In the Art Room: LOVE This Sub Plan Collaborative!

As some of y'all might know because I've been talking about it nonstop (I often wonder just how I have acquired so many nice friends that allow me to ramble on and on without complaint. My guess is that they've formed some sort of support group), I've been out of school for several days due to el jury duty-o. You can see what I wore here cuz you know you wanna. Anywho, knowing that I was gonna be out for so long, I knew I'd have to leave some legit sub plans. So I created a couple of videos and was super pleased to see that both the kids and the subs were happy with the result. AND LOOK! Check out what they made whilst I was doin' my civic duty!

This is JUST ONE of the MANY huge banners that the kids created! Each child, kindergarten through fourth, created a quarter of a heart. Students with extra time then worked on making the letters. I was so excited to see them today that I used my planning time to hot glue them into place. To do that, I "borrowed" a roll of bulletin board paper from our work room, unrolled it onto my art room floor and set to work a-gluing. Like I said, this is just one big banner...the kids also created ones with letters that spell out SMILE, HAPPY and PEACE. They'll be going up on a large wall in our school cafeteria. But this one I was so stoked about that I grabbed a couple of teacher friends in the hallway and had them help me slap it up on the wall this afternoon. 

Our inspo for this project came from the artist Romero Britto and the art teacher Jenny K! Jenny has a great drawing sheet that features Britto and his designs. Knowing that I was going to be out several days, I really wanted a project that the kids could work on happily and successfully and be something that could brighten up and spread the good word of LOVE throughout our school!

On the first day I was out, I left this video for my sub to share with the students. I've never done video'ed sub plans before but I gotta tell ya, I'm NEVER going back to paper plans! This was fun and easy for both the sub and kids. And a happy sub is one that spreads the good word. I heard from my admin and teacher buds that both of my subs were thrilled to work in my room. Of course, I took the guess work out of it and made their day cake!

Today was my first day back and it's also my busiest of days. You now how it feels when you've been gone for many days, you feel completely out of the loop! I really felt relieved coming back knowing that my room was going to be in order and that my students would continue this project. Here are my kindergarten friends coloring away.

Many of you asked me about the art stix I refer to in the video. My students have a set of these and they are well loved. They are made by Prisma and are essentially the led of a color pencil. The colors are fantastically vibrant and the kids love using them. 

My younger students, kindergarten through first, created the bottom of the hearts while my older ones did the top. The reason behind this is that my older students have longer art classes and therefore more time to work on the big spaces. The papers the kids used are 12" squares. My sub and I used templates to create the thick line diagonal line that you see as well as the heart hump line (I know there's prolly a better word then heart hump but you knew what I was talking about, didn't you?!).

So that they could spot their part of the heart later, the student's name was written along the edge of their design. 

Once I started laying out the hearts I felt like they needed a little something more. So I flipped some upside down and noticed the diamond negative shape that was created. It was then I got the idea to have the kids create letters for those spaces. That's what this follow up video is all about...

                  

I put the sub in charge of tracing letters and the kids cut them out before decorating them.

This was such a successful sub plan that even though I'm not finished with assembling all of the pieces, I just had to share it with you right away! You know, in case you wanna do something like this for Valentine's Day. It's definitely a no-fuss type of project. Definitely one to consider at the start of the new school year when you want to introduce all of the elements of art and start your year with that WOW! factor. If you are interested in more of my lil videos, you can subscribe to my youtube channel here. 

 

In other fun and exciting news, you can hear my podcast interview with the INCREDIBLE Patty Palmer of Deep Space Sparkle, here! And if you do this lesson, please let me know, I'd love to hear your tips, tricks and see your student's end result!

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In the Art Room: School-Wide Collaborative Series, Our School has Heart, Part II and A Giveaway!

 Hi, kidz! Welcome to the second installment of postings from my school-wide collaborative series (btw, I've decided "school-wide collaborative" is just too much work for my mouth. Hence forth, it will go by it's abbreviated and funner name: scollab. Pronounced skoal-lab, not school-lab. Cuz art class in a school lab is just bound to end in 'splosions and flames. Which actually sounds super funner-er.) In this here post, Ima share with you one of the happiest scollabs we did this year: Our School has Heart Mural!

