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
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!
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.
Welcome to the 3-Dimensional display of the Johnson Elementary Art Show! Our annual art show showcases all of the artwork that each of our young artists create throughout the school year. In this blog post, I'll be sharing all of the 3-D work that was displayed in my room...but stay tuned! A post about the incredible 2-D display is up next. This art show is a HUGE undertaking as we share all of the efforts of every student. An art show like this would not be possible without the help of some truly AMAZING moms that spend more hours than you could imagine making the art show a memorable one for our artists. I cannot thank them enough...y'all are truly incredible! All of the projects you'll see here are ones that were created by my students while viewing the how-to videos I created for them. I'll be adding those videos for you here. Feel free to use them in your art room! I'll be adding more videos like these over the summer so you might want to subscribe to stay tuned. But enough about that, let's take a tour of the Johnson Elementary Art Show 2017, 3-D Displays!
I hope you liked the tour. If you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments!
This project was a hit with the kids...and one that my current third graders are asking if they will get to do next year. I had several kiddos sewing at home and bringing in the pillows and monsters they had created there. It was so fun to teach them this life skill. Here is the video they viewed:
Their creativity really blew me away. By the way, if you teach a fourth grader how to make a pom-pom, it can be a dangerous thing.
By the way, y'all know that big bunned monster is my #lifegoals, right?!
This display is one of my faves. It showcased the sculptural work of my kindergarten, second and third grade students. My kindergarten kids created the monarch butterflies:
That was a one-day project that the kids really enjoyed.
My P.E. buddy Ali Starkweather painted the rainforest backdrop that you see. Isn't it amazing? It went so well with the theme of our exotic birds and reptiles!
Let's talk about these clay projects. The third graders created these clay chameleons which were one of my faves.
We used a combo of Mayco's Stroke and Coat glazes and their Jungle Gems for a speckled look.
I really stressed a three coat minimum for glazing and I think that's why the kids were so successful in having such beautifully glazed pieces. They take so much pride in their clay work that I usually don't have to ask them to redo...they are dedicated to making them awesome!
Also on display were these birds. Y'all, these were the comedic hit at the show, they are so fun and funny. They really came to life when the kids painted them and added the feathers and beads. Here is the video lesson:
A couple of my kindergarten classes had extra days with clay so we made a second clay project: these turtles! Their other project was hung in the hallway, I'll be sure to share that with you in the following blog post.
Those turtles were super fun to create...I loved seeing the glaze effects on the texture.
The first graders created the most incredible fish so they needed a sweet display to show them off. The kids created the painted bubble paper hat covered the tables.
For these, the fish were glazed but the bases were painted with metallic watercolor. Here's the lesson video:
My second graders had just completed their ceiling tile project and had traced templates for that project. I had 65 templates...so, instead of throwing them away, I had the kids paint them as their last project.
We hung them above the first grade fish! Here's the video used for the ceiling tile project:
These might be my favorite ceiling tiles to date!
For the fourth grade bobble heads, these were displayed on my counter. I covered my cabinets with white paper and works of art by both kindergarten and second grade.
Um, that one has a top hat, a bowtie and a monocle. Perfection. Video here:
This is another project I think my younger kids are gonna wanna create. These were so fun!
Sandra Silberzweig is a favorite artist of mine...and my students.
On another set of tables covered in pink, my fourth graders had their plaster candy hearts on display.
Also featured on the pink paper were the plaster candies that my third graders created...they really looked good enough to eat!
Puffy paint for the win, y'all.
The days following the art show, I invite the classroom teachers to bring their students during my planning time. Together, we teachers work in an assembly line wrapping clay projects, stuffing them into the bags and stapling the labels on top while the kids wait on the floor. It usually takes about 7 minutes to get a class done. The kids then take their 3-D work home safely.
Stay tuned for the what's up next: a post and video of our 2-D work...until then, here's a tour of last year's 3-D display, enjoy!
Serving up the final installment of our 2019 art show for y'all today! This here is the 2D portion of our art show where every work of art that every kiddo has created all year long is on display! You can check out our Glow Gallery Tour and our Pirate Gallery Tour here! In this blog post, I thought I would share a link to each and every one of these lessons you see! This will give you an idea of what projects I teach (2D, that is) throughout the year. If you are interested in details on this art show: how it's hung, who does the hangin', how it's taken down and sent home, then you might want to watch this tour I created to answer those questions for you:
Please feel free to leave any questions about what you see here or on my YouTube channel and I'll be sure to answer them.
Let's take a tour of theses projects! We'll start with kindergarten. My kindergarteners always have the biggest amount of artwork because their lessons are shorter. I started the beginning of the year with my lessons on line. Those projects did not make it to the art show as they were sent home at the start of the school year. From there, we did the rainbow lesson and Mouse Paint project.
One of the more popular lessons for kindergarten on my blog is this one. This lesson is always followed by my Chicka Chicka Boom Boom project which you can find here.
Our snowmen were a lot of fun to create this year too. We learned all about the cold colors and painting spiral lines.
A new lesson I came up with this year were the heart prints. We were able to get many prints created and used our two favorites for our work of art.
With our printing plates, we created these beauties! Super fun and stunning!
The kindergarten gallery is almost always my favorite!
Although first grade sure does take a close second. Let's talk about their projects. One of my favorites this year were our Mad Scientists!
A classic that we've done many years in a row are our Royal Self-Portraits. I love that we have two selfies in this art show: one as royalty and one as kid-genius. Perfect for my kids!
We also did those heart weavings that you see with the stitched edge. With the heart we cut out from our construction paper for the weaving, we created these Romero Britto inspired pieces. You can see a variation of that lesson here.
All of the artwork and the kids who created them make me this happy.
Let's move on down to second grade! These kids had many works of art both in the Glow and Pirate Gallery that their wall seems a little empty. Don't let that fool you: we are always crankin' out some art!
Speaking of, let's move on down to third grade! You'll notice these kids also did the Chris Uphues lesson...in fact, all of my students did as it was a sub plan. One lesson of mine that was especially popular was the landscape project! I had run out of paper (omg, an art teacher without PAPER, hello!) and had a lot of cardboard pizza rounds...so we improvised! The kids also created those amazing Sandra Silberzweig-inspired self portraits!
My students did two kinds of weaving, tree weaving and circle weaving. Two kid favorites. These are also featured in my new book!
One lesson that I'll be sharing soon is this one! If you can't wait, then check out this blog post as this lesson is a variation.
This is another lesson that I'm excited to share with you soon!
This third grade display brings me so much happiness!
My fourth graders spent the start of their school year making pillows! We made pizza, donut and emoji pillows, all of which are in my sewing book.
