What the Art Teacher Wore #85 and Book Club Contenders!

Welcome Back, Tuesday: So we managed to score an extra day of winter break because of the weather (thank you, Mother Earth, you're a dear!) which pushed back our return to Tuesday. It was a no-kids-all-day-faculty-meeting kind of day in the gym...where the heat had not been on for two weeks. It was definitely a BYOBEBandEC affair (that'd be: Bring Your Own Electric Blanket and Extension Cord...which I totally did). scarf: I forget!; sweater: DIY here; dress: TJMaxx; tights and leg warmers: Target?; boots: Anthro, last year

Hello, ya'll! I hope you all have had a great week. I went back to school for a coupla days this week...which happened to be just the right amount. Too many nights of staying up until the wee hours partyin' (which, around here, means crafting) made it super tough to get up and get moving. One big motivator for me this past week was introducing my first and second grade students to the art of suminagashi (which is Japanese for "floating paint"...or paper marbling). We had big fat slimy fun with that and I can't wait to show you the results.

A week or so ago, I ran the idea of a book club past ya'll and what an enthusiastic response I got! So I spent some time searching for books I thought looked promising and I've put together this list. Some books are about teaching, a couple are about exploring drawing/painting, and a few about creativity. I tried to give you a variety to choose from. I've added a tiny blurb about each book with a link to amazon where you can read the full description. If you are interested in joining the fun, read these descriptions and cast your vote on the right hand side of the screen. You don't have to type in a code or any other silliness to vote. Just pick and click. I'll leave the voting up for a week and then announce the chosen book.

 Once we've chosen the book, then we can read and chat! If you happen to have a blog and you'd like to let others know about our book club, that would be great. I say, the more the merrier, don't you think? 

And then I got ANOTHER idea...if you happen to join the book club AND are attending the NAEA Conference in San Diego (like me, eeee, so excited!), what do you say we have an actually book club meet-up? Details on that to come, just wanted to throw that thought atcha.

Okay, without further a do, here's the Book Club Contenders!

Why Are All The Good Teachers Crazy? by Frank Stepnowski A refreshingly honest look inside the teaching profession, Why Are All the Good Teachers Crazy? is a captivating collection of hilarious stories and unreserved observations from one man’s odyssey in the classroom. 

Teach Like Your Hair's On Fire by Rafe Esquith Perhaps the most famous fifth-grade teacher in America, Rafe Esquith has won numerous awards and even honorary citizenship in the British Empire for his outstandingly successful methods.

Easter Egg Wednesday: I know, I know, I look like the Easter Bunny exploded on me. In January. I can't help it, I need color to deal with all this gray! dress: The Limited; sweater: DIY here; tights: Target; shoes: thrifted

The Artists Way by Julia Cameron  The Artist’s Way is the seminal book on the subject of creativity. An international bestseller, millions of readers have found it to be an invaluable guide to living the artist’s life.

One Drawing a Day by Veronica Lawlor Through 46 daily exercises which make up a complete 6-week course, you will keep your artistic skills sharp and your imaginations fertile by doing One Drawing A Day. Each spread in the book features a beautiful drawing by one of 8 professional illustrators, with a description and comments by the illustrator as well as a companion exercise.

One Watercolor a Day by Veronica Lawlor  Spark new ideas and increase your creativity with One Watercolor a Day. This enchanting art book contains six weeks’ worth of daily watercolor paintings and exercises to help you cultivate your imagination and develop your style.

Thursdayness: I got these amazing bakelite bracelets from my mother-in-law for Christmas. They are my new favorite thing and I wear them all the time. Bakelite is like super duper pricey...and I lose every ebay auction I attempt. So I'm glad to have these lovelies! felted sweater: DIY here; blouse: gift; skirt and tights: Target, old; boots: Anthro; necklace: thrifted

Out of Our Minds by Ken Robinson In this extensively revised and updated version of his bestselling classic, Out of Our Minds, Ken Robinson offers a groundbreaking approach to understanding creativity in education and in business. 

