Shape Castles in Paint, Chalk and Oil Pastel Inspired by Paul Klee and Mary Blair

Recently I shared that my students were doing Shape Stations (or centers) in the art room. I did this after the success of both our Dot Day and Line Study stations. I'm loving the exploration the kids are able to do and the kids are loving it...for the same reasons. Not to mention, it's just FUN to try a whole bunch of new ways to create in just a few art classes. Here's a look at our Shape Stations:

And what we did during our Line Study:

And some behind-the-scenes tips on these stations:

Here is a look at the Dot Day stations that started it all:

And since we did two days worth of fun:

Once we finished creating artwork from our line study (lessons which I've yet to share here!), I ventured into shape. Currently, I'm doing shape stations with 2-4th only as kindergarten and first are in the middle of other projects. I do think that these shape stations would work for k-1st except maybe the radial symmetry design. But it's always worth throwing the idea out there to see what the kids come up with, right?

Here's a little look at what the back table in my art room looked like after I began prepping for our shape study. Initially we were going to do some shape stamps (seen in the upper left hand corner) but after giving that a run through with one class, I decided it was too similar to the sponge stamping. We switched to the bleeding tissue paper shapes in the end. 

Now when I'm working through these station ideas, I also gotta start thinking: what are we gonna do with all of these papers and things we create? Here's a little look at what I've come up with...

First grade is currently working on the self portrait in the upper left hand corner. This is a lesson I've done many times, you can check out the lesson here. As for 2-4th, well...I am currently having them all work on those castles! We will all do printing with our stars...and do some embossing too...but as of right now, we are all learning about Mary Blair. Here's the video I created. 

The kids are enjoying working with chalk and oil pastel. I'm excited to give them another opportunity to really explore a variety of supplies. 

Above is my example and below is a class of I think thrid graders examples. I will say this...stations means the kids will often work quickly and not always at a slow and 'careful' pace. I'm fine with that. However, I did have a small handful of students later decide the wanted to redo theirs, knowing it was not their best work. I allowed that too. 

So far, we've gotten the castles chalked in and now we are ready for the oil pastel. 

Our backgrounds will be our bleeding tissue paper. Since winter is coming, we are turning it into a winter wonderland with snow...and a little bit of sparkle on the frame. Oh...and PUFFY PAINT. Everyone's favorite!

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In the Art Room: It's a Small World Mural

I'm so excited to share the newest addition to the art room: my Mary Blair-inspired It's a Small World Mural! As y'all know, I'm doing a big ole art room flip. I've been changing so many things up in my art room that each time the kiddos come, they spot something new. I got hooked on painting murals when I tackled this beast a month ago: 

I had a bit of paint leftover after cranking out this mural that I started setting designs on another area of my art room. I've had my Art History Wall up for so long...and while I love it, it just never got used. Once my art room was rearranged because of my document cam, that area of my room was never used for instruction. So the Art History Wall just ended up being an abandoned and faded spot that just didn't make me happy anymore. 
Here's the before: 

Full details on this wall here. Here I am tearing it down and prepping the new space:

It was bitter sweet taking this wall down. I loved the idea of it as a resource but feel like this new area (which will be used for extra art supplies and a fibers space) will be much happier with my new mural. I know it makes me super happy each morning to see it!

 I'm not COMPLETELY done yet...the clock is currently the only 3-D element to the wall but I do plan to add more. My dream is to have little doors that open and moving parts...but for now, I'm calling it kinda-sorta done. Done-ish. Done-lite.

 Because the Art History Wall took up so much space, I had a large area of the room that was unusable for storage. I happened to find this bookcase in another room in my school and it fits PERFECTLY! I've had lots of questions on my IG about those containers with the painted faces...those are for my extra marker storage. They are cat litter containers that I painted faces on and store extra markers in by color. In fact, this entire bookcase is my "overflow" of supplies: markers, color pencils, oil pastels. It needs  A LOT of work (more shelves added would be great) but I'm excited about the idea.

