What the Art Teacher Wore #140

More Me Made May-ness Monday: Could I fit any more M's into that intro? Me thinks not. blouse: vintage, thrifted; belt: Pin Up Girl Clothing; skirt: Made by Me, details here

Hey, friends! I hope your week was fantabulous. This coming week of mine not only includes the last week of school but also our school-wide art show (yes, I know that's crazy...no, I didn't plan it that way). I'll be certain to share all the details of the art show with y'all in a super photo heavy blog post this Wednesday. That'll prolly be the next time you hear from me as I'm certain to be buried under artwork until then.

In this here post, I'll give y'all a sneak peak into what the kids have been creating in preparation for el art showness. Also, since it's #MeMadeMay, I'm still sporting something I created daily. I'll be sharing all of these MeMades in a big fat post at the end of the month. Please, try and curb your enthusiasm. Until Wednesday, kids, fingers crossed I can pull off this art show! Toodles!

 Being MeMadeMay and all, I decided to go with a vintage tape measure as a headband and a wee lil vintage sewing machine brooch. Dude at Starbucks: "Is that caution tape in your hair?! Cool!" (insert head-banging-on-wall emoji here).

 Man, I gotta let you in on a lil secret. During these last few days of school, let the kids work on murals. Throw a big fat sheet of paper on the tables, let them work in groups of their choice, crank up the music to drown out the sound of their voices (I kid! Kinda!), give 'em a theme and watch 'em go to town.

 Granted, I did have a total of four kids completely loose their minds and paint their hands (like, two painted their hands red, y'all. Yes, they were caught "red handed". Sigh.) but for the most part, we had a great time. These will be used as the back drop for our Village of Kindness. Deets to come but a sneak peak here. 

 Back to School Dress Tuesday: I crafted this dress at the start of the school year. It seriously seems like yesterday. With all of our snow days (I think we had 10?), this year seemed to zip by! Any of you teachers out there feel the same? dress: blog post here; shoes: Anthro, gift from a friend (thanks, Rebecca!)

 A while back, a teacher buddy gave me these huge posters of white paper. The kids have been painting circle paintings on them as another part of our art show excitement. You'll notice that not only are we painting but glazing clay projects as well. Ah, the end of the school year. Nothing like that rush to get EVERY-THANG done. At the last minute. 

 Dresses Made During Snow Days Wednesday: Are really the best dresses, aren't they? I managed to bust out a ton of dresses this winter because of all those days. That was lovely. Not having enough time to finish all the art projects that I'd dreamed to doing with the kids? Not so much. dress: details here, y'all; sandals: like, ancient. Target

 I had kindergarten-land for the very last time this past week. We had a Yay-Boo moment. Yay, we'll see each other next year! Boo, this is our last art class as kindergarteners. So, we made a Kinder-Garden! We drew flowers in black oil pastel then painted them with either warm or cold colors. Then we switched the script for the background. I thought they came out just lovely. And one more thing to hang for the art show, yay!

 It's Come to This...Flip-Flops Thursday: I started the week in heels and by the middle, I was done. I scored these fun flips in NOLA. Get this, they smell like flowers! They are from a brand called Melissa that makes scented shoes. I love them! I was smelling my feet all day. Don't judge. sweater and brooches: thrifted; dress: made by me! By the way, this blog post, if you dare to read it, is INSANE...here; flips: Melissa brand

OH, this excitement happened this week! Our "Johnson Elementary has Heart" mural went up this week! If you follow me on insta-gram crackers, you have already seen this. Full blog post to come...but until then, here's the start of our process. I love how this cheers up our front office which was formally referred to as the DMV for it's lovely drabness. 

 Last Year's Back to School Dress Friday: Can I just brag and say that I've already got NEXT year's B2S dress in the werkz? Das right! Even if my sewing room did look like this just 24 hours ago (scroll downeth. Then scroll back upeth cuz I'm not done jib-jabbin' yet). sweater: Betsy Johnson, found at Buffalo Exchange; dress: blerg post here

 So. Can we have an honest chat here for a moment. I know when you come to this blog, like most, I show you the nice, clean and sunny side of my life. But I really, like really-really, struggle with packrat-itis. I recently picked up the book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up and I'm really enjoying it. Bottom line: get rid of anything that does not bring you joy. Now, I find that hard to apply as an artist/art teacher because, well, you never know, you know? However, this weekend, I decided to attack my sewing room (btw, welcome to my sewing room, y'all!) and, kidz, I gotta tell you, it felt so good! I'll be filling up my etsy shop with goodies next weekend, taking a truck load to Goodwill and tossing the rest. 

