What the Art Teacher Wore #161

Hello, Monday. Let's Do This: So much to do...so little time. Story of my procrastinating life, y'all! I ride the struggle bus everyday and wonder, "just how does the other half live?" Oh, the life of an unorganized hawt mess art teacher. The fun NEVER ends. dress and necklace: made by me! here; sweater: thrifted; belt and crinoline: Amazon; shoes: Marshall's

Oh, y'all. Don't let the smile fool you. It's that wild -n- crazy time o' year: Art Show! Thankfully I am backed with The Best parent volunteer reinforcements. These volunteer mamas of mine show up Every.Single.Day. to mat, frame and hang some of the best masterpieces in Tennessee. My fave part...they are NOT procrastinators like myself and the show is actually ahead of schedule! Like, what the whuuuut? I'll be sure to post pics after I regain consciousness from my post art show coma (art show is May 17th. If you are in the 'hood, consider yourself invited). Not only that, but we've had all sorts of other artsy mayhem going down. Because when it rains, it pours. And beautiful colorful rainbows are the result!

In other news, seeing your #WeCanMakeItMay snaps on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram seriously MAKE.MY.DAY! Thank you so stinkin' much for playing along. If you've not joined, jump in now! Follow me here to find out more.

Second grade ceiling tiles are up, thank you to just one of our fabulous custodians, Mr. Scruggs! Lil known fact: Mr. Scruggs is also our in-house DJ. How many of y'all can boast that? I seriously teach at the best school, y'all. More details about our ceiling tile project here. 

 Tuesday, I Kinda Thought You Were Friday: When you wake up with that feeling, you KNOW it's gonna be a long week! This week actually zipped by...mostly because I just stayed so crazy busy. dress: made by me, here

So our theme for the art show is diner...which is why the kids have made a ton of clay food (if you follow me here, you've seen it all!). When one of my students acted like he was eating his food, I got the idea to snap photos of the kids in The Diner (a mural they have been working on) with their food to use as adverts for the art show. They have had the option of dressing as a customer (themselves), a chef or a server. It's been so fun. I can't wait to share what we've created with their photos!

 Only Clean Spot in the Room Wednesday: Like, seriously. The only reason I took a couple snaps of me standing in random other places is because THE REST OF THE ART ROOM IS TRASHED, Y'ALL. It's all of my own doing. Welllllll, I did have the help of about 400 artists. But, whateves. It's worth it. Although the mess is giving me a bit of an eye-twitch...and I have an exceptionally high tolerance of messes. So that's when you KNOW it's bad! jacket: Gap kids; dress and tights: Target; boots: Frye

 I did manage to escape my art room occasionally to see what the parent volunteers had been up to...look at that first grade display, y'all. It makes my small heart grow ten times it's size with this amazement! Just a lil over a week til the big day. I'll def share all the gory details. In fact, this coming week's Art Teacherin' 101 will be all about who we hang the work on that there deer mesh.

 Paint Splattery Thursday: Because I am COMPLETELY INSANE, I decided that I needed a new ensemble for the art show. AND I decided that the kids should paint it. So I laid down some cold hard cashola for a canvas-esque drop cloth from Walmart (they claimed it was canvas, I beg to differ) and some house paint from Home Depot (BIG shout out to Dave, QT and Ms. Mary for cutting me and my students a great deal for this project. Go to the Home Depot in Franklin, y'all. They are awesome!). For the occasion, I thought I'd wear something which was already pretty painty. This way, when hit with paint-splatter shrapnel, I wouldn't be so sad. dress: painted by moi, here; tights: RIGHT?! Amazon

 Lord. What kind of art-makin' animals have I created?! Notice how I snapped this photo from a VERY safe distance. They had entirely too much fun. Meanwhile, the rest of 'em were in my room "working"...aka going bananaz. It's that time of year! 

Oh, but look at the result. I couldn't resist cutting into the fabric and starting my ensemble this weekend. Looking forward to sharing with y'all soon. 