 

Friday, You Got Here Fast!: Thank you for hearing my prayers. By the way, did you notice I wore a felted sweater every day? Yeah, it was kind of my theme...which I've noticed that having a theme makes getting dressed in the morning so much easier. For me, anyways. sweater: DIY here; dress, belt and boots: Anthro; tights: Target; necklace: gift

Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon You don’t need to be a genius, you just need to be yourself. That’s the message from Austin Kleon, a young writer and artist who knows that creativity is everywhere, creativity is for everyone. A manifesto for the digital age, Steal Like an Artist is a guide whose positive message, graphic look and illustrations, exercises, and examples will put readers directly in touch with their artistic side.

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DIY: A Felted, Light-Up Starry Night Dress!

Okay, first of all, lemme just say Thank You! for all of your amazing comments and input on teaching vocabulary. I started jotting down your suggestions and when I was done, I had three pages of incredible ideas. You guys are seriously awesome! For that reason, I've decided to create a follow-up post with a list of all your ideas (along with linky-loos to your blog if you've got one).

Second thang: Looks like ya'll are interested in an Artsy Book Club! I'm so thrilled, I seriously thought that when I suggested it no one would be down. But it looks like I'm in good book-lovin' company. I'm going to do a little homework to find a list of books we might be into and then I'll provide a poll for ya'll to vote. Suggestions are welcome, pretty please and thank you.

Now, without further a do-do, I present to you my Felted, Light-Up Starry Night Dress!

When I decided to create a dress for each of our monthly artists and began brainstorming famous works of art, I knew there would be just now way around Starry Night. And while the other dresses I'd created had been done with applique (with the exception of the Pollock Splatter Paint number), I didn't think that technique would really showcase the brush stroke business van Gogh is famous for. So I settled upon felting the thing.

 Just a lil back history: Vincent van Gogh painted The Starry Night in 1889 from the window of his sanitarian room...this according to the all-knowing wikipedia. However, I'd always heard that he painted the scene out doors while wearing a crown of candles. This info probably came from my all-not-knowing imagination. Regardless, this painting is considered a real turning point in van Gogh's painting style. AND it's rad.

Now, ya'll, I love felting. Way more than applique because it's much easier to control. That being said, this dress took me for-evah! So it's a good thing that I enjoy it so much. But I do believe I'll be giving it a short rest for at least a week. I might have stabbed my fingers a good two or twenty times and need a little bit of a break to heal.

Since I knew making a Starry Night dress was imminent, I'd had my eyes pealed for a navy blue dress during my thrift store jaunts. When I stumbled upon this dress, I knew it was perfect because I could basically use the entire front as a canvas...and it had pockets. I had this crazy notion that this dress was gonna light up (kinda like my Christmas dress) and I knew a pocket to hold the battery pack would be muy importante.

So I began by sketching out the entire thing...in chalk. Which was like the best thing ever because it erased easily and didn't effect the color of my fabric or wool.

And now here's countless photos of (slooow) progress of the dress. Hubs made a sweet little video of me felting but I can't seem to find it. For a more in depth look at how I go about needle felting, check here.

Despite what you see here, you actually don't need a lot of wool roving to needle felt. A little goes a long way. And, if you shop around online a bit, you can find some great retailers who aren't gonna charge you and arm and a leg like those big box craft shops.

You can see it's just a matter of placing the roving and then punching it until the fibers attach to the fabric. This is the first time I ever felted onto a 100% cotton garment. I'm usually working on a sweater. This took a little extra punching but I did get it to stick. By the way, I have a foam cushion under my dress that I punch into. Needle felting tools like the one you see here can be picked up at one of those aforementioned big box craft shops.

We did a lot of car traveling over the holidays. Hubs didn't think I should felt in the car (which is a total bummer because my mother-in-law had hooked me up with a little portable table and everything!). I think he had visions of us getting into an accident and me impaling myself with the needle tool. So I did the gold thread embroidery around the stars during those road trips.