I also cannot wait to use this mural to teach shapes! All the geometric shapes with just a few organic. We can talk about Klee, Blair and so much more...I'm so loving this area. Can you tell? Am I goin' on and on about it enough for ya? 

 That clock was a thrift store score...in it's past life, it was a country-fied clock with a rooster painted on it. I'm thinkin' I did alright.

My love of Mary Blair has been goin' strong for a long time. I created this Mary Blair painted bag several years ago. 

For that I stuck pretty closely to the original. For my art room, I was pretty loose. Painting on those cinder blocks is not easy...especially when you want to paint a straight line, ugh! Don't get me started! I didn't use tape, I just drew everything on the wall in a light color of chalk and just went to down. Everything had to get at least two coats (sometimes more) which was super fun (insert eye roll.)

 Several years ago, I had the AMAZING experience of meeting Richard Sherman of the Sherman brothers. He and his brother wrote the theme to It's a Small World as well as the music for Mary Poppins and so many other Disney classics. It was such a joy to meet him, his sweet wife and hear all about his work at Disney.

I was so star struck!

 I'll be sure to keep you posted on what else I add to my mural...as well as this new area of my art room. 

I've already got my Friendly Loom up (needs a little warping) and plan to place all of our fibers supplies in the Mona Lisa cabinet on the left. The rack is one I found at the thrift store and I think it will be great for holding our yarn!

 I've gotten a lot of questions on what kind of paint I used: Behr wall paint. 

 I've also been asked what my admin has to say about me painting my walls and how I went about getting permission. Permission?! What's that?! I just went at it...I live in the South, we ask for forgiveness, not permission. All kidding aside, they love it! Thank goodness. Thank you so much for letting me share!

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DIY: Needle-Felted Decor, Part 1

Might we please have a lil confession time up in here? Cuz I need to unpack some stuff and I don't mean those boxes that have been in my garage since we moved seven years ago (real talk: those boxes ain't never gonna see the light of day, y'all, let's just be honest). 

Confession Numero Uno: Not only am I crummy housekeeper, I'm also pretty sucktastic at that whole decorating thingie too. You can't be good at everything, y'all (hair flip). And I most def have a big fat hairy list of items at which I am no bueno: cooking, cleaning, yard maintenance and, you guessed it, decorating. I mean, I can decorate  an art room like nobody's biznatch but working on our house has me all...

I just can't even. I don't even know where to start. In fact, we've got this one room that normal folk be calling a bonus room which I've dubbed the BOGUS room. It's just one more space for me to not clean and not decorate. I did attempt bedazzling it when we first moved in and painted up these round paintings which have that lovely early-2000's color palette...

AND that's pretty much all I ever did to that room. In fact, every time I wandered into the bonus room with a lil decorating on my mind, I'd take one look around and be all...

Now I know I sound totes ungrateful as many folk don't have a surplus of space. And lately, I've been working on a Super Top Secret Project (details to come!) in which the bonus room has become a great place to stretch out and work. For that reason, I'm really putting my heart into making this space one that I love to come to and work in. And I decided my first order of business was updating those horrible round painting thingies. 

 Now if you've been hanging around this here blog for a hawt minute then you know I love all things Mary Blair. I've created paintings inspired by her, made necklaces, you name it. So I decided I wanted to Mary Blair-ize the bonus room! But I wasn't feeling very certain I wanted to invest a ton o' time into it if I wasn't gonna love it. So I uprooted these white and gold plate/frame thingies I found for cheap at TJMaxx several months ago and decided to create some wee needle felted sketches! The above is what my sewing table looked like before...

And then after. Now imagine that as MY ENTIRE HOUSE and you've pretty much got the picture. Say a lil prayer and light a candle for my hubs, would ya?

After a little bit of playing around, I came up with this! I was super pleased. Y'all know I'm a big fan of needle felting as it's just about the most easiest thing in the world. In fact, I always find myself needle felting to excess in the winter months. Check out last week's DIY! 

 Just a lil closer look. 

