In the Art Room: Roy G. Biv Decor!

Y'all might recall from previous posts (which I will link the ever-lovin' daylights outta here in a second) that I'm on a bit of a redecorating bender. Of the art room, of course, not my house. My house could really REALLY use some lovin' but, for now, the art room is top priority (let's be honest, it's always top priority...it's where I spend most of my time!). I'm super excited about this latest DIY: my Roy G. Biv Decor! May I get some ooohhhhhs and ahhhhhhhs up in here? Thank you!

I don't know how you get ideas but mine usually come to me slowly...I'll see something inspirational (like these hall passes!) and it's like a song that I can't get outta my head, it stays with me. Then I'll find a purpose or a need for said inspo...like the need for a Roy G. Biv reference in my art room. Suddenly, I'm motivated to crank the project out. Knowing myself, I know that I gotta work fast...before a new inspo/purpose/idea hits and I drop the previous thing like a hot potato. 

Such was the reason I hustled this weekend!

Once I had the idea, I picked up the letters and duct tape from Hobby Lobby. I'd already had a ton of these cheapo paint brushes in my stash so I just set to work painting. That didn't take me long at all.

In an effort to keep things looking like the make sense together in my art room, I added the white "cartoon" lines to both the brushes and the letters. If you follow me on IG then you've seen the stories behind this project (and the rest of my messy art room...you're welcome!). 

 I managed to snap a sad pic before setting to work. My bulletin board frame was falling down and looking pitiful. In fact, just last week, a chain of flags hung in this space...where they'd been hanging for well over 5 years. Dust for days, y'all. 

 I REFUSED to do any sort of measuring...I just eyeballed the whole thing. I tacked the paint brushes and letters up with Blue Dapp just for placement. I was thrilled that those ding dang cinder blocks actually came in handy: I was able to get mostly straight lines by following the blocks. Once all the tape was in place, I used hot glue to adhere the brushes and letters to the wall. 

I know a girl ain't supposed to stand on tables. Don't tell on me, please.

 I love that the duct tape looks like wet paint. I think the kids are going to love it. I know I already do. The photos don't really do it justice...it really makes the room look so happy and bright!

 Now I only have 75% more of my room to tackle! Not to mention a coupla clutter-tastic storage closets. One day at a time, y'all.

Wanna see what else I've made for my art room this year? Here you go!

* My Tints and Shade sign!

* My Color Family Crayons!

* My Color Wheel Brushes!  


I'm so excited to share more! 

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In the Art Room: Art Room Decor

 Well, I'm back at it: picking up more things from the Wooden Thingies You Can Paint aisle and goin' to town. I've painted paddles into paint brushes, a picket fence into a stack of pencils and now this fun Tints and Shade sign! 

The other day, I was at Hobby Lobby and spotted this fun little fence. I picked up two of them and used a coupla coupons to bring the price down a pinch. I wasn't sure what I'd do with them until the idea of creating a value scale of tints and shades came to my mind. 

Over a couple of evenings, I managed to get this bad boy complete. It was very similarly to my Stay Sharp pencils. I will say, mixing up a gradient is no joke, especially when you do it over the course of a couple of days. I did struggle a couple of times getting colors to great an even value scale.

 Once the pencils were complete, I added the lettering and the fine lines. I love using black and white lines to give things a cartoon-y look 

 I was going to go with "value scale" or "gradation" but those aren't words we use a lot in my art room. We do talk a lot about mixing up tints and shades...so this was what I went with!

  Don't be throwin' no shade now, y'all. 

I also had a chance to hang my Color Families display today! I used Command Velcro strips to hang these and my Tints and Shade sign.

Because I want to be able to remove the crayons and use the as teaching tools, I used velcro dots to add them to the crayon boxes. You can see them in the secondary color box. 

 Now I did mention that I purchased two of these wooden thingies...the other will go over the door to the left of my clock. I plan to paint that in a rainbow gradation...but not sure what I'll write on it yet, if anything. I'm really excited about this area of my art room now! I am loving the new look so much...I am slowly working on giving my entire art room a make over! This is an area that the kids see a lot so it gets first priority. I even painted my easel to match some bookcases I recently redid. I'll have to give a complete tour once complete...although who knows when that will be!

 Until then, this will have to be my happy place!

 Thank you for letting me share!

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DIY: Wooden Oar to Paint Brush Decor!

The other day, I was perusing the isles of my local big box craft store with the previous night's Art Teacherin' Book Club on my mind. We were joined by the amazing Barney Saltzberg, author of Beautiful Oops (among 62 other titles!) You can still view his live chat here. He said some things that really stayed with me: "You need to build your imagination muscle. Don't look for ideas, they are already there!" He shared with us that "art finds him" and that he has built his imagination muscle up so much that he can see what most people fail to. 