And, after several days, it was as finished as it was gonna get!

Thankfully, I scored a Snow Day today. This meant I could stay up as late as I liked the previous evening...and I worked until the wee hours adding these LED lights.

I scored these for a mere $2 at an after Halloween sale at Big Lots. Notice that it has three settings: On, Flashing and Fading. Fading is my favorite as the stars really appear to twinkle. I think the kids are gonna Freak. Out. when they see this.

To add the lights, I ripped a little hole in the seam of the pocket and threaded the lights through it.

The lights were evenly spaced and there were 20 of 'em. I did have to add a couple of stars to find a place for the lights. To insert the lights into the dress, I cut a small hole in the center of the stars and sewed the light into the hole. I then tacked the wire connecting the dots down in several places on the dress. Fingers crossed these lights never stop working or I'll have a holey, light-less dress on my hands.

And there you have it! By the way, that little red-light clicker I'm holding in my hand isn't the light switch for the dress but the remote for my camera! For Christmas, hubs not only bought me a new camera but he also bought me this attachment that allows me to take pictures with the click of a button. I'm so happy, no more setting the timer for ten seconds only to trip over the cat and fall on my face before the camera snaps. Not that that has ever happened to me, ahem.

Don't forget to suggest an artsy book for the book club is a title comes to mind! Until then, have a great week!

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DIY: Magritte Costume

 I hope your Halloween is a surreal experience! 

An official DIY post about this here get-up is in the very near future...but I'm guessing you now know who our Artist of the Month is!

 I actually wore this on Halloween Eve as it was: A. My day to be evaluated so why not? B. It's Spirit Week at our school, which I love but it was also Pajama Day and I didn't think wearing my pj's would be appropriate for my eval. Because there's just something about smelly sweats and a holey t-shirt that says "unprofessional" in my professional opinion. However, this proved to cause great confusion amongst the wee ones who kept inquiring: "Are those your pajamas?!"

Oh, and a funny side note about my evaluation (I'm in a chatty mood. Can you tell I'm in a chatty mood? Sorry, no one else will talk to me and you look like an easy target): I was observed with a normally chatty class that was creepily well-behaved and quiet. When their teacher came to pick them up, this happened:

Teach: How were they?

Me: Um, amazing! Like, kinda-freaking-me-out good. What did you say to them?!

Teach: Well, I told them that one of the principals would be in your room watching you. When one of the kids asked me if you might get fired if you didn't do a good job, I told them, "Well, that's not my decision to make..."

Bwahaha! It's nice to know the kids like me enough to keep me outta unemployment.

Until I get my official Artist of the Month DIY post together, you can check out my other artists dresses here: the Andy Warhol Soup Can Dress, The Jackson Pollock Splatter Paint Dress and Hokusai's Great Wave Dress.

Oh, and you can now find me on my Facebook page.

Happy Halloween!

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In the Art Room: Viking Ship Collages

Kids come up with the best ideas. You see those rough waves that viking ship is riding? This third grader decided to take her relief-sculpture-collage to the next level when she rolled the tops of her waves around her pencil. Genius, I tell you.

Before I get into the 'splainin' of this lesson, I gotta tell you that it was inspired by one of my fave art teacher blogs, Painted Paper. Laura's blog is so amazing and so inspiring that I'm often left shocked, stunned and just plain astonished by what her students create. And when I'm not picking my jaw up off the floor at her mad teaching skillz, I'm left shaking my fists in the air, jaw clenched, groaning, "Argh! Painted Paper! You did it again!" like some villain whose evil plans are foiled by a superhero. Cuz that's kinda what she is. Seriously.

Not sure if this Viking ship is coming or going but I do love the double-header.

When just-back-from-Norway student teacher Rebecca mentioned wanting to do some Viking-themed art projects we promptly scoured the interwebs for ideas. And that's where we came across Laura's viking ships. We changed ours up a bit for what-works-for-us/what-we-wanna-teach purposes and I thought I'd share the results with you. Rebecca and I are absolutely thrilled with how these turned out and the kids are pretty pumped as well.

