In the Art Room: Sound Effects!

Hey, kids! In lieu of Art Teacherin' 101, I'm hanging out with The Art of Ed this week talking about how I love me some sound effects in the art room. I actually have a slight sound effects addiction (yes, that is a thing and no, I've not been to my last coupla meetings). The Dollar Tree is one of my fave places to find fun stuff like that hand clapper and a service bell, to name a few. Here's more:

So, yeah, funny story about how I acquired the gong: I was at a musical instrument store with Mitch (the hubs) and I remarked how much I dug the gong. I vaguely remember saying, "I need one of these for my art room!" Fast forward to our 10 year wedding present and THIS was gifted to me, "wrapped" with a sheet thrown over it. The kids LOVE this thing! I'll occasionally get the overzealous kid who hits the gong hard, gives us all a fright and has us falling out of our chairs in laughter. For the most part, it's got a great calming effect. Now, if only I could get the kids to remember that it is a GONG not a DONG or a BONG, that would be fabulous (that time my principal walked in and a kid was shouting across the room to the gong-hitter, "HIT THE BONG! IT'S TIME TO HIT THE BONG!" was not my finest hour).

One thing I use multiple times daily is that energy chime. Shameless-husband-plug: these are handmade in Nashville (and signed by the artist) by my husband's company Treeworks Chimes! You can find them for under $12 and you won't regret it. Mine is covered in paint and well-loved. 

I love these little red guy. I've seen these guys at shops like Old Navy, Target and Kolh's...but if you need one in a pinch, there is always this place. I mentioned us playing this during the Smartest Artist which is a favorite wrap-up game for my kids. 

In other news, I'll be apart of The Art of Ed's Winter 2017 conference! I'm sharing my tips and tricks on making fun video content for your art rooms (trust me, it's easier than you think. I can't even open my email but I can make a video...so there's that). Here's a better description of my chat: 

Recording Instructional Videos with Personality and Flair

Creating filmed lessons for your students is a wonderful way to insure that each of your classes receive the same quality instruction every time. But what if you want to take those videos one step beyond instruction and make them fun and entertaining for you students to view? In this presentation, I’ll share with you how to film and edit videos that will have your students learning, laughing and excited to create. You’ll even find out how to rope your coworkers into the art teacherin’ film makin’ mix. AND, action!

Until the end of this month, use the code SAVE10WITHCASSIE to save 10%! With that savings, you can go invest in some fun sound effects, right?

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Field Trip! A Visit with Camilla Spadafino

For the second installment of my Field Trip! series, I was excited to sit down with the amazing artist and art teacher Camilla Spadafino. Long before I ever met Camilla, I had heard all about her: what a wonderfully kind and warm person she is and what an incredibly inspiring teacher. My best friend Mallory put it best: she's the kind of person who makes you feel good just being around her. So y'all can imagine that I was thrilled when she agreed to take part in our Field Trip! 

With this Field Trip! series, I want my time with the artist to feel natural. I also want the artist to feel comfortable so I have been letting them decide on the format. With Bebo, we watched him create one of his fun and funky sculptures. Being a teacher, Camilla suggested walking us through how she created the portraits for her Miss Camilla's Neighborhood Coloring Book. 

In the video, Camilla chats about what initially inspired her portraits. Since then, she's created over 100 portraits of friends and family in her east Nashville neighborhood. What I love about her process are the endless ways they can be used in our art rooms. 

While she was sharing her method, I got the idea that my Gallery of Gratitude project could be updated. Instead of the kids drawing the portraits, we could use Camilla's process, thus making the portraits more realistic and, if on canvas, more permanent. Also, the kids could interview the person to find out their interests and their dreams for the future. How fun would a wall of the faculty and staff of our schools be?! 

I learned so many new tips and tricks by hanging out with Camilla. I love how she talks about working quietly to let the art speak to her and finding magic in what she is creating. I also love when she chats about respecting art supplies. Doesn't she do a fabulous job including vocabulary? The perks of interviewing an art teacher.

I love what she had to say about using certain colors and how that is a form of branding. I had not thought of that! But what a wonderful way for the kids to think more carefully about the colors they use. 

Another idea I had came when Camilla was talking about her pet portraits. This year, my school is reaching out to the local animal shelter and working with them on several projects. I have been trying to come up with a way for my students to create portraits of the adoptable pets. With this method, I can drop by after school, snap photos and have the kids use these. I know they will LOVE this project. 

Having the kids create coloring books of the portraits would be a wonderful fundraiser as well. I'm telling you, when I walked outta Camilla's house, my head was spinning, I had so many ideas. She truly is magical.

 When Mitch came home from work that night, I was so excited to tell him about my experience with Camilla. Every sentence started with, "...and then..." 

Camilla also shared her latest project called Paint the Town by Numbers. I learned so much about the back story behind this new endeavor including how she dreamt up this project and is bringing it to fruition. I'll be certain to share that with you in a follow up blog post and video. She was even kind enough to give me one of her paint by number kits which I enjoyed on Thanksgiving, in between plates of food. 

