Hi, my name is Cassie Stephens and I like to start projects and then wait months, sometimes even years, before I finish them.
Please tell me I'm not alone.
Case in point: this project that my students began on field day last spring. You can read all about it here. You can also check out this video unless you are reading my blog from your phone...in which case you'll need to view this post from your laptop in order to check out the vid. Technology is super cool.
After the kids painted it in the spring, it looked a little rough (sorry, I don't have any photos). I was a little disappointed by the look of it until I realized that all it needed was to be outlined again. That REALLY made the colors pop and cleaned it up nicely.
I went in over my fall break and really enjoyed listening to a podcast and outlining this beast. It took no time at all. And I used my fave new hack of drawing with a Q-tip dipped in ink. It works so well, provides a consistent line and holds quite a bit of ink!
I did use a Sharpie to write the name of our school. I also would STRONGLY recommend using bottles of craft store acrylic for this painting. We initially painted it with tempra and it looked so faded, translucent and chalky.
Like many schools, the front of ours is a little boring in that it has a huge parking lot out front. So I took some liberties by adding our country and state flag, our state flower and a banner with our school district logo.
And now I'm totally hooked on the idea of creating more paint by numbers with the kids for our school!
It was really easy by just snapping a photo of the school and tracing in Procreate. I am thinking that we need a giant canvas of our school mascot next!
Pretty sure this beauty will end up in the front lobby of our school. I cannot wait to see it up! Here's what it looked like the day we started painting it. I'll keep you posted on how it looks once up!
Sometimes I do believe I am my own worst enemy. Despite the fact that the Monochromatic Self-Portrait mural is not up (and by "not up", I mean I've yet to even mount it!), I decided to plan another collaborative piece for the kids. Crazy? Def. Nobody ever said teaching art was for the sane. Y'all might recall that my theme this year is kindness which I believe begins with a love for oneself. After all, you cannot be a loving person without loving Numero Uno, right? And that's what I really love about You Be You by Linda Kranz.
It's a beautifully colorful book (where the fish are actually painted on rocks!). Not only do I love the message and the illustrations but I love that I can (re)introduce my students to the elements of art with this fun lesson. Originally I was only going to do this project with my third grade. However, it was such a hit with them (and such a fast project), I decided to have second (and possibly firsties!) create a fish as well. The more fish the better our collaborative mural, says the crazy art teacher. Here is the instructional video I shared with my students:
Feel free to use it in your art room! My students had idea sheets on their tables that really let them explore a variety of possibilities.
I encouraged them to come up with their own ideas. They are used to having "idea sheets" on their tables for inspiration. And, since there were a lot of directions given, I also provided a review of the steps on the tables as well...
In the video, I used oil pastels because that was all I had on hand at home. However, my school oil pastels are down to stubs so I gave the kids construction paper crayons to use. My third graders whizzed thru their drawing and coloring so fast that I decided to bust out the puffy paint because...PUFFY PAINT RULES.
These took us our entire hour with a little time left over to check out everyone's fish. Next up: painting the large mural that the fish will be placed in! I'll definitely share a follow up post as we work on that in the next week.
By the way, if you are curious about the circles the kids painted on...they were painted by first grade! First grade is wrapping up a dreamcatcher project where they had to use a paper plate (details on THAT project in tomorrow's Art Teacherin' 101 titled WHAT NOT TO TEACH IN THE ART ROOM. Spoiler Alert: it's dream catchers). The first grade painted paper plates and then the center was cut out to make room for their 'catcher. Instead of recycling them, I decided to have the kids use them for this project!
Let's talk about how cute and original these fish are, can we? This boy LOVED that his fish looked just like him, complete with glasses and missing teeth.
And this new student really surprised me with his level of detail. I thought for sure he'd color over all of his lines. I was happy to see that he took the time to color each section. This project served as a great assessment tool.
This project was so fun that I'm thinking of having the kids do a follow-up project that involves them painting their own rock a la Linda Kranz.
By the way, I know I recently shared my I Can board on instagram and had some inquiries...here's a close up. I don't get too specific on my board because I ain't got time for that. I do find it's helpful both for me and the students to have this visual. By the way, the pencil and the notebook came courtesy of the Target Dollar Spot. I just used black acrylic to paint the grade level and puffy paint (again, because PUFFY PAINT RULES!) on the felt notebook paper.
And there you have it, You Be YOU! Stay tuned for our completed mural...and be sure to pop by tomorrow for Art Teacherin' 101.
I did use a Sharpie to write the name of our school. I also would STRONGLY recommend using bottles of craft store acrylic for this painting. We initially painted it with tempra and it looked so faded, translucent and chalky. 
Like many schools, the front of ours is a little boring in that it has a huge parking lot out front. So I took some liberties by adding our country and state flag, our state flower and a banner with our school district logo.
And now I'm totally hooked on the idea of creating more paint by numbers with the kids for our school!
It was really easy by just snapping a photo of the school and tracing in Procreate. I am thinking that we need a giant canvas of our school mascot next!
Pretty sure this beauty will end up in the front lobby of our school. I cannot wait to see it up! Here's what it looked like the day we started painting it. I'll keep you posted on how it looks once up!