With those words ringing in my years, I stopped in my tracks when I spotted these oars on the Wooden-Thingies-You-Can-Paint isle (actual isle name). I was like, "Big Box Craft Store, you say Oar, I say Paint Brush Decor!" And marched outta there with a cart full o' oars faster than you can say, "take my fistful of coupons and can I score that teacher discount, please?!"

Now just HOW I was gonna paint them was still yet to be determined. In fact, my first attempt was what I'd like to call shabby sh** (just a step above shabby chic). Then I remembered Lichtenstein's painting Brushstroke. And I was totally inspired. 

So I went the cartoon-style route. It really made the painting process so much easier. Lay down flat areas of color, allow to dry and then add the high- and low-lights using black and white. 

Once I had these bad boys in my cart, I was so excited to see more inspiration in the mundane. Before I knew it, I had my cart full of Wooden-Thingies-You-Can-Paint...but decided to return them to their shelves for another day. One project at a time, right? My hoarders-therapist (aka the hubs) woulda been so proud. 

Now, I will admit, when I got them home, and these oars looked every bit like an oar, I was fearful I wouldn't be able to pull this off. Then I happened to look at the paint brushes I'd been using and realized that they had the long handled look as well. With a little skillful painting, I might be able to transform them. 

My name is Cassie Stephens. I used to suffer from Painting-Dysfunction. Every time I approached a surface for painting, I would convince myself that I would create a complete mess. It was not until I discovered alcohol relaxed and realized that I could always just paint over it, that I was able to paint with ease. Now I have no problem consuming alcohol enjoying the process and painting without worry. It's just a canvas or a Wooden-Thingie-You-Can-Paint, after all! Don't like it? Paint over it!

Blah, blah, blah, here I am doing the boring part of laying down the color. 

By the time I'd finished painting the paint portion of the brush, the handle was dry enough for me to add the white and black accents. They have a British and French accent, by the way, respectively. 

Ta-dah! I am really so stoked about these, y'all don't even know. I'm excited to paint the secondary colors and hang them as a color wheel in my art room...stay tuned!

 Did I mention I was stoked? I'm a little stoked. 

 Now that these guys are finished, I'll have to stroll down that Wooden-Thingies (ahem) isle once more. Thank you, Barney, for the inspiration. See art. Look for it. It's everywhere, y'all! 

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In the Art Room: My Favorite Tool in the Art Room

In lieu of my usual Art Teacherin' 101, I thought I'd share with y'all a wee video I created with The Art of Ed involving one of my favorite tools in the art room: my Time Timer! 

I use this thing like crazy in my art room. I use it to break up my instructional time, keep students accountable and keep me on schedule. You can hear me chat about more ways to use the Timer here:

I even have a small Timer Timer that I use at home! I have a bad habit of wasting time (in second grade, on my report card, my teacher marked me as being a "Poor Time Manager"...I remember asking my mom what that meant and she replied, "You are a lollygagger." I blame my day-dreamy Pisces nature). It helps me not to get tasks completed within a timeframe that I can check at a glance. 

I'm sure a timer on my phone would work as well...but I just love having these big visuals both in my home and my art room. 

Love to hear how y'all keep track of time in your art teacherin' world! 

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In the Art Room: Welcome to Japan!

 So, can you guess where we'll be traveling this year in the art room? If you just guessed "Chexico!" like one of my students today, then, I hate to tell ya this, but you are incorrecto. As they say in Chexico.

However, if you guessed, "We are going to Japanese!" like another student of mine, then, yay! You're getting warmer! We'll be studying the art, culture and people of Asia this year. I decided to go with a Japanese theme for my room decor.

 That being said, I really had no clue just how I was gonna transform these windows into the Land of the Rising Sun. So I uprooted a stash of Hokusai prints (my inspiration for this post) and slowly started knocking it out.

 The kids are always fascinated by the window paintings. My favorite question of all time: "Does the principal know you painted the windows?" My other favorite question comes every year from my custodian buddy who will walk in, stop dead in his tracks and say, "Did you paint that?!" Seriously, every year. When I tell him, "yes!" I always get an "all by yourself?!"

 It took me a couple of hours to wash Paris off my windows and take down all of the art work. Here's what my blank canvas, so to speak, looks like. It's a lovely view but it can be very distracting to the kids when we have wacky weather, friends on the playground or sun shining in our eyes and burning out our retinas.

I began working on this during summer for just a few hours a day. On the morning I came back to this, I absolutely hated it. The colors seemed too bright and garish to me. But I've got a rule about art-making that comes courtesy of Tim Gunn: Make it work.

