Hello, Final Summer Monday: Yep, that's right. Come tomorrow, we'll be back to school. Thankfully we've got a couple more days to get our act together before the kids return. Oh, and speaking of kids, tomorrow is Meet-the-Teacher night which is always super fun. And I totally spent the majority of the weekend working on a dress for the occasion. More on that soonish. dress: vintage, DIY-update by me; belt: Pin Up Girl Clothing (I wear this thing TOO MUCH); shoes: thrifted Crocs (that's right, I said Crocs, can you believe it?)
What is up, ya'll? It finally stopped raining here (it's seriously been the rainiest summer ever in Tennessee. And that's great, I can dig it, but my yard looks like a Chia Pet on 'roids. Which sounds way cooler than it looks. Imagine Carrot Top's hair as a yard. Got that in your mind's eye? I told ya it wasn't pretty).
So I was able to tackle said Rainforest Cafe Yard this morning and was almost finished when the neighbor's super-friendly, always-on-the-lamb golden retriever decided to drop by for a "Hey, whatcha doin'? It looks like fun! Can I help? Oh, wait, I gotta pee. On your mailbox. Okay, I'm back! Whatcha doin' now? Before you tell me, can I sniff your privates? Please?! Because that would be awesome. Oh, wait, I gotta pooh. Right where you haven't mowed yet. Be right back!"
And, when he returned, that sweet pup proceeded to drool the slimiest of drool all down my leg. Guh, just the thought still makes me do a little dry heavin'. So I've still got a pinch of yard work to complete. And for that reason, Ima gonna hafta to keep this post a pinch less long-winded than most. You're welcome.
Oh! And I'm including an artist along with my outfits this week! I used to be so good at that and then I, well, went on summer vacay and turned my brain off. I love the work of Hokusai so I thought I'd share it wit ya this week. Enjoy and I'll be back soonish!
The Great Wave off Kanagawa (aka The Wave), circa 1830 - 33, Katsushika Hokusai. So, when I think of Hokusai, I think of The Wave. This work was the first in his series of woodblock prints titled Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji. This work, like most of Hokusai's wood block prints, is an example of Ukiyo-e art. Translated, that means "pictures of the floating world" and in you-and-me terms, that means works of art created between the 17th - 20th centuries with landscape motifs. Or big fat wave motifs. Either one.
Self-Portrait in the Age of an Old Man, Hokusai. Katsushika (best name ever) Hokusai lived from 1760 - 1849. And in that time, he became one of the most outstanding creators of Ukiyo-e with his woodblock prints and paintings. During his lifetime, block printing was a new thing that he obviously took to. Dude created around 30,000 block prints during his lifetime.
My First Handmade Dress Tuesday: I found this forgotten dress in the back of my closet the other day and had to get it out. I sewed it about 5 years ago and it was my first wearable garment. It's actually based off a prairie style skirt. All I did was pull the thing up to cover my lady-bits and add shoulder straps. Without the belt, it's a total tent but that's just between you and me. sweater, yellow necklace: thrifted; shoes: Crocs; hair flower and dress: made by me
South Wind, Clear Sky. Another one of Hokusai's Thirty Six Views of Mount Fuji. This series of prints is really what catapulted Hokusai to fame during his lifetime. He was already well-known in his home country of Japan. But when copies of these prints traveled abroad, his work became widely recognized and appreciated. Among his most famous fans? Vincent van Gogh.
Catching Up with Friends Wednesday: And by "catching up" I mean "putting them to work". Two of my buddies helped me put up that Anthro tree (which seriously has a Little Shop of Horrors feel to it), another took some bottle caps off my hands and then I grabbed dinner with my future student teacher. Who will be put to serious work, muhahaha. I got a car that desperately needs a washin'. dress and sweater: thrifted; belt: H&M; sandals: Chacos
Lilies. I love Hokusai's work but I really got a think for his flowers. Especially this piece. I do believe that blue in the background is my favorite color. I love everything about this work of art.
Back at It Thursday: Our first days back to school involve lots of sitting. So here I am practicing. Sunglasses are excellent at meetings because they hide eye-rolling and sleeping. Now if I could just work on that mouth-hanging-open/snoring part, I'd probably have a lot more people fooled. dress: DIY here
Goten-yama Hill. Again, I love the color palette. Those blues with the pink, my fave.