If this looks vaguely familiar to you, that's because I blerged about the first phase of this project here. This lovely scollab masterpiece hangs happily in the front office of my school. Previously, the front office was referred to as the DMV for it's warm and welcoming wall color (what is that, Sherwin William's "Institution White"? "Padded Room Gray"? "The Last Color I See Before My Date with the Principal Blue"?). It was mentioned that some art might cheer the place up and that's all it took for my ears to prick up. ART?! Did somebody say...art?!

We started this project way back at the start of February so love was in the air. Which explains the smell. I decided that each kiddo was gonna contribute and each grade level would do a little something different. I'll give you the quickie version here but you can visit this post for the full story. 

The kindergarteners were given a paper heart template to trace in black oil pastel. Then they doodled in warm or cool colors and then proceeded to water color the daylights outta that thing in either warm or cool. 

The first graders were given 3" square pieces of felt in whatever color they liked. Then they traced that same hear template in chalk and painted with tempera. Painting on felt is really rad cuz it gives the piece this almost oil painted appearance. If the kids painted the hear with warm colors, they were to reverse that color scheme for the background. Puffy paint was added because why not?! Puffy paint is the jam.

Second grade town created these pipe cleaner hearts that they yarn bombed and bead attacked. I had the pleasure of hot gluing them to the felt of their choosing. 

Third grade thought that Christmas came early when I showed them how to embroider. Every last one of them enjoyed this so much and was able to complete their stitching (and button sewing!) in one hour long class. 

 Needle felting was introduced to my fourth grade students. We really enjoyed this and only had one bleeder (those needle felting tools are both sharp and serrated, y'all. They ain't for sissies). 

As the students completed their work, I started to lay them out on two pieces of foam core. I happened to have two 3' X 6' pieces of foam core to my name because, well, why not? I originally thought of doing a value gradation but rainbow order ended up looking the best. 

Hot gluing over 400 hearts wasn't exactly my idea of a good time. The upside is I no longer have finger prints and the cops will never find me! Take that, coppers! 

Once all the gluing was complete, I took the two boards to the office and my super awesome bookkeeper buddy and my radical rockstar custodian friend hung them up for all to see. 

Don't miss! I'll be presenting on school-wide collaboratives at the AOE conference this summer! 

And now, let's talk GIVEAWAY! Last week's winner is Lil! When asked what her fave collaborative project was, she wrote:

This year my third grader class created large, beautiful, textured and patterned frogs. Then each table created their own scene on huge mural paper. There was an outdoor birthday party, with an airplane toting a birthday wish sign. One group made a water theme park setting with a lazy river - one frog was definitely relaxin' on his tube!! Another group made a nail salon - now who doesn't like a good froggie pedi??! Oh my gosh, the kids absolutely loved working together on such a huge creation. Do you think it was because they got to spread out on the floor to paint and cut and create??!!!!

Congrats, Lil! I hope you enjoy the artsy t-shirts!

Now, I know most of y'all are enjoying your summer days. How 'bout you spend some time creating with a good book? To enter this giveaway, just do the following:

* Tell me what dream scollab you would create with your students. A permanent mural? A tile project? I'd love to hear! Maybe if we start dreaming big now, we'll have the energy to make it happen come this fall!

* Leave your email address in your comments so I can contact you.

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What the Art Teacher Wore #135

Retro-Lovin' Monday: So my time in NOLA may or may not have involved some heavy credit card exercising on Magazine. That street was just full of block after block of shopper's delights. My fave? Trashy Diva (thank you, Annette, for taking me!). I walked right out with this dress and a hat to match! shoes: vintage Fluevogs; fishnets: Target

How are all y'all? If you celebrate Easter, I hope you've had a delightful one. If you're experiencing spring, I hope you've had time to absorb some vitamin D. And if you're anything like me, you waited entirely too long to cut your grass and you've spent your weekend tossing grass clippings into your neighbor's yard (oh! I kid! Ish!). Seriously, y'all. I hope you are fab.

I thought I'd share with ya this week a lil bit of What I Wore and What Went Down in Art Teacherin'ville. It's been a wild week. I taught four awesome kindergarten classes in one day and lived to tell about it; I endured an hour long stint in the pie-in-yo-face booth at the school carnival and I hosted two lovely art teachers from Chicago (hi, Michelle and Pat!). I'm so thankful for the extra day to recoup. 