 At the end of that day, I was getting a little closer to being finished and a little happier with the result. I figured whatever I didn't like I could stick my giant tree in front of. Cuz that's Tim Gunn's other no-as-popular credo: Big a** trees hide big a** mistakes.

 This here's about the time I threw down my brushes, wiped my brow and heard that oh-so-familiar, "Did you paint that?!" And all that was left was adding the tree.

 Now this tree came in at least a half dozen parts from the ever-so-lovely Anthropologie store in downtown Franklin, Tennessee. Wasn't that so super awesome of them to donate it to the art room? I thought so. I had some of my favorite buddies help me put the thing together...and we almost did it. However, my skillz with drillz are seriously lacking. The thing ended up with enough screws sticking out of it that it closely resembled a cactus. When I asked the principal if all the kids had their tetanus shots because, if not, we might have a prob with all those rusty bits sticking out, she kinda freaked a little. I'm not gonna lie. I was woe-is-meing to a wonderful parent at our school who then proceeded to volunteer her awesome husband to come and fix Big Bad Tetanus Tree. And all was happy in Chexico. Er, Japanese. Japan! Whatever.

And while I totally love my Japanese set up, I gotta tell you, I'm gonna miss Paris a bit. In fact, I had one or two students today tell me that they'll miss seeing the hot air balloons and the Eiffel Tower.

 The year before we studied Europe, we covered Egypt. At this time, I was only painting the right bank of windows. Before I went all crazy town and painted the entire ding-dong thing.

Regardless, I'm super stoked for the new school year. This is what I wore today as our introduction to the art room and a tiny glimpse into our year in Asia. Although it appears we might have to have a wee chat about cultural acceptance as I heard this from one of my students today:

"Mrs. Stephens," with a look from head to toe, a sigh and an eye roll, "you look ridiculous. As usual."

Seriously? I get no respect! 

Sayonara, dudes!

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In the Art Room: Actually, Outside the Art Room

Outside of le Cafe Artiste!

 With mere hours before the wee artists return to school, I managed to finish the outside of my art room. Giant sigh of relief. And collapse on the couch. I'm a little concerned about the inside of my art room as I have yet to put supplies out and rules up (gasp!). However, I've always been told it's what's on the outside that counts. Or did they just tell me that because of my crummy personality?

My van Gogh-spiration. The Yellow House (Vincent's house in Arles), 1888

 I am not one of those artsy types that can just have an idea pop into my head and then knock it out with a paint brush and paper. Oh no. I've gotta have something to look at and steal from. Which is where van Gogh stepped in. I sketched his street scene onto brown bulletin board paper with a charcoal stick and then painted over it...with my paint brushes! That's right, I found 'em! They were...sadly...right where I now remember putting them. In the kiln room. Don't ask.

Dunno about you, but when I hang things on the concrete blocks at my school, they don't like to stick. I've tried it all: blue sticky tack, gum, a plethora of tapes, you name it. The best sticky stuff for the job? 3M Double Sided Tape. It's pricey but this should stay up all year.

 From there, blue paper was hung across the top, the street scene was added and I set to work on the entrance. I knew I wanted it to look as though the kids were walking into a cafe so up went the awning and the door decor.

That's supposed to be Paul Cezanne in the open window there. Or George Costanza. Your pick.

This door actually leads to my office. I'm thinking I may have to put some sort of "Closed" sign on the door otherwise I'll have lots of friends stumbling into my messy lair.

When the kids enter my room, here's what they first see. So at least this part of the inside of my room is finished. I'm not showing you the rest...yet.

 So I'm pretty excited, I think it's finally coming together. Now, I just need to revise my rules.

If you recall, they were:

Rule #1: Find Mrs. Stephens paint brushes.

Rule #2: What? Have you found my brushes yet? Then you need to revisit Rule #1, kid.

So everything was done. Finished. Complete. And then I did it. I added a poodle.

 Here's what I'm thinking:

Rule #1: Help Mrs. Stephens off the couch.

(note to self: move couch to school.)

Rule #2: Wait, why am I up? Help Mrs. Stephens back to the couch. She was confused.

Can you tell I'm still borrowing heavily from the Gladys Presley Poodle?

...And that I'm totally on a poodle kick? Thank you, art teacher buddy, for picking up this sweet poochie for me.

In other French-related news, guess who made it to Paris!? I just got this photo, along with many others, from the sweetest young lady who agreed to take on Jes. He's traveled all over Paris. I'll share more of his adventures with you soon. In the mean time, he's packing his bags to England. The kids are going to Flip. Out.

 Thanks for dropping by, friends! Wish me and my students luck for a great day tomorrow (you might wanna throw in an extra penny at the wishing well for the kids...with me as their guide, they're gonna need it!). 

And for all of you teachers out there, my thoughts are with you. Enjoy your days with those sweet kids!

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