Fun Friday: I really work at the best school ever. It was our first day back in our school building as a team and it felt so nice to catch up with everyone. We had some long-time staff members chat with us on the history of our school and it was goose-bumpy good. It definitely made me excited (ish) to be back. dress: thrifted; belt: Anthro; shoes: Frye; flower: made by me; necklace: ancient Target
Cranes. Look at how beautiful and perfect those cranes are. And to think they were created with just a few simple brush strokes. Brush paintings really seem to have the idea of "less is more" down, don't you think? It looks so simple yet it takes a lifetime to be able to paint like this.
When writing about her gnomette, this sweet third grade artist said one of her hobbies was taking care of her pets when not working at the animal shelter. So sweet compared to the axe-wielding, sneaky-eyed gnome shown a little later in this post...
Greetings from Gnomeville! Please feel free to pull up a mushroom, make yourself a tiny gnome-sized cup of tea and stay awhile. I've got many a gnome-tastic masterpiece to share with you, so make yourself at gnome, er home.
Despite the awkward placement of the fishing pole, I do love this sneaky-faced fisherman.
You might remember we began our study of Germany and garden gnomes ages ago. I shared a very brief gnome history here and even whipped up a gnome dress for the occasion. Since then, the art room has become over run with these little dudes and I almost can't stand to be alone in the same room with all of them. They are Always Watching.
My collection of gnome books. The one in the foreground proved to be the most kid friendly. While I love Gnomeland, mooning and chest baring gnomes are just the kind of thing that principal lady of mine frowns upon. The kids were fascinated by How to Survive a Garden Gnome Attack. It's important to be prepared.
Wanna make your own gnome-tastic landscape? Here's how we did it:
We started with a 12" X 18" piece of
white paper. After a big fat hairy lesson on color mixing, we painted
layers of color for our sky. This took us two thirty minute sessions.
The next week, we had a chat about Germany's Black Forrest. We learned that it got it's name from the Romans who called it such because the dense coverage of the trees makes the forest very dark. We talked about the textures of the forest while passing around objects from the photo above: wool, turkey feathers, pine needles and a brillo pad to recall how moss might feel.
After that touchy-feely session, we discussed implied texture and how to create them. We spent one class using sponges or brushes to create clouds in our sky. The following class, we sponge painted green papers to imply the texture of moss. Lastly, we painted texture of tree bark on brown papers.
This is actually a grouping of first grade landscapes. They went about their sky differently by simply picking a sky color and adding clouds. They had already studying sky painting here. I'm sharing their work so you can see how the third graders also created their landscape.
To assemble our landscapes, we tore our green painted papers and glued them down. In order to "plant" the trees, I asked the students to only add glue to the straight edge of the ground, not the torn one. This made it so we could tuck trees and mushrooms into the land later.
Another tearing sessions resulted in our trees and branches. The kids tired of the branch making business pretty early as you might be able to tell. The end result looks like some serious pruning happened in the Black Forest. Oh well.
Disco Gnome complete with a ginger afro, funky glasses and a disco ball. The little Sweet and Sassy Gnome on the right is holding a Valentine's heart that reads "kiss me".
When the landscape collage portion was complete, we set those aside for many a day to craft our gnomes. I am on a toilet paper tube project kick (see our hot air balloons here) and that's what came in so hand for the gnome bodies. Most of the kids painted them so that one color was on the top and a different one on the bottom.
While those dried, we began drawing the faces of our gnomes. We did our usual: draw with a pencil, trace with a sharpie, erase peek-a-boo pencil lines and add color, baby, color (don't ask me why, but I always say, "color, baby, color" like I'm Tom Jones or something). Those were cut out and glued to our tubes along with arms, shoes, hands and props.
Not sure if this is a gnomette or a princess waiting for her carriage in the distance. I do know that this artist started quite the trend among the gnomettes by requesting a "fluffy skirt" skirt (gee, I wonder where she got that idea?). My stash of coffee filters came in pretty handy. P.S., how cute is that fan?!
Once the gnomes were complete, the kids cut the tube up the back. Then they folded a small ledge on either side of the tube. This gave the tube a flat surface to better attach to the paper.
Okay, I'm in love with this gnome. Not only is he affectionate ("Kiss the Cook" apron, seriously?) but he's also rather handy in the baked goods department. Cookies and 1$ pies? Don't mind if I do.
