What the Art Teacher Wore #100 (WHAT?!) and an Art Show Sneak Peak

Monday, Let's Do This: Oh, I was so ready on Monday. I had my To-Do List scrawled in Sharpie on my hand (ever wonder why my hands are mysteriously hidden in my photos? cat's outta the bag) and I was ready to get the Art Show finished up in time for the big night. crayon dress: made by me, DIY here; sweater: Betsy Johnson, picked up at Buffalo Exchange; shoes: BC, super old; palette pin: gift from a friend (thank you, Paul!)

 Ya'll are gonna have to forgive my absence. This past week was our annual art show and I was doin' some serious time at the joint. From framing, to loading and unloading the kiln (up until the actual day of the show, ack!) to finally finishing the mural that'd been on my floor for, gulp, a month (okay, more like two months), the To Do List was seemingly unending. I did end up letting some stuff go (Let it go, let it go; Can't frame one more thing anymore; Let it go, it go; Turn away and slam that art room door) which made it so I could actually leave the school and see that man who lives in my house and eats my chocolate. 

I thought I'd share with ya'll just a teeny tiny sneak peak of our art show. We had a turn out of well over 400 folks (I only know this because they ordered 400 cups of ice cream to pass out for our Ice Cream Social and they ran out half way through the night!). The evening went by in a blink and left me totally pooped...but in a good way. Be warned: many photo-heavy art show posts to come. Oh! And I'm a wee bit behind on sharing art lessons with you but I'll be catching up on those soon (hello, summertime!).

AND, lastly, can ya'll believe this here is my 100th What the Art Teacher Wore post?! I just traveled back in blog time to find my very first weekly outfit post. I didn't have the title nailed down yet (I called it "What NOT to Wear" for the longest time!) but I've completely enjoyed sharing my outfits with you. However, if you have any thoughts or suggestions on this weekly post, I'd love to hear 'em!

Until then, have a great week (it's our last one!) and I'll be back with ya'll soon!

I don't believe I've ever shared this mural that my student teacher, the kids and I created this year! We always make a new one for the front lobby and this one was a mammoth. With a photo of every child in the school, it was a beast to assemble. I'll share with you the details in an upcoming blog post.

Rainy Tuesday: For some reason, the weather this week took a turn for the chilly worst. Temps dropped from the 80's to the 50's which had me propping open that kiln lid and warming my hands. dress: thrifted, vintage; sweater: ebay; boots: Hunger; bows: H & M; belt: from another dress

Just a peak at some a kindergarten display. I've written about most of these lessons: Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus painting and A Unit on Line. I'll be sharing a lesson on those clay butterflies later this week.

Clean Your Room! Wednesday: Gah, up until the day before the art show, those kids were still creating paintings (that I ended up hanging the day of the show! I was like a monster: Must. Hang. EVERYTHING.) That afternoon, I spent hours putting everything away (all my closets currently  look like an episode of Hoarders) and prepping my room for the big day. dress: old, Anthropologie; sweater and shoes: thrifted; tights: Target; bow belt: made by me

My art room used to be the school library. When they remodeled years ago, the wall to wall shelving became wall to wall cabinets. I know, I'm spoiled rotten. Usually my counters are covered in bottles of paint, brushes to be washed, construction paper, you name it. All that got put away and I covered the counter in paper to display clay projects. Extra Panda Paintings, as well as Ice Cream paintings (in honor of the Ice Cream Social) were hung on the cabinets. 

Okay, ya'll. The kids made awesome Asian-inspired clay pieces this year...but my favorite lesson is gonna have to be these ceramic Painted Elephants of India by my fourth grade students. Each one is clever, unique and amazing. Lesson to come.

Art Show Thursday!: Even my toes are excited. My administration is The Very Best. They allow me to get a substitute teacher on this day so I can finish hanging artwork and prepping clay displays. I got this idea from another art teacher years ago...and it's simply genius. It also allowed me time to take our school's superintendent as well as the board members around the show. I think it's crucial to inform everyone of the importance of art education. Job security, people. blouse: garage sale; skirt: etsy; sandals: Target; necklace: The Paper Source

Alright, ya'll. As much as I LOVE murals, I really hate putting them together as it usually involves me crawling around on the floor with a hot glue gun with a tail of two bright orange, extra long extension cords attached. But the end result is worth it, says me. I got the idea to make this mural light up after creating my Starry Night Light Up Dress and based the theme off of this Winter Wonderland Mural the kids created a couple years ago. 

