What the Art Teachers Wore #76

Paint Palette Tuesday: Okay, when I spied this dress on a random ebay look see, I had to have it. I mean, lookatit! It's got palettes, brushes, tubes of paint -- A SKETCHBOOK.  For the love of all things 1980's and garishly tacky, I outbid some other crazy art teacher and wore it with my palette hairclip. Because, duh, that says Class...Art Class, that is. top: Forever 21; shoes: Shoe Carnival; belt: Pin Up Girl Clothing; necklaces: thrifted

Happy Belated What-the-Art-Teachers-Wore post, ya'll! I've had a super busy, although absolutely wonderful, week at school and off the clock. Rebecca and I have been attempting to collect ourselves after our Painting Processes adventure (which is up next on the blog post agenda...as if there is such a thing) and frantically getting art work on walls for our upcoming Open House Night. Not only that, but I've been spending my evenings teaching teachers how to sew, catching up with buddies over dinner and going to art exhibits. So needless to say, I'm a little tired...but it's a good kind of tired. 

Last Wednesday night, a group of art teachers and I attended a workshop at Cheekwood featuring the light sculptures of British artist Bruce Munro. Now I'm usually kind of an art snob when it comes to installation work but this was uh-mazing. I snapped a ton of photos and thought I'd share them with you. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did. And, if you're local, I do hope you'll make the trip out to Cheekwood.

Until we chat again, have an awesome week!

Did I tell you already about how one of the students said to Rebecca, "I'll see you tomorrow -- I hope you look pretty!" Hilarious. dress: Anthro; sweater: I'm guessing Target...and as for the rest, it's either Anthro or Target for this girl

Cheekwood is located in Nashville and is an absolute treasure. The mansion and the grounds were once owned by the Cheek family. Their legacy now make up the beautiful museum, gardens and educational facility known as Cheekwood. The lights you see in the foreground are apart of Bruce Munro's Light exhibit.

Using ideas from his childhood sketchbooks, Munro creates these amazing dreamlike landscapes using hundreds of miles of optic fiber. The colors of the lights fade and change making them almost hypnotic. Doesn't it kinda look like a brilliantly colored Monet's garden? Cheekwood is only the second museum in the U.S. to host one of his amazing exhibits. That's why you gotta go if you are local!



Pencil Me In Wednesday: 'kay, I'm not much of a maxi-dress wear'er (because I
CONSTANTLY step on the hemline when I squat down and then promptly falling over. It's awesome.) but I had to have this 100% polyester pencil dress. It's super comfy and felt as thought I was wearing my pajamas all day. Like I do on the weekends. dress: ebay; shoes: Target

Could the girl get any cuter? I'm in love with that top from Anthropologie. AND that hair. I. WANT. THAT. HAIR. So if she turns up bald and I just so happen to somehow wind up with a lovely wig of red and blonde...you'll know what happened. She went all Brittany Spears and I bought a wig. DUH. What'd ya think?!

This was one orb of light situated in the Japanese zen garden. I snapped this series of photos to show you how the lights change. One of my first grade students who attended the exhibit said this was his favorite piece. It kinda reminded me of the floating psychic's head at Disney's Haunted Mansion. Anyone know what I'm talkin' about...?

Paint Splat Thursday: More details on my Jackson Pollock-y dress here. shoes: Super Cheap Happy Clearance, Anthropologie

Look at that blue knee: the sign of an art teacher. How we manage to get paint/marker/oil pastel in the strangest of places, only other art teachers know.

This lovely piece was hanging in the Cheek mansion. These are strands of fiber optic with bells attached to the bottom. This gave the fiber optic enough weight to pull it straight. I need this in my foyer. You hear me, Bruce Munro? I mean, you don't wanna actually ship that back to the UK, do you? Just send it my way.

I couldn't get over the beautiful design the bells made.