Once the gnomes were attached to their landscapes, the kids continued to enhance their scene. Some kids requested to create another gnome from a tube, three boys decided they need tube-cars and, as you can see above, one tube was used as a pie stand. I have a very hard time saying "no" to the kids when they run their genius ideas past me. How can I deny their enthusiasm and creativity? This explains why our projects take for-evah.
The artist who created the work on the left requested a handle for his ax. We used a toothpick. And check out that fishing gnome. This artist even included a reel in the gnomes right hand.
Oh, look, it's Gnomeland's Got Talent. I'm not sure what happened to her back up singers but I'm totally diggin' the tip jar and the boom box. She's ole skool.
This work was created by the artist who affectionately refers to herself as Mini-Mrs. Stephens. She really wanted her gnome to look like the one I had on display. I'd say she did an excellent job. I especially like her addition of the fuzzy slippers.
Can you tell what this gnome is doing? He's leaf-blowing! What my photo didn't capture was the large leaf-blower he's wearing on his back. I love the wind blown leaves.
I have to tell you, I think this might be one of my favorite projects so far this year. The kids just went wild with ideas for their gnomes and they seemed to enjoy every minute. I do hope you've enjoyed your stay chillin' wit my gnomies. Until next time, as the gnome above would say, "Peace out, dudes!"
As you read this, you might be sitting in your decked-out-for-the-holidays living room. Complete with a bedazzled and trimmed tree, wreath on the door, candles flickering in every window and lights strung outside the house.
If you came over to my house, you'd find a couple of pumpkins on my front step, flowers stillblooming in planters (darn petunias just won't die!) and a bedazzled and trimmed pink Christmas tree. It kinda looks like Holiday Goulash. I'd apologize to my neighbors if they were still speaking to me.
Despite all that, what I do have is one completed Christmas dress! And not just any ole completed Christmas dress but one that Lights Up!! That's right, something that rad calls for Unnecessary Capitalization and Multiple Exclamation Points!! Eat That, Grammar Po-Po.
No, that's not my beeper. I upgraded to a cell phone last week. It's my battery pack for my LED lights.
I couldn't resist this vintage reproduction fabric when I found it at my
local fabric shop. I scooped up three yards and decided to go with
another version of the Simplicity pattern I used for my Cuckoo Clock Dress. This time, I went sleeveless for a coupla reasons: one,
if you know me at all, you know I hate putting in sleeves. Like,
hate isn't even a strong enough word. Despise. Detest. De-reallydon'tlike. And,
two, I felt sans sleeves would give this dress a vintage vibe.
But the idea to create a light-up dress
didn't happen until hubs and I took a trip to his fave store in
the whole universe: Big Lots.
Now, my hubs is an Idea Man. He is constantly coming up with new ideas for food trucks (my fave: the Organic Create-Your-Own-Flavor Cotton Candy Cart), clothing, and, of course, musical instruments. I usually know when a Big Idea is coming because his sentences begin with, "Tell me what you think of this..."
And that's what happened when I was wandering the isles of B.L. on Saturday, checking out where all ya'll snagged your Christmas decor. Hubs pointed out the little box of lights and said, "Tell me what yo think of this: You make your Christmas dress light up."
Now, sometimes, hub's big ideas are just too big. But once he explained this one, I began to think it was doable. With his help, it was actually a piece of cake.
You can make any ole dress light up. Here's how you do it:
Sew a 2" hem at the bottom of your dress with a piece of twine that has a long enough tail to hang out of the opening of the hem. Leave about a 6" opening at the center front of your dress, right underneath the pockets.
Seam rip a hole in your pocket.
Feed the end of the LED lights through the hole.
Originally, I was going to sew in two strings of lights but the weight of two battery packs in my pockets didn't seem ideal. Hence the two strands of twine.
Tie the end of the lights to the end of a piece of twine and pull through. I'm making that sound very easy...it was actually a two person job.
Untie string from the lights and close most of the hem opening.
Dress front and back. This dress version of the Simplicity dress actually went by quickly. Skipping those four hour sleeves really helped. Normally I'd need sleeves in December but so far, no. It's been almost 70 degrees for the last coupla days.
This bodice is different than the other dress too in that it doesn't have that inverted V thingie. Thankfully.
