In the Art Room: Finding Your WHY

 Howdy, friends! I've been busily plugging away, getting my art room ready. My students will be here in just three short weeks...which I know sounds like plenty of time. However, I go back in two weeks (and two days, but who's counting? ME, THAT'S WHO) and have decided not to come in at all next week. That leaves just this week to get my room ready...and I decided to only allow myself two days. If you follow me on Instagram, you were able to see my progress. I drank two pots of coffee AND GOT SO MUCH DONE! Proper room tour to come...once I clear the hot mess off my counters (like, did an art supply store bomb go off over there or what?!)

 In case you didn't know, I've got a book club happenin' over on my IG and my FB pages. Every Wednesday evening, I've been going LIVE around 9:15pm CST to chat with y'all about The Wild Card, our current teacherin' read by Hope and Wade King. Recently, in the book, they mentioned finding your WHY...why do you teach? During our chat, we had the idea to each come up with our own WHY (if you don't know it already), put it in kid-friendly terms and make a work of art out of it! Here, lemme 'splain:

Clear as mud?

Easy enough, right?

Sound good? Great! Even if you can't join the fun, be sure and tag me, I'd love to know your WHY! It will surely inspire others. 

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DIY: Ice Cream with Sprinkles Dress

My goal this summer was to stitch up one dress a week. After sewing this beast a couple of weeks ago...I've since changed my lifetime achievement goals. BECAUSE THIS DRESS WAS A MOTHER-LOVIN' BEAST. 

Here, lemme show you why:

 Now look, don't get me wrong. I LOVE this dress and wanna wear it every day and make about a million more in a variety of colors. But.You.All. I cherish the sliver of sanity I like to think I have left. And therefore I will not be making another dress like this for a while. It's gonna be like the Halley's Comet of Dresses that only makes an appearance every 75 years. 

I started with a sketch...where all bad things take form:

And, like, I'm kinda thrilled that my dress actually kinda-sorta looks like my drawing. That NEVER happens! Mostly because my drawing looks bananas but also because I can't sew and 99.9% of the time, I'm just winging it. 

 I decided to go with a 1950's pattern bodice and my trusty Anna Maria Horner circle skirt pattern. Now the 50's pattern did lead me astray as it had me install these horrible, puffy-topped, too-long sleeves that had me lookin' VERY 1980's Working Girl. I mean, I had shoulders for DAYS. I promptly ripped them out and went with a cap sleeve. 

 But the sleeves were the least of my worries. It was THE APPLIQUE. What in the world was I thinking?! I cut out and appliqued no fewer than 29 sprinkles. I think that was how many there were. I dunno. TOO DANG MANY, THAT'S HOW MANY. I'm sorry for shouting but if you had to live thru this, YOU'D.SHOUT.TOO.

 Okay, I thought. Bodice done. Surely the skirt will be easier as it's only too colors.

Well, first of all:
Don't call me Surely. 
AND no. A circle skirt is massive...and appliquing around that alone takes a bit. Add the squiggly line of melting ice cream and you have a project that takes FOR.EVE.RRR.

Insert all the annoyed face emoji's here. 

But once the skirt was complete, I was in the homestretch. Just had to attach the top and bottom, throw in a zipper, toss in a hem and BOOM! Done! 3 hours later...

 Hurray! 

 Lady at the grocery: What are you supposed to be? 
Me (going all existential on her): I don't even know anymore.
Lady at the grocery, shaking her head: No, I mean, are you in a costume? 
Me: No. 

Literally, that's all I had. I was so tired from sewing, I couldn't even give her more than a NAW, LADY. THIS HERE IS MY ENSEMBLE. Now, move, I gotta go figure out what I'm supposed to be!

Now, I say all this because y'all know good and well I'm gonna have to applique me some more dresses...I have them all sketched out and ready to go. Wish me luck! 

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In the Art Room: Paint Tube Sculptures

 So, a while back I shared with y'all that my students were sculpting art supplies. My first graders made pencils, some of my fourth graders made glue bottles, my third graders made crayons, and my second graders made glue sticks and scissors (which I've not blogged about yet! Stay tuned!). Two of my fourth grade classes made tubes of paint. We JUUUUUUST finished them off this week as I totally forgot about them in the middle of us working with clay, sewing our pizza pillows and end-of-the-year/art show madness. So, without further ado, here they are! 

 For this lesson, we used toilet paper tubes as our armature. We wrapped them with Activa's Rigid Wrap and created the paint with Celluclay. Here's the video tutorial I created:

Instead of having the kids paint the words on the tube, which proved to be a touch difficult for me, they came up with their own names and wrote them on a white label. That was then attached to a black strip of paper which I hot glued to their tubes. 

 Once the tubes were created, we did the 100 Color Challenge to come up with our own unique color for our tube. The challenge was apart of my evaluation. You can check out more of that here:

Once the kids had come up with their color, they added that and their own concoction of gray to the tube. 

 Dreaming up the color names was probably the best part!

 With our art show just two weeks away, I'm excited to see all of our art supply sculptures on display. 

 If we'd had the time, I would have loved for these guys to create palettes and paint brush sculptures too...but the school year just isn't long enough for all the fun!

 For our art show, we're going to have quite the mix of 3D displays: art supplies, super heroes and pizzas! I've tried to think of a way to have them all make sense together...but they just don't and that's okay. 

 I also coulda spent an entire year having the kids sculpt art supplies, it was so fun! 