Crayola Friday: It cracks me up that I can spend hours/days/weeks sewing a dress and the thing that the kids are most curious about? The crayons I hot glued to a hair clip and stuck in my hair...which took all of 5 minutes. Sigh. dress: DIY here

Daw, a girl after my own heart. Rebecca spent the majority of her summer traveling Europe...with much of that time in Norway. Here she is sharing her experience with a rapt audience.

I love that she wore that adorable airplane top since the kids were "flying" to a new place. Top and skirt are both from Anthropologie.

I loved these large changing columns. Apparently Bruce sent his crew of 10 dudes to direct the assemblage of the exhibit while Cheekwood provided their army of volunteers. One volunteer couple told us how these columns where created...

 ...holes were drilled into the tops of soda water bottles and fiber optic was slid inside. This had to be done quickly before soda water gushed everywhere. You can kind of see a soda bottle lid with a bit of fiber optic sticking out of it on the bottom left of the photo. Beautifulness.

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What the Art Teachers Wore #75

Purplish Monday: This photo cracks me up. Partly because we look ridiculous (and this is actually one of the better photos) but mostly cuz I know that after spending a couple more weeks with me,  Rebecca is gonna be striking this pose right before lifting me up and tossing me on the ground, WWE style. I have that effect on people. on me, dress: Anthro, thrifted with $198 price tag still on it, ya'll!; shoes: Fluevog

Happy Loooong Weekend, friends! I do hope your Labor Day was void of any such labor and full of lounging laziness. Mine certainly has been. Shoot, it's already 4:30pm and I'm still in my pajamas. Like a boss.

This past week certainly was a wild and crazy time in the art room. We tried our hand at Painting Processes with the kids (more details to come) which pretty much meant we were finding paint where no paint has gone before. Yes, seriously. To compensate for that crazy, our kindergarten artists were absolutely rockin' it this week...and then the icing on the cake, or rather, the soy sauce on the sushi, was receiving this huge platter of said goodness from one of the fourth grade kids.

I can only hope that this upcoming week is just as awesome.

Oh! And because I'm being super lazy today, I'm simply including snapshots of this week, no featured artists. I know, bad art teacher blogger. I'll try harder next week ('though I wouldn't count on it!).

Until next time, enjoy your 4-day work week! Yay, Labor Day -- you are simply the gift that keeps on giving.

I know, right?! Mouth watering? Sudden hankerin' for sushi? I just happened to have this huge stash of brand new/still in the package restaurant chop sticks for the kids to enjoy their sushi with. The sweet guy whose mother made the sushi gave us a demo on how to break apart and hold our chop sticks. Watching the kids attempt this was quite hilarious. They enjoyed it so much.

Brown Tuesday: Okay, so I'm wearing these fugly Crocs because my feet were Over It. One of my sweet first grade girls walked in and pointed to the high heels I HAD been wearing and said, "Aw, why aren't you wearing THOSE shoes? They are much cuter!" So, of course, I had to do a shoe change! dress: vintage; belt: Pin Up Girl Clothing

Painting Processes! So Rebecca has planned these awesome collage projects for the kids. The first phase was having them create a huge assortment of textured, splattered, sponged and dry brushed papers. We covered the tables, took away the chairs, strapped aprons on 'em and turned 'em lose. Kinda. We attempted control with a train whistle. Pretty sure a taser woulda worked better but the administration looks down on that sort of thing. Softies.

Black and White Wednesday: It's still Color Week in kindergarten which has made getting dressed in the morning So Stinkin' Easy. dress: $20 at Anthro!; sweater and tank: Target; shoes: Crocs

Okay, I love this. Can I have this as a fabric? It's funny, I'm currently creating a somethun-somethun with a very similar motif. I hope to have it completed this evening so I can share it with you this week.

Fave Color Thursday: What you are looking at here are two people who conquered 3 back-to-back 45 minute kindergarten classes WITH NO BATHROOM BREAK and are still standing and smiling. I had my doubts though...especially when I witnessed one sweet VERY allergic-to-peanuts child slathering glue on paper and licking it off. I had to read the label on the bottle to make sure the stuff wasn't made in some sort of peanut-ty factory. dress: vintage, thrifted; belt: made by me; shoes: BC

After completing their line-paper sculptures, kindergarten-town moved onto painting lines. I love the focus of this little dude.