So you know, sewing a blue Christmas dress means I had Elvis' Blue Christmas running through my head the entire time. I managed to score this unopened album over Thanksgiving for a mere $3! It's been spinning on my record player since.
And so there you have it! A Blue Christmas Dress. I'm pretty stoked and I can't wait to wear it to school. The kids are always full of questions and curiosity when I wear I dress I've created.
Okay. I'm off to remove my pumpkins, planters and finish the Christmas decoratin' I've started. Because the song goes "I'll have a Blue Christmas..." not "I'll have a Pumpkin on my Porch for Two Months Christmas." Although that does have a certain ring to it...
A collage montage. Brought to you by some hard-workin', Parisian-lovin' second grade artists.
As you know, the kids in my art room have been spending some time in Paris. So you'll have to bear with me as every upcoming project I feature for my "In the Art Room" series, is gonna be something Parisian. You might recall last week was the third graders Printed Paris Project. This week, I present to you the second graders Collage Paris. I'm bringing these to you fresh off the drying rack...be careful, the glue is still wet.
Paris, day and night.
We began this project shortly after completing our suitcase portfolios and our passports. Interested in creating a collaged landscape (it doesn't have to be Parisian, check out our Egyptian version from last year)? It's a whole lotta fun. You'll need the following:
12" X 18" paper
12" X 6" paper
washable tempra paint (I prefer Crayola because the other stuff is junk. Trust me, I've tried it all.)
texture combs
construction paper
glue cups and glue brushes (I gave up on glue bottles long ago. They clog and the kids stab 'em with pencils and scissors. Give them a little cup with glue and a small paint brush and you'll never go back to the bottle. The GLUE bottle, that is.)
We began this project with a lesson on with color and value. The 12" X 18" piece of paper that the kids were given was folded into six sections: three at the top and bottom. On the first day we chatted about creating shades and a gradation. We began right above the middle fold, painting the first section blue and adding a bit of black. Each section above that was to be a darker value.
The following art class, we chatted about tints. Each section below the middle was to be a lighter value of blue. And, viola! A gradated paper.
On our third art class, we learned how to mix green and created a textured piece of paper with our texture comb. Don't have texture combs? You can make them by cutting notches into pieces of cardboard. I did that for years. Then I caved and purchased these plastic doohickeys. And I was like, where have these been all of my life?! I love 'em so much, they tend to make an appearance in just about every one of our art projects.
You know my art classes are 1/2 an hour, right? You've heard me
belly-ache about that before. I'm an expert belly-ache-r, if you didn't
know. So if it seems like my project is broken down into
teeny-tiny bite-sized bits, now you know why.
The following art class, we chatted about collage which is like French for paper and glue. How perfect! The kids were given the choice of having an evening or day time sky by either having the dark value or the light at the top of their paper.. Most opted for the Midnight in Paris vibe. Once that was decided, they were to tear their green paper diagonally, position the torn part on their paper so it created the River Seine and glue down.
After a chat about painting clouds (if they are near the horizon line, they should be small and grow larger in size as they approach the top of the page) and stars/moon (with a glance at Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night for a ring-lit look) and the sun (all I ask is no sunglasses, puh-lease!), the wee artists were permitted to make their masterpiece their own.
After the completion of our collage landscape, we began our study of the famous structures of Paris. After learning the history behind the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe and Notre Dame, we learned how to create them. We chatted about how each was symmetrical and could easily be created with a folded piece of paper. The above and below bulletin boards were on display at the front of the room. This allowed the kids to work on each structure at their own pace.
As we worked on our structures, we kept them safe in an envelope until each was complete.
Do you remember that groovy group of college kids I had hanging in my art room earlier this school year? Well, I've got a new group and one of them created this awesome bulletin board to help introduce symmetry and the famous Parisian structures to the kids.
Of course, no introduction is complete without the help of Jes, our school mascot! A kind French friend snapped these photos of Jes around Paris. Thank you so much, Sophie. This has been a wonderful way to excite the kids about exploring the world.
Gotta love an innovative thinker. One of my students wanted his buildings to "pop out". Recalling our paper collages from kindergarten, he folded feet onto the bottom of his houses and glued it so his structures would stand up. Genius!
Love that crooked row of buildings!
Thanks for joining us on our Collage-Landscape Fantasticness! I hope you enjoyed these masterpieces as much as these artists did creating them. Next up: First Grade Hot Air Balloons over Paris. Stay tuned!