Friday in the Diner: The kids are nearly finished painting the diner mural...I've had so much fun taking photos of them there! I can't wait to show y'all. I'll be so sad when the art show is over and this comes down. dress: Buffalo Exchange; necklace: Anthro

Read more »

In the Art Room: Art Scouts, Update!

Hello, art teacherin' friends! Thank you SO MUCH for all the Art Scouts love, y'all. We are beyond thrilled that so many of you have signed on to be a Scout that our Tennessee camp is officially SOLD OUT! Because we wanted to share the Scoutin' love, we decided to open up a second Art Scouts Camp in Laura and Ginger's home state of Ohio! Here's more...

That's right. I'm giving Leo a run for that Oscar with my emotional performance, y'all. 

Because of how quickly Scout spots filled in Tennessee, if you are interested in our Ohio camp, might I recommend you act fast. Both camps will be the same, just different scenery. Registering is easy but if you are a visual person like me, you might appreciate this lil step-by-step-to-register process...

We have been having so much fun putting together our badge-earnin' activities for y'all! If you are as excited as we are, you might wanna take a look-see at what our Camp will entail:

So, we hope to see y'all Scouts real soon!

Read more »

In the Art Room: Spring Breakin'/Conventionin'

Hey, friends! Now that the spring breakerin'/art teacher conventionin' dust has settled, I thought I'd share with y'all just what went down in sunny Cali and windy Chicago. I gotta be honest with you tho: I was terrible at documenting both! The lack of photo shooting (and sharing in social media town) was not intentional. I seriously just never seemed to have a moment to bust out my camera/phone! The fun of meeting so many folks, making so many friends and just chatting the night away was all encompassing. And I wouldn't trade that experience for the world!

So what I've got here in this post is a meager offering of images of what was a fabulously good time. I'm actually sharing these pics in reverse order of my adventurin' as we just wrapped up a brief trip to Southern California this past Sunday.

We shopped, hiked and, of course, Disneyland'ed our days away. I could totes live in SoCal if it weren't for the traffic. And the fact that I'd need a mountain of mulah to afford all the amazing restaurants and shops I'd be gettin' myself into. I always feel so happy after a visit to California. I mean, this amazing canyon hike starts in a Ralph's grocery store parking lot. THAT'S HOW MUCH AWESOME THEY HAVE. "Oh, yeah, man. See some canyons get some canned goods. It's how we roll." 

But let's rewind to the previous week when I found myself in the sunny (altho, true to it's name, windy) city of Chicago. The NAEA convention was all that and a bag o' nuts (and by "nuts" I mean Nuts on Clark, y'all. Holy cow! I love the carmel and cheddar mix!). This here photo was taken outside the Lego store during my one afternoon of shopping adventureness. I managed to do some serious damage in the MOMA section of Uniqlo. Y'all should check that out if you've not already. 

So the NAEA conference was held in this enormous and confusing maze of a mammoth called McCormick Place. Y'all. This joint could hold, like, 25 Chuck E. Cheese'es (I have no idea why that is my chosen reference of measurement but 'tis. Mostly cuz I've no idea what the size of a football field is but El Chucko, I do). Need some perspective? Not only could it hold about 5000 plus art teacherin' types but also a C2E2 convention (which is kinda like ComicCon but not. It was explained to me why it's not the same as ComicCon but I fell asleep after the first coupla minutes. I was all, wake me up after the story of Princess Peach, would ya?)

POKEMON! Just now noticed the handy place to hang a badge. #thickneck. #genius.

One of the highlights of my Chicagoland adventures was getting to see my fam. You see, I grew up right outside of Chicago in Joliet. My aunt Judy (who is actually my age...you decipher that fam tree) lives in Chicago and my mom lives in Indiana. We had a great time going out to dinner, staying at mom's seedy dive of a hotel and catching up. My mama even went with me to see the van Gogh exhibit! Along with my three thousand closest friends...