Finally Full-Day Friday!: I seriously cannot believe my school year is this close to being over. I'm very sad I didn't get to cover everything that I would have liked...which leads me to believe that I need to work on my school year planning skillz. It's on my Summertime To Do. sweater: super sale, Anthropologie; picture frame dress: Modcloth; tights: Target; shoes: Fluevog

On Wednesday afternoon, as I was clearing the tables for the art show, I found this graffiti on one of my tables. I have an idea who wrote it...my fourth grade students, whom I'm taught since kindergarten, have been very sentimental these last couple of weeks. I'm going to miss them so much...and I think they are feeling the same.

Another clay project fave of mine are these fourth grade pandas. The student on the left had created a clay umbrella but the weight of it caused it to fall over. Our solution was to add this drink umbrella once it was out of the kiln. These two pandas are just hilarious to me...it's kinda how I imagine hubs and I in just a matter of days. Summertime, here I come!

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What the Art Teacher Wore #65: School's Out!

Field Day Monday: Hence the ugly but functional footwear. The kids had an awesome time running off their final-days-of-school steam. Meanwhile the teachers, armed with squirt bottles, managed to soak anyone within their squirting range. Being unarmed, I got drenched. dress: vintage, altered by me in this Vintage 911 post; belt: Pin Up Girl Clothing; shoes: Crocs

Important Correction: I mistakenly labeled a couple of photos on this post as Lucienne Day. They are in fact photos of the lovely Hannah Asprey! Doesn't she look just like Lucienne? You can see more of Hannah's photos from 2011 of the Robin and Lucienne Day Exhibition here. Thank you, Hannah, for your kind correction!

What you're lookin' at here is someone who doesn't have to go to work for the next two months. Das right, it's my summer vacation! I'm still trying to wrap my brain around it as it seems this break just sneaked up on me. One minute I'm frantically preparing things for the art show and the next, BAM!, it's all over. Not that I'm complaining. I'm ready for some breakage.

 I dunno if you've noticed but I've not shared a real What I Wore post for the last couple of weeks. In the midst of all the end-of-the-school-year craziness, I've not had the time to snap photos or even research artists. When I discovered the fabric designer Lucienne Day I just knew I had to share her work with you. I am in love.

Until next time, I hope you have a fantastic Memorial Day (all of my US friends) and a lovely week. I'll be back soon with another neglected blog series: my DIY! Later.

Textile designer Désirée Lucienne Day with her furniture designer husband Robin Ray. So, am I the last person on the planet to discover the work of this amazing fabric designer? Lucienne Day, who lived a long life from 1917 to 2010, brought bright and optimistic abstract patterns to a sad and broken post-war England. Her fabric was used mostly for the home, particularly her husbands furniture creations. Image from here.

 

 Lucienne Day was inspired by such artists as...can you guess? Miro, definitely. Maybe some Kandinsky? A pinch of Picasso? When asked why she didn't become a painter, she said she was "very interested in modern painting although I didn’t want to be a painter. I put my inspiration from painting into my textiles, partly, because I suppose I was very practical. I still am. I wanted the work I was doing to be seen by people and be used by people. They had been starved of interesting things for their homes in the war years, either textiles or furniture." Images from here and here.

Final Countdown Tuesday: It's so weird at the end of the school year. The kids are beyond ready to be out for the summer. Because my art room was still cleared out for the art show, I just set up art centers around the room for the kids to dabble in. Origami and free draw with my collection of How to Draw books is always a hit. dress and necklaces: thrifted; jacket: Modcloth, old; shoes: Frye, TJMaxx, old

Lucienne Day's stunt double Hannah Asprey of Asprey Vintage Design. Image found here.

 When I grow up and buy a vintage airstream trailer, I shall have the furnishings upholstered in this here fab fabric.