Wear Any Ol' Color, It's Friday, Ya'll!: One of the kids said to Rebecca, "I get to see you tomorrow, I hope you look pretty!" Of course she does, I mean, look at that HAIR! dress: vintage, thrifted and so small it's hardly wearable; belt and shoes: Anthro

Hubs and I have had a super relaxing weekend. We did go one a crazy 8 mile hike (where we saw this sweet little guy) that just about killed me. Which reminded me that I really outta get out more. But next time, I'm taking a Segway.

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DIY: Embossed Ceramicness

So I might be having a little bit of a love affair with pale-sky-aqua blue, faded-rose pink and, well,  pastels in general. Proof of such here and here.

Sometimes when people are inclined to talk to me (which I don't recommend to the easily offended, annoyed or grossed out by stories involving pants wetting accidents and pee puddles [which, btw, is up next on this blog post menu]), they ask me stuff. Stuff that leads me to believe that they must read my blog and assume the following:

1. That I make stuff all the freaking time.

2.  That I also dress like a moron all the freaking time.

One of these things is as false as Miley Cyrus virginity rumors. Can you guess which?

If you guessed the first then, ding-ding-ding!, you are correct! Congratulations! You win absolutely nothing but my utter respect at your guessing skillz. Really. I mean, you should consider joining the circus and being one of those weight-guessing people. I hear the pay is incredible. 

Which means the crazy notion that I'm a making-stuff-maniac is totes false, ya'll. Truth be told, I spend entirely too much of my life online googling things like "dorky art teacher clothes" (can you guess whose mug pops up first? Use those expert guessing skills of yours...) and chatting up long lost buddies on Facebook. Which is what I was doing last night when a class photo from elementary school was posted. Next thing I know, it's past midnight and I've been reminiscing about favorite teachers and crazy classmate antics with people I've not spoken to since the 5th grade. Time well spent for sure. Meanwhile, my sewing projects/unglazed ceramic pieces/half finished paintings of nude leprechauns (just seeing if you were paying attention) are left collecting dust. Das my life for realz, ya'll.

I've also got this terrible habit of starting something and then callin' it quits midway through. Sometimes I return to said DIY -n- Ditch but it's often weeks, nay, months later. Case in point: my Embossed Ceramicness. Last November I attended the annual state art conference in the town of Gatlinburg, Tennessee where the allure of the airbrushed t-shirt never dies. I took a course that involved this pretty sweet process of using your printing block as a ceramic embosser. I began by creating the above masterpiece.

And transferring the design to my linoleum block. This was done by scribbling on the back of my drawing, taping the drawing to my block and then going back over my pencil lines. At this point the carving commenced.

This squirrel-tastic block was carved by my awesome art teacher buddy Mallory. One of the things I love about attending these workshops is you get to hang out with your favorite artsy friends. And you make so many new buddies who do a much better job at commiserating about life in the art room than, well, your hubs. Cuz new art teacher friends don't get that glazed-over "is this gonna be another kid peeing themselves story?!" look like that dude who lives in my house and breathes my air. Nay (yeah, I just used that word twice in one post like a boss), new artsy buddies slap you a high five and commend you for your tales of how you turned lemons into lemonade. Or, rather, puddles of pee into a "Pond, kids! Don't step in the pond because you don't want to get wet!" (this actually happened...which was met with a "Yeah, cuz that pond is PEE!" by a dear kindergartener).

One friend I made at an art conference years ago has since become a dear friend of mine. Her name is Debbie and she carved this block which I'm thrilled to say I have a ceramic copy of. I can't wait to get it glazed and out for Halloween. I'll be sure to share it with you soonish.