These seascape collages took us multiple 1/2 hour art classes so lemme break it down for you. We began with two class of insanely busy painting processes. I blerged in detail about that here.

Day #1: The kids were to select a piece of colorful 12" X 18" construction paper that would be used both as the base of their collage and as their sky. They also collected a piece of 6" X 18" blue construction paper and white paper, as seen below (details of how we go about collecting supplies and general art room routines here). To paint the skies, the kids first sponge painted white paint over the top half of the paper with a large sponge. Using a smaller sponge and colors of the choosing, they added color to their sky. Once complete, students used different shades of blue to create a dry brushed painting on the white paper. Splatter painting was done on the construction paper. It was almost the most insane and fast-paced 1/2 hour ever. Almost.

FYI: The concept of dry brushing is like rocket science to children. Unless they are water color painting. And then it's let's-scrub-those-poor-paint-brush-bristles-until-there's-a-hole-in-my-paper land. Art teachers, amiright?!

Day #2: The day we completed these 12" X 18" babies WAS the most insane day ever. I explained these painting processes in detail here.

(Blogger was being a hater and wouldn't let me write a caption below that photo of Rebecca where I know she's talking about Norway and I know she's painting to not-Norway but, trust me, she's been there and she totally knows where it is...right, Rebecca?!)

Day #3: After all that painting madness, Rebecca shared stories and photos with the kids about her trip. The learned all about the terrain of Norway and the rough waters of the surrounding sea that the Vikings had to cross on their many voyages. From there, the kids watched as Rebecca demonstrated tearing the blue painted papers for the seascape collage. Once the papers were torn, the kids were told to only put glue on the straight line, not the torn one and begin gluing at the horizon line, making their way to the bottom of their paper, creating a pattern of alternated papers as they went.

Day #4: With the seascapes complete, the kids were ready to create their long ships. Rebecca took the kids on a voyage back in time to learn about the Vikings and their ships. She even had them practice their rowing skills on the floor which was awesome. Now, I'm not gonna lie, the kids did use a template for their ships. And I know that might rub some of ya'll the wrong way but with the time constraints I work with, it allows my students to get much more accomplished. Once the boats were cut out, the kids began creating shields for their ships that were unique to their tribe of Vikings.

Day #5: On this day, Rebecca reminded the students about how each clan of Vikings would also have sails that were unique to their tribe. However, the sails usually had stripes. Each student was given a 5" X 6" piece of white paper and shown how to cut a curve on the sides that would make their sails appear three dimensional. The kids used that curve of their sails to draw on their painted papers and create the stripes for their sails. Shapes were added on top of these stripes to make them unique.

When the kids learned that the Vikings hung their shields over the edge of the boat to both protect their boat and save space on the ship, the kids also took to hanging swords and helmets from their ships.

Day #6: On this day, the kids cut out a mast and glued that to the back of their ships. Then they applied a line of glue to the bottom of their boat and placed it under their first set of waves. Work on the shields and sales continued.

Day #7: With the ship and mast glued into place, the kids were ready to attach their sales. To really make them look like they will blowing across the sea, the kids applied a thick line of glue to both the top and bottom horizontal lines of the sail. These were then held in place for about thirty seconds to really get 'em to stick. A little demo on how to create a serpent's head on the ship was given to those that were interested.

So impressed with the design on the sail and the swords on the ship!

The puppy Vikings. Precious.

And there you go! Almost a dozen art classes later and one art project complete. Sigh. Such is the life in the Super-Short-Art-Class. On the bright side, these look totally amazing and my fingers are simply itching to get 'em up on the walls of our school halls. 

Thanks for reading and have an awesome rest of your week!