See Ya in the Fall! Wednesday: Saying goodbye to the kids this school year seemed especially hard. I'm gonna miss 'em!  sweater: Betsy Johnson, Buffalo Exchange; dress: Bernie Dexter, ebay; shoes: Target, last summer

Lucienne's fabric, her husband's furniture. These two were like the British answer to Charles and Ray Eames. Love the chair, I'll take two.

Hannah at the 2011 Robin and Lucienne Day exhibition. After doing a little digging, I found that getting your hands on this fabric is pretty tough. There's a website out of the UK that has reproductions of her fabric...for 75 euro a meter. A quick search of etsy found similarly high prices and slim selection. I wish some innovative fabric design team would reproduce an affordable cotton of her work.

Favorite Dress Thursday: If I'm gonna be in a powerpoint-induced too-many-meetings coma, I might as well do it in my new favorite summer dress. That's right, the kids got out on Wednesday but we had to finish off the week with professional development. Which was more like arrested development with our fried brains. sweater: Anthro; dress: vintage, Buffalo Exchange (where I snagged it for a mere 11 smacks!); brooch: vintage, St. Louis; shoes: BC Footwear 

 So Lucienne and her husband Robin were like this magical design couple. In the 1950's their home was considered the height of sophistication. And look, after a day of working together, they're still smiling! If this were a picture of my husband and I after a day's work, the captions would say something like, "I'm going to use this fabric to smother you in your sleep." "Oh, yeah? Well, I've already spiked your coffee with rat poison. Love ya!" Image here.

School's Out for the Summer! Friday: Which makes me feel like dancin'. Even though my dancin' skillz are embarrassing. dress: vintage, Wasteland; shoes: Frye

When not on the road, my airstream trailer will be parked outside of my atomic ranch which you can see a sneak peak of in the above photo. Image here.

 Oh, Lucienne. I'm off in search of your textile terrificness. Image here.

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In the Art Room: The Art Show Part 2

A wall of third grade masterpieces. It makes me so happy to imagine this work now hanging on refrigerators in the artists home.

Well, we've sent those kids packing to embark on their summer adventures. It still seems surreal to me that the end of another school year is here. And it was kinda a hallmark year for me as this was my fifteenth year teaching (and they've not fired me yet, ha!). It's so strange how time does fly. Except that last full day of school when I still had kids in the art room. That was the perfect example of time not flying. Oh no. In fact I do believe it moved backwards.

But it's summer now and I couldn't be more excited...for the new school year! So many parents, students and coworkers have been asking what my theme will be for next year and I'm already brimming with ideas. Of course any thematic ideas from you would be much appreciated. Hubs is convinced I need to go with an "Art in the Future" theme...but my themes are usually a place so I'm not quite sold on that idea. I'd love to hear of some successful themes you've tried as well.

Until then, here's the second installment of our art show! Last week I shared what the halls of the kindergarten through second grade showcased. Today you're lookin' at my amazing third and fourth grade artists. I do hope you enjoy and if you have any questions, please feel free to ask.

I think this might have been one of my favorite new projects this year. You can see the full details of this lesson here.

We had so much fun printing these Eiffel Towers...and maybe a little too much fun with the chalk. Just how we went about this Parisian printing project here.

For every art show, I like to have a photo of the kids working in the art room. I also have them write an autobiography each year which we call the About the Artist sheet. Maybe I'll share that with you in the future. The suitcases with passports in the pocket were created at the start of the school year as a part of our travel theme. You can see the lesson here.

This project was a lot of fun because it was a sneaky way to incorporate literacy into our art...even if it was of the foreign language variety. We all agreed speaking French made us oh so fancy. Silhouette lesson here.

Another favorite project this year was creating gnomes and gnomettes. I've never used toilet paper tubes in art before and this year, we used them in three separate projects: The Hot Air Balloons over Paris, The Totally Tubular Castles and these here Gnomes.

Didn't my awesome parent volunteers do the best job hanging the student artwork? I love the variety in which each class was hung. The trick is to actually get the work to stay on the walls. We've tried it all and here's what works best: Blu Tac and 3M Double Sided Sticky Tape. And even then, I was on Rehang Duty each morning.

This display of fourth grade Pieces of Paris makes them look a little like quilts, don't you think?