Holy moly, y'all. Who knew folks be so excited to see a bedroom. I wonder if anyone would even pay a dollar to see mine. I can promise you it's not nearly as neat as van Gogh's. 

At the convention, I presented three times which was a thrill. I was ALMOST as excited as my buddy Tracy there in the front row (heeeeey, Tracy!). I presented alongside blogging buddies Phyl and Laura all about, you guessed it, blogging! If you missed out, go here for the deets, y'all. 

I also had the honor and pleasure of presenting with Janine Campbell. We chatted about student legacy projects. Janine actually inspired me way back at the convention in San Diego when she showed one of her legacy projects. Since then, I've been a big fan of big collaborative pieces. She was such a great speaker that I felt like her crazy sidekick. I mean, just look! Does it look as though I am performing an exorcism or what?!

One of the highlights of the convention was getting to lead a hands-on needle felting workshop! Each participant had the opportunity to needle felt an apron (I chose green because the event was held on St. Patty's Day!). Many got a solid start and had a ton of fun. It was like hanging out with 20 of my newest best friends!

After a super brief needle felting intro, each dived right in. All participants had such creative and unique ideas. I loved each one!

 My favorite part was just getting to know each participant. 

 I mean look at that table of colorful awesomeness!

Most folks worked on their aprons but I love that others decided to work on sweaters and even one person even worked on a coat (it looks fab, Lisa. Can't wait to see it finished!).

 I mean. Really? Really. Awesomeness. 

It was such a wonderful experience. I'm so glad to have had the chance to meet so many amazing folk and share what I love the most in the world: ART! (and art teacherin'). 

Read more »

In the Art Room: Printed Cityscape Collages with Third Grade

What you see here is my final installment of printmaking lessons for the firsties thru thirdz. We started our printmaking units many moons ago and we've been having a big time since. You might recall my lil printmaking pep talk here...

You can check out the first graders printmaking lesson here as well as second grade's here. Fourth gradeland is currently in the midst of a collaborative/legacy/sculptural project that meant they were left outta the printmaking loop. I'm hoping to remedy that before the school year ends. I'll be sure to keep y'all posted. Until then, let's talk about these beauts...

 I am so in love with how these printed and collaged cityscapes turned out, y'all! The kids had a blast printmaking...but where really thrilled to see their cities come together. 

Lemme tell you what each kid created:

* After creating their own printing plate (demo'ed in the video below), each child printed a minimum of four prints on colorful copy paper. They were to do two prints in white ink and two in black ink (or the reverse of that, depending on what was available at their table). 

* The following art class, the kids learned about wax resist, warm/cool colors and watercoloring a skyscape. Each student created a warm and cool colored sky (with a sprinkle of salt for added effect!).

* Finally, each kid got back their warm and cool skies along with their prints. They then assembled their printed, painted and collaged landscapes with a layer of cardboard in-between for added depth. This resulted in TWO finished pieces by each student, as you see above!

This was such a fun and successful project for all students. Here's a list of supplies we used:

* Scratch-Art Foam (tho styro plates would work in a pinch...they'd just create a rounded landscape which could be totally amazing!)

* Speedball Printing Ink (or markers and water! Watch that first clip!) 

* ink pens

* colorful copy paper

* watercolor 

* oil pastels for the wax resist

* cardboard

* glue

I hope these videos are useful as I'm too tired to type out the directions (lazy much?). I have found that all kids can be successful with printmaking IF you teach them correctly and IF you are a stickler for proper printmaking techniques. I found that having the kids work in pairs really helped them hold each other accountable, even the littles. 

For example, we learned that you don't need a barren to rub the back of the print, just use a good back massage. No pounding necessary. Unless you wanna take a time-out break (eyebrow-raise, head-tilt, teacher-face).