 I cannot wait to share with you how are art show is progressing. I'm sorry I've been spotty here...it's just the busiest time of the year! You know what that's like, right? 

 To seal these projects, they were covered in Extreme Glitter ModPodge...yes, that's a thing. For the bottom, ModPodge was added and then sprinkled with silver fine glitter.

 The kids and I are thrilled with how they turned out! 

 I'm down to just a few more days of art classes with this fourth grade bunch...which makes me sad. I've taught them since kindergarten...I hope they have as fond of memories of me as I have of them! 

 Thanks for letting me share this project with y'all...if you've given it a shot, I'd love to hear about it!

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In the Art Room: More Art Room Decor!

Well, hey there, strangers! It's been a beat since I last chatted with you here. I've been away in Seattle at the art teacherin' conference and took a short hiatus from blogging. BUT now I'm back. You're welcome.

As y'all know, I've been on an Art Room Redecorating Bender since the start of this school year. And I've not slowed down. I realized the other day that I'd crafted and hung a bunch of new things in my room and I'd failed to post 'em here. Of course, I OVERSHARE here...in case you need more crazy in your life. 

 Let's start here, shall we? This is the main entrance/exit to my art room (I also have an exterior door, an office door and a side door. I'm very door-y) and this here is a view from the inside. That fuzzy thing you see thru the window is the Rainbow Wreath that hangs on my door and beyond that is our giant It's Okay to be Different mural. I've long since had this saying on my door but the original was simply hand written on a piece of laminated poster. It was started to look sad and faded. And, while I loved the message, I hated the sign. So I painted a version and it's now on my door. The mermaid was one I found at the Nashville Flea Market (a must go to if you are ever in town...last weekend of every month!). Originally she had a blue tail and blond hair. I was going to hang her in my house but she never seemed to look right anywhere. One night I painted her all rainbow-y and now she loves above my doorway! 

Right next to my Rainbow Mermaid and my door, I hung this chalkboard and my heart sculpture.

 I found this chalkboard on the cheap at my local craft store. I've always wanted a chalkboard but was afraid the kids would wipe off what I had written...so I picked up some chalkboard markers! My plan is to change the sign up every now and then...but my money is on me leaving this up until the end of the year. 

 Every since making this heart, inspired by artist Chris Uphues, I've wanted to hang it up. You can find a complete video tutorial on how to make a heart with wings right here. 

 Now, I know what you are thinking...how are you getting these things to stay on your walls/doors?! Okay, my secret is: Command Velcro Strips. Y'all, they are THE BEST. I use them for nearly everything on my walls and nothing ever falls. I go for the 16 lbs Velcro just to make sure everything stays anchored. 

 This canvas was one that I had previously painted some other nonsense on and decided to paint over it. I added chalkboard paint to the middle so that I could change up the signage. Again, my money is that my lazy butt never gets to it. I hung it one Storage Closet of Horrors #1. My painting was inspired by Rifle Paper Company. 

 You can also find a PDF of my ART sign here, if you'd like! I painted those right before the school year started. 

 K, so I actually HAVE been cleaning out my closets and pitching MOUNTAINS of junk...but I still have so much to do. Being in a space for 12 years AND being a natural born slob/hoarder means you acquire some stuff. One fun find was a huge bin of magnetic letters. I've been leaving messages for the kids above every door. Info on my tints and shades sign can be found here. 

 Speaking of finding stuff...I discovered that I had several of these blank wooden plaques. One night I painted a Matisse-esque background for a SMILE sign. I hung it on the small sliver of wall space that I have left near my Roy G. Biv paintbrush wall. 

 This area of my art room, I call The Store as that's where the kids go to gather their art supplies. You can learn more about Art Teachers in Training here (we no longer use badges but aprons) and more about The Store here. 

 Some seriously sweet artists have gifted me amazing artwork. I want to look at it all the time...so I decided to hang it in a prominate place in my art room. 

 It makes me all kinds of happy. Let me share who made what because each is a seller of their work. The Tennessee sign is from @artroomantics and she can paint any state you like. Chris Uphues, who I mentioned early, sent me the poster of a rainbow from an exhibit of his. Joy makes all kinds of amazing things from customized stationary to my Broken Crayons Still Color sign! My INSANELY motivated buddy Jennifer has been creating a painting EVERY DAY for the last several years...and painted that portrait of me as a super woman. My buddy Stephanie stitched the Small World. 

And my friend Ashley, who is INSANELY talented, made this caricature of me. You can commission her to make one of you too, my buddy Virginia just had one made and it is amazing! 

 One night I slapped some paint on more of those wooden plaque thingies and made this...

One of my favorite books and one of my favorite messages. Right now, it's sitting here but I do think I'll hang it properly soon. As soon as I find some wall space. 

Remember that flea market I told you about? Well, I found this amazing work of art there. The artist sold it to me for $5! I added orange to the frame so that it would pop as the original color matched my walls. 

Also at the flea market, I found these! They actually open and close and I've been using them to talk to the kids about scissor safety. It's pretty hilarious. I did punch them up a bit with some silver and red spray paint. 

I attached them to the wall with some velcro strips so that I can take them down easily. Also new: I spray painted my magazine rack to look like a rainbow! That was gifted to me when another teacher moved away. Not sure what they'll hold. Also, I spray painted my storage bins by grade level...just need to get the teacher names on them. The big clipboard was a thrift store find. My idea is that it can be a drawing center for my early finishers. 

Whew! So, that's all that's new. Thank you for letting me share a tour!

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