Okay, where was I? Ah, yes, the carved block. Is it any wonder I don't finish much? I can't even stay focused on one lil blog post! Once the carving was finished, a slab of clay was placed over it. That was either rolled out or run through a slab roller. From there we had the option of turning our embossed piece into a vase, a mug or a slab. I did a little of each.

And that was way the flip back in November. It wasn't until recently that I busted out the glaze and forced myself to finish these pieces. The completed slab in the top photo was mounted onto a wooden flower box.

While these lovelies have found their home at my front door. Finally. After months of hanging out in the Land of Forgotten DIY's, they are now complete. Who woulda ever guessed I'd get 'em done?! Well, you, of course. What with your intuitive guessing skills and all.

Until next time, friends, STAY AWAY FROM YELLOW PUDDLES! 

And have a great holiday weekend.

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DIY: Hokusai's The Great Wave Dress

 'kay, lemme first start by saying that I don't know what in the world kind of crazy blurry lame-o setting I put my camera on but I blame it entirely on these crazy blurry lame-o photos. And the crazy blurry lame-o photographer. Who just so happens to be me. 

That being said, look! I put a great big Hokusai wave on my dress! And take another look! At the entrance to the art room! Be sure to get a good hard look before that evil fun-hater the Fire Marshall comes and has a heart attack at all of the codes I'm breakin'. I mean, did you see the tree? And I've not even given you a complete tour of the place, complete with the hanging lanterns and wax paper umbrellas (tour post coming soon). I mean, seriously. If I don't cause the dude to go into early retirement then I'm just not doin' my job, says me. And my principal. But she says that too me all the time.

 I painted this Great Wave mural over 10 years ago for a bulletin board in my previous school. I can't believe that I actually managed to 1. not lose it; 2. not tear it up; 3. it just feels like there should be a 3 here even though I don't have a third point. I decided to hang it outside my art room because 1. there wasn't any more wall space in my classroom; 2. I was tired of seeing it rolled up and on the floor in my storage closet; 3. again, no third point but 3 was feeling left out.

 I thought the black backdrop would show off the painting a bit more than the cinder blocks. AND I also thought of the look it would put on ole Fun-hatin' Fire Marshall's face and was all, "YES, wall-to-wall paper it 'tis."

 Being the crazy person that I am, I got it in my head that I needed a dress to match our unit on Hokusai's The Great Wave. And wouldn't you know, that very day The Thrift Store Gods smiled on me and put this sweet white Target dress in my hands.

 From blah to Holy Crap, run for your lives, that wave is gonna swallow us whole!

 Just in case you wanna make a Great Wave Dress (and, like, duh, who doesn't?!), here's what I did: I began by laying out my dress and drawing my version of Hokusai's print in the size I thought would work on the dress. On the back of some wrapping paper. Because I didn't have anything else (BTW, if you are expecting a prezzie from me in the near future, be warned, it will be wrapped in a Kroger sack. I'm outta wrapping paper.)

 To create the two tones of blue in the big waves, I appliqued these teal pieces on top of the dark blue.

 I decided to use the white of the dress for the foamy part of the wave. Which meant I only had to create the blue portions of the water.

 Here you can see the white of the dress acting as the negative space. BTW, that's a kneaded eraser in the foreground. Not my chewing gum.

 Once a thousand of the world's most pokey-est of pins were put into place, the stitching commenced. Which, fyi, is no fun party when you are constantly being stabbed by said pokey-est of pins.

Once all the pieces were in place, I added the zigzag types of lines to create the waves and, viola! One Great Wave Dress complete!

Oh! By the way, I totally didn't forget about the giveaway (ha! yes, I did). So, don't you worry. I'll be announcing the winner soonish. Good news for all you slackers, there's still time to throw your name into the ring. Do it! You need crayon fabric in your life. Trust me. It makes a world of a difference (no it doesn't. Drinking does).

Chat soon, ya'll! I'm off to find out just why my photos are so crazy blurry lame-o. And possibly fire my photographer.

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