What a wonderful time I had hanging out with Miss Camilla! I'll be certain to share my video'ed lessons to company my visit here. I often update my YouTube channel before I share here so subscribe to stay tuned! 

Special thanks and a warm hug to Camilla for being so open to an interview and being a lovely host. Have fun, y'all!

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Art Teacherin' 101: Episode 24

Let's face it, we can't always be "on" for each and every kiddo and each and every art class. And that's okay. It's perfectly fine to every now and then be the World's Okayest Art Teacher.

The key is to realize that being an "okay" art teacher is only okay if it's temporary. You can only scoot by at level 3 for so long before you and the kids start to lose interest. That's when you gotta punch that art teacherin' energy level back up to a 10 (okay, let's be honest, a 8.25 will do).

In all seriousness, if you are feeling meh, try not to beat yourself up over it. Just the fact that you are aware of it means you care. If you are experiencing guilt-free meh, then, yeah, you might wanna hang up the apron and call it a day. I remember I used to come home and tell my husband that I felt like I wasn't doing my best, that I was doing a disservice to the art education of my students. He said that even on my worst days, what those kids are getting is better than no art at all. 

So on those days that you are feeling just okay, you might wanna focus on accentuating the positive at both the beginning and end of your art classes. Like I said in the video, I start each class with that little "Hello, my most amazing artists!" call and response. I also love ending it with a little "I love you" send off. It helps to bookend my classes on a happy note even if what happened during our art time was just okay. Listening to this song, a fave of mine, always lifts me outta my okayest funk. Because you ARE awesome, bringing creativity and light to your students!

I hope y'all have a wonderful Thanksgiving! Know that I think you are much better than Okay, but seriously The Best. 

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In the Art Room: Royal First Graders

Brace yourself. You're in for an overload of First Grade Fantastical Cuteness in the form of Royal Self-Portraits!

Like, riiiiiight?! I can't even, y'all. These selfies are so sweet it's like a lollypop dipped in Fruity Pebbles dipped in milk chocolate and covered in sprinkles (guess who has a strong sweet tooth? GUESS). My fab-o first grade artists completed these just in time for me to get them shipped off to Artome for their frames. And I'm so excited for these are totally frame-worthy. 

I don't often repeat projects but when I was dreaming up a self-portrait unit for all of my classes, I knew I wanted to give this lesson another go-round. I did have to alter the lesson quite a bit as the format of the Artome frames is half the size what I usually have my students work. Lemme tell you how we created these bad boys, er, royal dudes and dudettes. 

I'll break the lesson down for y'all...keep in mind that my classes are 30 minutes in length. This project took us about two weeks to complete. On the first day, the kids were given a 9" X 12" sheet of white paper and tasked to paint that paper the color of them. Before doing so, we read this great book:

In the book, a young girl paints portraits of her friends mixing up their unique skin color. The kids were given brown, black, white, red and yellow paint. We chatted about tints, shades and mixing up a variety of flesh tones. The kids painted their sheet of paper their unique skin tone. 

The following day, on that sheet of painted paper, the kids traced a head template in the middle of the paper and added two vertical lines for the neck. This was done independently and in pencil. Once complete, the kids met with me on the floor for a little guided drawing. We chatted about the proportions of the face and facial features. We drew together in oil pastel. When using oil pastel, I always stress to the kids to use black last and never to wipe their paper as it can smear the pastel. That was completed on our second day.

During our third art class, we cut our portraits away from the painted paper and glued it to a new sheet of 9" X 12" paper. We had a nice chat about painting hair: mixing the right color and creating texture. Once the hair was painted, the kids put those on the drying rack and worked on their crowns. For that, we used gold painted papers and crown templates. I had cut pieces of metallic paper (I found some metallic origami paper to be just the thing!) and the kids added jewels to their crown. I did chat with them about symmetry and balance when it came to the placement of the jewels. It's always good to pack as much educational punch into those lessons as we can!

Our fourth day, crowns were attached to heads and clothing was created. For our clothes, the kids were given a rectangle for their shirt and two squares for their sleeves. These were decorated with my favorite florescent oil pastels (really, where have these BEEN all my life?!) and attached at the bottom of the paper. 

Finally came the background! We used Crayola's water soluble oil pastels for that. The kids could use either warm or cool colors for the background before adding water to paint. 

Ta-da! You might have noticed that some of my fancier friends added coffee filters for a ruffly collar to their shirt, sparkly earrings and more jewels. They really had a lot of fun getting all kinds of royal for their selfies. 

Finally, they had to come up with a title for their piece. "Princess Cutie Cute" will forever go down in history as my favorite title for these precious masterpieces. I cannot wait to see them framed and in our Artome art show! Love to hear about your favorite self-portrait projects, y'all!