 Every print pulled was magic. However, not gonna lie, the first prints are usually stinkers. Not enough ink, not enough "massaging" the back of the paper, etc. I told the kids to NEVER throw a way a print. If they didn't like it, they were to figure out what was wrong with it and learn from it. Blurry? Then you moved it accidentally. Can't see your lines? You used too much ink. Faded looking? Not enough ink. That's why we did a million prints. So we'd at least have a handful of successful ones.

In other news, I cannot take any credit for this perspective drawing or that amazing use of letter reversal. This kid's just rockin' it!

 Once all the prints were made and backgrounds painted, the kids were given a 9" X 12" piece of paper. They attached their paintings to the top and were told to CUT OUT their skyscape. Oh, the whining, y'all! "I can't cut out all those small shapes!", "This is gonna take forever!", "My hand is cramping, can you help me?!"

Nope. You do it. 

 And then they did.

I threw the option of adding a rectangle of cardboard between the cities out there. Most kids opted to do it as they loved the depth it added. 

I think if I were to ask them what one of their fave things this year has been, they'd def say printmaking. The magic of it is addictive!

Next up: rolling their printing plates thru the slab roller with clay! I'll keep you posted on how their ceramic cities turn out. Til then, what are some of your fave printing projects, y'all?

Read more »

In the Art Room: First Grade LOVE Prints!

Thank you so much for the positive feedback on the printmaking videos, y'all! I'm so glad you liked them, found them helpful and, most importantly, had tips and tricks of your own to add. I love our great, big, fat hairy art teacherin' sharing-is-caring community! To keep up with more videos, feel free to subscribe here. Today my first grade students wrapped up their printmaking adventure with these LOVE-ly lil Robert Indiana-inspired printed and collaged pieces.

Y'all. It's January. I cannot even believe that I've gotten a Valentines-esque project knocked out already. I know some folks are all, "I don't do holiday themed projects" and I usually go ahead and nod my head but not cuz I agree (honestly, Ima go all Switzerland on that debate and stay neutral)...but cuz I can NEVER get my act together early enough to have anything ready! I mean, 'member that big We Have Heart mural we made last year? Dudes. We, like, started that on Feb 10th. 

But not this time...

CONFESSION: I had no idea what the kids were going to do with the piles of prints they were making...until seeing this piece again recently. And then I was all, yaaaazzzzz! Which, by the way, is the new Eureka! 

It's gotten around the school that the firsties have been printing maniacs in the art room. We spent two 30 minute art classes making at least 4 printed pieces. One day we worked with blue inks and the following, yellow and red. 

I told the kids "at least" because some of them just enjoyed the printing process so much that they wanted to print again and again. It's so magical! Others were well over it after the fourth print on the second day and they moved on to greener, less print-ier, pastures. 

Now, I will say, I hustled today to get the prints to the point that they could be created into these collages. I have jury duty for the next two weeks (can you hear the excitement in my typed voice? Me neither) and I didn't want any UFO's lingering around for me to return to (UFO: Un-Finished Objects). So today I trimmed all the prints at the paper cutter, organized them by kiddo and prepped the LOVE letters...

Normally I wouldn't do that much work on behalf of the kids (and my sanity...right now is the first time I've sat down all day) but, like I said, I don't like me no UFO's. To prep the letters, I made them in such a way that the kids would have minimal amount of cutting (thirty minutes, people. Thirty. Minutes). I wrote the letters in reverse so the kids could cut along those lines...but put the glue on the back (we did a little ditty: The Lines are in Black and That's the Back!). The reason behind this was I didn't want the black lines to show...but clean, crisp white letters.

The kids also had to hustle. They had to lay out their prints and decide upon a good design, glue those down, cut out their letters and glue that as well. We might have been 3 minutes late to P.E. (sorry, ladies!). 

But, oohhhhhh, the results. I mean, is it just me or are these not the most swoon-worthy thing ever? 

(Shhh, don't tell: this is my personal fave). 

And now I can go off on my jury duty adventure knowing that I don't have any UFO's in first grade floating around! Love to hear about your printmaking adventures, y'all!

Read more »