One of the questions on the kids' About the Artist sheet is "What is your favorite art activity and why?" For almost every artist, it's either weaving or working with clay. I'm so glad they enjoy weaving as much as I do teaching it. Last summer I created a blog series on teaching weaving with Part One here.

Another view of a fourth grade wall.

Putting those tubes to use: Totally Tubular Castles.

One of my fourth graders sweet dog sculptures. You can check out more of their animal sculptures here.

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In the Art Room: The Art Show Part 1

It seems that when I fell off the DIY wagon it was because it had crashed into the What I Wore wreck. Now that the art show is behind me (huge sigh of relief), I hope to get back to regular blog posts soon. Thanks for hangin' with me! Now here's what I wore at the Art Show: top: Banana Republic, yard sale; skirt: vintage, etsy; wedges: Target, last season; palette hair clip: DIY

Important In-Bold Message: Thank you parent helpers at JES for hanging each and every piece of artwork for the show. The children, their families and the staff have enjoyed seeing their hard work. There wouldn't be an art show without you! My sincerest of thanks.

Last Thursday night, I was able to put another notch on my belt. My Art Show belt that is. If my weak memory serves me correctly, I do believe this is a monumental notch as this was my 10th art show at my current school (I spent previous 5 years teaching at a school in Nashville).  You can see last year's Art Show here and here. Because I took a mountain of photos, I thought I'd share with you the work of my kindergarten through second grade students first. I've written about most of these projects on this here blog, so look out for the link if you are interested in reading more.

Oh! I almost forgot. If you recall from my last post, I mentioned that my students sculpted dogs and cats from clay as apart of their service project. Well, they managed to raise $430 dollars for Happy Tales Humane! Congrats, Awesome Artists!

Our theme this year was Traveling Europe  (we only managed to hit France, Germany and England). At the beginning of the school year, I had each student create a self portrait in either green, blue or yellow and used them to create this map. Full project details here.

Because we were traveling abroad, the students created both suitcases and passports. If you scroll down, you'll see some examples of the suitcases or check out the lesson here. Because we were flying overseas, each class had a plane drawing contest that the kids voted on. The winning drawing was enlarged by the artist on my Elmo while I snapped photos of the kids pretending to be looking out the window of a plane.

This fourth grade plane is a crack up. I do believe it's coming in for a hard landing as many of the passengers appear to be freaking out. Or sleeping. Or getting sick. Gotta love fourth grade.

A wall of kindergarten art. I always snap photos of the artists to go along with their work. Their photos are not shown in this picture. I did not involve my kindergarten artists in our traveling theme. There are so many art basics to cover, that I like to focus on those during their first year of art. You can read more about those lovely abstract paintings here.

These self-portraits as artists were so fun to make. And we got to recycle our "messy mats" into aprons! More here.

Here's a fun weaving lesson that I'll be sharing with you in the next couple of weeks: Woven Fish!

Here's a glance at a first grade class. These guys were included in our travel theme. They also have to write artist autobiographies which are always entertaining to read. You can see more of the German Gnome Project here.

One of my favorite projects this year was the Hot Air Balloons over Paris. Anytime you can include a photo of the child in a work of art, it's a success. Lesson here.

Both my first and second graders created these Royal Self Portraits. Each one is so expressive and a perfect match of the artist himself.

The one on the left looks very much like a doll from It's a Small World. And the one on the right just cracks me up. Lesson details here.

In my art room, I had the clay projects on display. Sadly, the art room became flooded with folks before I got any photos. Here are some of my first grader's clay animal sculptures as chatted about here.

Second grade goodness. This year, I tried out CD weaving with the kids. I loved the lesson and it seemed to take the kids a less amount of time to complete, which was a bonus. My art teacher friend over at the blog Art Matters does an excellent job demonstrating the steps to creating these weavings.

I love the beautifully printed background of this German Cuckoo Clock. Lesson plan here.

These paintings created near the beginning of the school year seem extra exciting to me since my trip to Paris. Geez, I still can't believe I was there! Does that feeling ever go away? Parisian Landscape Lesson here.

My second graders created their animals by putting two pinch pots together and adding legs. Lesson on this in the near future.

Stay tuned for some incredible work by the third and fourth grade students! And, if you have any questions or thought about the projects you see here, I'd love to hear from you. 

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