I'll be back with you this week to share my 10 Exciting Tips to Teaching Vocabulary in the Art Room (brace yourselves, y'all!) as well as a DIY (lawd, I hope.). Until then, I do hope your week is a magical My-Lil-Pony one! 

And just like that, I now have a thing for hats. I've actually had it in my mind to start creating hats to go with my outfits for some time. I'm excited to say that me and a coupla other art teacherin' buddies are taking a hat making class at the end of this month. I'm already dreaming up ideas.

Totally Pencilly Tuesday: With all of our snow days this year (a glorious 10 days that we don't have to make up!), I was able to stitch up so many art teacherin' dresses! The prob? I've not had a chance to wear 'em to school. So this lil number complete with my first bolero made it's debut this week. dress: DIY, details here; turquoise tights: Target; florescent fishnets: Free! I found them in our teacher's lounge! Our local grocery store donates items that don't sell and these were Halloween has-beens; flats: dunno; "artsy" necklace: crafted from Scrabble tiles by my blogger buddy Phyl

So way back in Feb I shared this post with y'all. Every student in my school created a wee lil 3" X 3" heart to be used for a school wide "Our School has Heart!" mural. Unfortunately our mountain of snow days (and my intense case of the lazy-es) prevented me from gluing down all these masterpieces in a timely fashion. This week, I did make some progress and get one portion of the mural complete! It's my goal to finish off the rest on Monday and have it up by the end of the week. So stay tuned, kids!

Gentlemen, Start Your Crayons Wednesday: The temps are getting warmer here in Tennessee and I gotta tell ya, I don't trust 'em. Because every spring I've lived here, it's like clockwork: lovely flower-planting weather then BOOM! a hard flower-freezing night. So I'm still clutching to my sweaters until the bitter mid-April end. needle-felted crayon sweater: DIY, here; dress: Anthro; tights: Target; crayon pumps: DIY here

The week before my spring break was Clay Week (or Cray Week as I dubbed it). Now that we're back, my kindergarteners began the finishing process for their clay birds. We did that whole oil pastel/watered down India ink method and I was super stoked to see the result. This coming week, the kinder-kids will be adding legs to their feathered friends. I'll be sharing a series of clay posts (with video clips!) very soon. 

A Thursday that's my Friday!: Gotta love a short week, y'all. Especially one that involves a full moon, an upcoming holiday AND a school carnival event. I mean, whut are we, nutz?! I do believe if we didn't have Friday off, an "emotionally unstable day" woulda been in order. school supply dress: DIY here; crinoline: Amazon; tights: Target; shoes: Fluevog

The parent volunteers at my school do this school carnival every year and it's simply amazing. I'm very fortunate to teach children whose parents are so involved in their education. As a way to say thanks, I opted to go a full hour in the pie-in-the-face booth. And, as much as I love those parents and their kids, I dunno if I can handle that scandal again. I've had the smell of curdled milk up my nose all weekend long!

A Good Friday for Brunching and Shopping: Ah, a glorious day to catch up with a good friend over brunch and money-spending. I'm proud to say that one trip to Anthropologie involved the purchase of a $9 sweater (like, whuh?!). My fave part of the day was running into so many buddies who were also out enjoying their time off even if we were in the midst of a tornado warning (it's spring in the South...when are we NOT about to get swept away to Oz?). dress: vintage find in NOLA; necklace: Franklin farmer's market; flower hair clip: made by me

I love mail. And I really love getting sweet and thoughtful gifties in the mail. My sweet Aunt Kimmy and Uncle Keith sent these bad boys my way. I love 'em so! I can't wait to wear 'em with this number. 

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In the Art Room: Our School has Heart! Mural Project, Part 1

Okay. So. I started ANOTHER mural project. I got the idea this weekend when I suddenly realized that Valentine's Day was this Saturday and I needed something to wear (other than last year's Catty-Valentine Dress and Poodle-Love Frock. Cuz there's more than just two days in a week, y'all). So I decided that I'd create an artist-themed Valentine's dress (with an emphasis on hearts. Can you guess who my inspo might be? Virtual high five to the winner! I'll share my dress later this week). And whilst I was working on that, I got this Big Fat Hairy Light Bulb Above My Head that everyone in our school should create a heart for what we are dubbing The Johnson Elementary School has Heart mural! Yippie!

There's only one prob. We're already in the middle of our Village of Kindness mural. 