I wasn't as in love with this one but I figured, eh, it's just a sketch. I'm sure to change it up quite a bit when I design the larger format circle. 

 I like needle felting on patchworked pieces of fabric. One of my first wall pieces from needle felting was done that way. I like how it adds just another layer to the design. 

Even though I still had one more little needle felted sketch to complete, I decided to dive right in to the making of my first large wall hanging. Mostly cuz I knew I'd have the help of this bad boy...

What you see here is not a sewing machine but something far more magical: a needle felting machine! That's right, y'all, like a rare rainbow farting unicorn, they do exist! The hubs got it for me for Christmas for not too much dinero on el Amazons. 

I love the thing. All I had to do was just tack some of the roving into place and slide it under the half dozen needles on that machine, hit the pedal and let the machine do the stabbing. It isn't great for detail work so I do resort to my trusty Clover needle felting pen for that. 

 But it's fab at blocking in large areas for me and look!

 One down! Only two more to go!

 C'mon, man! How about a lil power of positive thinkerin'?!

Okay, confession numero dos: this is pretty much how I feel. However, I'm determined-ish to follow this through and have at least one room in our house that looks decorated and finished. I'll keep all y'all posted. 

Until then, y'all!

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DIY: Kitty Litter Containers to Pattern-y Planters!

Well, hey there, dirt diggers! Allow me and my black thumb of certain plant death to present to you my latest planter creation: Kitty Litter Containers to Patterny Planters! Please don't ask me to refer to these planters as "up-cycled" because just the mere mention of the word "up-cycled" makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up and my right eye twitch. Maybe it's my severe gag reflex to all things hipster but I just can't sta-hand that word. Tell me I'm not alone, y'all. Surely there's a word that is totes hawt right meow that drives you up the up-cycled wall? I gots to know what it 'tis. While you think on that, I suppose I should return to the blog-tasticness at hand. 

So despite the fact that I'm known in the plant world as a killer of all things lovely and green, I have a habit of giving it a go every single year. Mostly cuz I love painting me some planters. You might recall these flower-y numbers from a coupla years back. 

Or these Day o' the Dead planters I created a couple Halloweenies ago. 

Last weekend, I thought I could use these ole kitty litter containers for some new planters. We have, like, one million of these bad boys cuz my hubs is borderline doomsday preppers and keeps assuring me that we'll need these for water containers when all the hipster zombies start to attack and up-cycle the universe. I stole these from his stash of one million and tossed 'em out into the yard. Cuz I'm classy like that.

Then I went at 'em with my razor blade and removed the tops. I'm tooootally going with a Tiki theme in my art room next year and these are toooootally gonna be up-cycled, er, reused as Tiki mask decor. Although, now that I think about it, they toooootally would make great Tiki bird houses with the openings as the mouth. RIGHT?! I'm like a genius, I know. After those were removed, I drilled holes in the bottom of each planter so the water could drain.

And then I set to painting! I spray painted some of the planters a pencil-y yellow and others a teal-y blue. Once those dried, I busted out some pattern books by my fave retro artists: Alexander Girard, Florence Broadhurst and, of course, Mary Blair. Some of these guys served as inspo while others were copies of patterns created by them. I like to copy the retro-y pattern-y masters, y'all. 

While I don't expect these planters to last beyond the summer (although those floral numbers are several summers old), I did slap a coat of ModPodge on 'em just to preserve them a lil. 

They make me so stinkin' happy everytime I catch a glimpse of them outside my front door. I am completely addicted to patterns, y'all. They rule my universe. 

As for the plants, Ima ask that you "pray for 'em" as they say here in the South. Dear lil baby Jesus, please don't let the Cassie's Black Thumb of Death cast a shadow on this sweet lil flower thang. Amen.

Least you think that I'm gonna keep them on my front steps so no one can visit, I have found a home for each planter in these lil planter thingies near my front door (don't you worry, that one at the bottom is just for show, it has a nice sunny spot elsewheres). Thanks for visiting all y'all up-cyclin' hipsters! 

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