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In the Art Room: Sandra Silbertzweig Inspired Portraits by Third Grade

A couple of weeks ago, I shared with y'all a video I created for my third graders. The video (seen below) introduced my kids to the colorful work of Sandra Silbertzweig and allowed them to explore creating a colorful and abstract self portrait. This lesson is currently  one of my faves! Check out how stunning these beauties turned out. All of my students are currently creating a wide variety of self portraits for our Artome fundraiser...and I daresay, these just might be my faves. 

For this project, we used:

* 9" X 12" black or dark blue construction paper. I would have loved to make these bigger but that is the size of the Artome frames.

* Black glue or black puffy paint. There are a couple of ways to create black glue. My friend Ginger creates black glue with a mixture of Elmer's All Purpose glue and India Ink. I created mine with a one part mixture of paint to two parts glue. The key is to use Elmer's All Purpose, not the school grade stuff as it's runny. Also, I had some students use black puffy paint which worked great. Another alternative is to use glue on black paper as it dries clear and will leave behind a kind of transparent line that the dark paper can show through. 

* Chalk. I'm a big fan of Koss Brand chalk which can be found on Amazon. It's pricey but GREAT. 

 This project took us two plus art classes to complete. On the first day, we watched the video, learned about Sandra and did a little guided drawing. If you watch the video, you'll see I left the drawing portion open to many levels of drawing alternatives. Once the drawing was complete, the kids traced their lines in glue. From there, if time allowed, we watched a bit more of the video as a kind of sneak peak to the following week. 

The real fun came with the chalk. In the video, I really stress how to use the chalk properly...and we do a whole lot of chatting about analogous colors. I really felt like this lesson was a wonderful exploration of color theory. 

 Here is how each table of four children was set up: a laminated colorwheel that I found online and two bowls of chalk, one warm, the other cold. Students were to use the colorwheel as I did in the video. Many of them took the time to pair up and lay all of their chalk out on the wheel. This way, they could easily see what colors were available to use. I love that they were so into picking the correct colors for this project. 

After the second day, several kids were not finished. This was fine with me...I mean, look at those results! The following art class, as they wrapped up their drawing, we chatted about how their artwork was going to be hung like work in a museum. I had them get a notecard and create a label for their work. On their label, they were to write:

Artists Name
Title
Medium
Process or Description

The information from this card will be used as both an assessment and also info for their Artome paperwork. 

 Once all pieces were complete, I blew off the excess dust and sprayed them liberally with Aqua Net. I did that three times to insure the chalk particles were attached. I'm hoping hey remain as vibrant and colorful when they are framed. 

Because of our small format, I decided to opt out of having the kids add designs to their work. I had a feeling it might have gotten a little muddy if we did. If the pieces had been of larger format, I think that would have worked well. 

I'm so looking forward to this winter art show. All of the kids have been creating beautiful works of art! I'll be sharing the work of my other grades soon. 

Until then, have a bright and colorful weekend!

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In the Art Room: #K12ArtChat Tonight!

 Hey, y'all! I'm so excited to be hosting tonight's Twitter chat with the #K12ArtChat kids. We'll be starting this evening at 8:30pm CST and I do hope you'll join the fun. If you've never joined in on a chat before, hold on to your hats! They are so much fun. Here are some tips for you:

If you've never joined the fun of a Twitter chat, here are a couple of things you should know:

*  To join the chat, simply search #k12artchat in the search bar. Starting at 8:30 pm, you'll see the chatter starting with questions from me. To chat a preview of the questions, just scroll downeth. 

* To add to the conversation, begin your tweet with the hashtag #k12artchat and an A for "answer" and the number of the question you are responding to. For example, "#k12artchat A1: I first discovered my love for art at summer camp!" 

* Know your abbreviations. Because of the limited amount of characters, folks will often respond with abbreviations which can be a little confusing. Just think of it like reading a text and the shortened words will make sense. 

* Hold on to your seats: these chats are often only 45 minutes in length. With a half dozen questions and a bunch of folks responding, it can get VERY busy. My first time joining in on a chat involved me just taking it all in. Relax and enjoy the ride.

Another reason I'm thrilled to host the chat is because I'm one of the keynote speakers for the TAEA conference next week! The theme of the conference is Passion and that's one thing I do love to chat about. While at the conference, I'll be talking about my journey of finding my creative and teaching passions. I'll also be leading a needle felting class of 75 folks AND doing a fun Q & A session. All of those things will go down on Saturday at the conference. I can't wait to meet my Texas friends!

 I love hearing about the passion-seeking journey of others. You can share that and more via Facebook or Twitter. 

It's also not too late to submit any questions you might have for me! I'll do my very best to answer them at the conference. And, if you see me there, please be sure and say hello! I love to chat with fellow crazy art teachers (note: we're ALL crazy!) and you know I'm never shy about taking a selfie. So be sure you snag me and say hello!

Until then, I look forward to chatting with all y'all this evening! See you at 8:30 pm CST. 

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