Now, what you might not know about me is that I like to work on, like, twenty things at once. In fact, at home right now, I've got three dresses in the works, a painting and a felted number. I get an idea, I act on it right away before the excitement fades and the motivation is gone. It drives me crazy, having so many projects everywhere and, yet, it's how I live my life. It's also how I run my art room. I ain't braggin'. I'm just sayin'.

More on that in a pinch. For now, lemme show you what every grade level is up to for our mural!

Mural Measurements: 

So for our mural, I'm using these two huge sheets of foam core that were donated to me. They're about 3' X 6'. I went to the school nurse on Monday cuz I heard she was really good at the math. After a lil clicking away on her calculator, she told me that if each of our 366 students created a work of art that was 3.25" we'd have our boards covered. Great, now, what will each create?

First Grade Painted and Puffy Paint Outlined Hearts:

Now I happen to be the owner of a cache of felt. I dunno where I got it from but I have a ton. Because I want this mural to hang for a while, I didn't wanna use fade-tastic construction paper. So I thought for most of the projects, I'd use up that felt. A lovely helper mama and a sweet unsuspecting art education student were promptly put to work on cutting the squares out.

I do want some consistency with our hearts. So, for first grade, they used chalk to trace a heart template (I know you template-haters are having a heart attach. Get it, HEART attach!? Lawd, I shoulda been a comedian). After tracing, they were instructed to use the warm colors for the heart and the cool for the background. Once finished, they outlined their heart in their choice of puffy paint. This took us all of 25 minutes.

Second Grade Yarn-Bombed Hearts:

Because I didn't want this to interrupt our previously scheduled program, I wanted these to only take us 25 minutes. Most managed with a coupla minutes to spare.

After picking out their felt color and pipe cleaner, they folded their pipe cleaner in half. The heart templates were on the tables for them to lay their pipe cleaner on top of and mold around the shape. They created an X in the middle where the two wires overlapped and then twisted. The cool thing about the pipe cleaner is that the kids didn't really have to tie the string on because of the grippy-ness of the 'cleaner. A wee bit of knot-tying was needed but these kids had recently finished Ojo de Dios so knot tying is no biggie for them.  Once finished, I hot glued them to their felt fabric.

Third grade Stitched Hearts:

Now I do see my third and fourth graders for an hour. We jumped right in. These dudes have used my sewing machines before and a couple of them are in my after school sewing club but most are inexperienced. They were thrilled to learn! I started by having them trace the square in chalk and the heart in the Sharpie color they planned to stitch with. After that, they were to hoop their design before returning to the floor for instruction.

There I showed 'em how to thread their needle and start stitching. These guys totally nailed it. I think third grade must be the right age to really start in with stitchin' stuff.

Our tapestry needles were too small to sew the button so we just glued them on. Later, I'll have to trim these guys to add them to the mural. 

Fourth Grade Needle Felting:

Y'all know I loves me some needle felting. I've always been apprehensive to give it a go with the kids because of the razor sharp needles used. So I started the class by saying the following:

"Today we are going to use a dangerous tool [gasps from the girls] because we are dangerous artists [cheers from the boys]. I'm not kidding. There might be blood [pin-drop silence]."

That being said, we only had one bleeder. Which is pretty good if you ask me. I've taught adults before and there's been more casualties. 

Again, we traced. The kids were told they could either use all cold colors for their heart or all warm. And then reverse that for the outside of their hearts. 

We did bust several needles but the results were pretty spectacular.

Kindergarten Watercolor Resist Hearts:

So my kindergarten friends have been painting all year. We are, like, experts. However, this was our first time to venture into watercolor paint town. So I was a little nervous. We talked a lot about the dif between watercolor and tempera. I emphasized that watercolor is translucent, not opaque. 

After tracing their heart template in black, they added designs in oil pastel before using the warm colors to paint. They turned out lovely and the kids loved using a new medium. 

And there you have it. Yet another mural started. It's so funny cuz when my parent volunteer and student assistant came in yesterday morning and I told 'em the mural news, the convo went down like this:

Helper Mama: Wait a minute. Another mural? [eyeing the houses on the floor].

Me: Uh-huh!

Student Assistant: You mean, before the other mural is finished [exchanging a worried look with the mama]?

Me: Yup!

Crazy has no bounds, y'all. Wish me luck and lemme be the first to wish ya Happy Valentine's Day! 

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