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What the Art Teacher Wore #73

Trip-Takin' Monday: Since we'll be traveling to Asia this year, I decided to break out my Suitcase Skirt for the occasion. Also because, let's fact it, I've got a lot of baggage. skirt: vintage, etsy; blouse: gift from a friend; belt: Pin Up Girl Clothing; shoes: thrifted Crocs (I know, hard to believe)

What's up in your world, ya'll? Dudes, I've got my feets up and an ice cold...water (sadly) so life here is practically perfect. Today marked the first day for my super student teacher to enter the wild world of art teaching and I couldn't be more excited. Stay tuned for next week's outfit posts that will also feature her groovy looks...just don't tell her about it. She doesn't have a clue that I've been snapping her picture whilst pretending to hold the camera in her direction and mutter, "I wonder what this button does." Silly student teacher.

And speaking of teaching, since seeing me in this get-up, my students have now been learning all about the history behind the kimono. It's quite fascinating so I thought I'd share it with ya'll this week. Until next time, have a fantastic-ish week and I'll talk to you sooner than you'd probably like.

So originally "kimono" was the Japanese word for clothing. Of course now we know it to look a little something like this. This style of kimono came about more than a thousand years ago. Their popularity came into play partly because they are so stinkin easy to stitch up. Known as the straight-line-cut method, it involved simply cutting the fabric in straight lines and stitching them together. This method also meant that the kimono is one-size-fits-all and no tailoring is required.

The Great Wave Tuesday: My students are also learning about ole Hokusai who, apparently, changed his name up to 25 times during his life including a Japanese name that translated to "Old Man Crazy about Drawing". Gotta love an artsy fart with the ability to laugh at his craziness. dress: made by this crazy, DIY here; shoes: Payless

Sadly, it seems that kimono making is a dying art. Hundreds of years ago, thousands of Japanese people were in the kimono making business as it was what was worn daily. Currently only a handful of families craft kimonos with many of those craftsman being elderly. It's sad to think that the art of kimono making is literally a dying one.

First Day O' Kindergarten: This year I have my wee friends for 45 minutes at a time and I'm pretty excited. Once we get past that monkeys-on-crack phase I think we'll be good. Ish. I mean, there is something to be said about teaching a roomful of Crack Monkeys...right? skirt: etsy; top: thrifted; crayon shoes: DIY here; primary colored necklaces: thrifted finds

Traditionally crafted kimonos, from the silk cocoon to the final product involve more than 1000 processes carried out by different craftsmen. Each of these artists learned their crafts from the generations before them...which makes it so sad to think of this art as being lost. At one time, kimonos were worn by every class of people from samurai to aristocrats to the working class. When I was in Japan several years ago, it was rare to see anyone wearing a kimono and the thrift shops were filled with these beautiful robes.

Pencil Me in Thursday: I know, dorkiness abounds. But are you really surprised? pencil skirt: DIY here; top and sweater: Target; shoes: Swedish Hasbeens, Anthropologie sale!

Beautiful, right? Many Japanese are very aware of the change of seasons and love to celebrate it. One way of doing so is to have a kimono that showcases each season. I love this idea and have decided to expand my kimono-wardrobe. Cuz that's just what my overcrowded closet needs.

Friday, Where You Been?!: Kay, not gonna lie, the last two weeks have felt pretty stinkin' long. Which is entirely my fault, too many late nights and early risin's. Would love to say Ima gonna work on that but I just can't make any promises. There's just not enough time in a day, ya'll! skirt: etsy (if you type in "Dorky Art Teacher Clothes", you'd be amazed at what you'd find!); blouse: thrifted; shoes: Payless; palette hair clip: made by me

There are many parts to dressing in traditional Japanese attire beyond the kimono. That giant belt is called an obi which, from the front, you would see has a smaller cord belt wrapped around it called an obi-jime. Those wooden-heeled shoes are called geta and are worn with toe-socks called tabi. And if you look closely, you'll see what looks like another kimono under the ones worn by the ladies above. That's actually a collar called a han'eri. Of course the back of the kimonos is worn low across the neckline to showcase the beauty of the neck.

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