Ah! I can't even tell you how good this feels! My new motto is: nothing on the floor and nothing up to the ceiling (yes, it was that bad). I'll have to give you a tour soon! 

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In the Art Room: A Light Up Mural

Disclaimerness (please excuse me, but I have ness-disease. Meaning I must add a ness/ish/ify at the end of nearly every otherwise boring word or else I don't feel complete. Ish.): This here Light Up Mural was created last year and I never got around to sharing it with y'all. Since winter will be upon us before you know it, I thought now would be a super awesome glittery good time to post it. So there. Disclaimerism over. 

I know many of y'all create murals with your students. My students have created grid murals, collaged murals and one giant We-Are-the-World inspired self-portrait mural. They can be pretty labor-intensive for both the kids and the poor art teacher who has to crawl around on her knees hot gluin' the thing together but in the end, they are totes worth it. The visual impact is stunning, says me. And this here light up mural was one of my faves. But before we get to that, lemme show you some murals of mural-tastic past along with some linky-loos for your link-clicking pleasure. 

This Monet-inspired mural was created by my kindergarten through second grade students. We created it at the end of the school year, using scraps and painted papers. This was a great mural to hang up at the end of the school year as it kept the school cheery throughout the summer and into the start of a new school year. All the details can be found here. 

If you are an art teacher and you've been on pinterest for 5 minutes that you've seen that rainbow self-portrait mural. Shoot, you prolly even had your kids create one. I know I did. It was the start of my mural-makin' disease. This mural was created by my students the following year. We had a "travel the world" theme and this was how we kicked it off. Now, I ain't gonna lie, it was a beast to put together. That's why I happily passed that task off to some green college kids who came in to my room to "observe" (which for me translates to "cheap labor"). Full story here, friends. 

 If this flowery dot mural looks familiar, that's cuz we just made it this school year! It presently hangs outside my art room and I absolutely love it. It brings a smile my face every morning. And it truly was a snap to create. Read more here, please. 

This mural was actually the inspiration for the light up mural. In fact, you can find even more details on how the light up mural was created by going here as I prolly did a better job of 'splainin things. 

Grid murals are a good time if you like putting together puzzles (which I don't) where the pieces don't always match (fun-ness!). However, the visual impact is pretty rad. This one hung in our school cafeteria for a while until it was replaced by this bad boy last year...

My fave grid mural to date. And this one went together much easier than Starry Night. Not to mention that each class created it's own soup can so the kids could easily find "their piece" of the soup, so to speak. Deets here. 

This mural still hangs outside my art room door and I love it. This mural project not only resulted in a giant collaborative work of art but also two separate art projects. It was like the gift that kept on giving. Lookie here and I'll show ya.

So, getting back to the mural at hand (thank you for indulging me in my stroll down Mural Memory Lane), lemme give you the rundown on who-did-whuh: kindergarten painted the sky papers after looking at a lil van Gogh; second grade created the printed trees during a short chat about texture and line; first grade made the lil collaged houses with some left over papers from a previous project and the third and fourth grade kids created the ice skaters. 

Which they did by working on sketching their roller skating buddies in P.E. class. We walked down to P.E. with our clip boards and charcoal sticks and spent about 15 minutes drawing away. Mind you, this was after a chat about gesture drawing. 

When we returned to art the following class, we chose our fave sketch, used a wooden mannequin to copy the pose seen in the sketch and created a more detailed drawing from that. Clothing was NOT optional (ahem) so that was added as well. Drawings were then traced in Sharpie and colored with colored pencils.

And then carefully cut out. Yes, we did have to tape some limps back on. I happens. We call it Art Room ER. 

Dude, the cuteness. It's burning my eyes.

With the help of some super mom volunteers, the pieces of the mural puzzle were put together. Then the sky portion was folded down. I then started cutting slits into the paper and poking some LED lights through the openings.

Like this, see?

I know, it looks like a big ole stitched scar. That's why it's on the back, y'all.

But from the front, ooh-la-la! Sparkly. The light switches are kept in a pocket located to the side of the mural. Just outta kid-reach.

Most of the time, the mural is left unlit. However, I'm excited with out it will look during December. I think it will definitely bring some holiday cheer.

And there you have it! What murals have y'all done? Have you crazy kids attempted a ceiling tile grid mural type deal? If so, would you please come to my school and teach me and the kids how to create one? Pretty please and thank you!

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