-whoop!". Trust me, after 45 minutes of "whoop-whoop!" was I just about whooped out. Er, wiped out. Whatever.
The base for our sculptures were, you guessed it, a dot!
Thursday!: Did I tell y'all that I now have my 3rd and 4th for an hour after YEARS of 30 minutes?! You guys, it was amazing! In one fourth grade class we learned our word of the week, chatted about Kandinsky, played instruments, danced, painted, SPLATTER painted, cleaned up, read a book, played a game. Seriously. Every time I looked at the clock I was like, wait, we have more time! skirt, shoes and top: thrifted
Y'all aren't gonna believe this but I got all sorts of techie this week. Suriously. I showed a couple of Prezis (so fast, fun and easy to create! I use the art gallery template), played music via Pandora (after I complained that my CD player was broken, a 3rd grader said, "um, use your computer!" Duh.) and I made these super fun signs on recitethis.com. Y'all gotta check that out, it's the jam.
Fried-Day: Totes. I ain't used to this 5 days a week biznatch! Time to up the b-vitamin/caffeine/sugary-cereal intake. art supplies blouse: DIY here; pencil-y skirt: DIY here
Oh, well, lookie here. Don't worry, this didn't happen in the art room but in our kitchen on Saturday morning. I had this grand idea that I'd bake banana bread even though 1. I don't bake, I start fires (obviously) and 2. I don't even like banana bread all that much. Especially when it looks like chewed-up-spit-out meatloaf (which meatloaf already looks chewed up and spit out but I digress). When I opened the oven the flames were actually huge. I quickly closed the door and ran for my camera. As I ran by hubs who had this "what's that smell?! why are you running?!" look on his face I told him, "I know you smell smoke but don't worry. It's just breakfast. And the fire is self-contained".
Looks like you'll never have to worry about finding any cooking posts on this hear blog, eh? I'll just stick with the stitchin' and teachin', thank ya vury much. Until next time, get that apron fabric ready, kids! And we'll chat soon.
