Field Trip! A Visit with Camilla Spadafino

For the second installment of my Field Trip! series, I was excited to sit down with the amazing artist and art teacher Camilla Spadafino. Long before I ever met Camilla, I had heard all about her: what a wonderfully kind and warm person she is and what an incredibly inspiring teacher. My best friend Mallory put it best: she's the kind of person who makes you feel good just being around her. So y'all can imagine that I was thrilled when she agreed to take part in our Field Trip! 

With this Field Trip! series, I want my time with the artist to feel natural. I also want the artist to feel comfortable so I have been letting them decide on the format. With Bebo, we watched him create one of his fun and funky sculptures. Being a teacher, Camilla suggested walking us through how she created the portraits for her Miss Camilla's Neighborhood Coloring Book. 

In the video, Camilla chats about what initially inspired her portraits. Since then, she's created over 100 portraits of friends and family in her east Nashville neighborhood. What I love about her process are the endless ways they can be used in our art rooms. 

While she was sharing her method, I got the idea that my Gallery of Gratitude project could be updated. Instead of the kids drawing the portraits, we could use Camilla's process, thus making the portraits more realistic and, if on canvas, more permanent. Also, the kids could interview the person to find out their interests and their dreams for the future. How fun would a wall of the faculty and staff of our schools be?! 

I learned so many new tips and tricks by hanging out with Camilla. I love how she talks about working quietly to let the art speak to her and finding magic in what she is creating. I also love when she chats about respecting art supplies. Doesn't she do a fabulous job including vocabulary? The perks of interviewing an art teacher.

I love what she had to say about using certain colors and how that is a form of branding. I had not thought of that! But what a wonderful way for the kids to think more carefully about the colors they use. 

Another idea I had came when Camilla was talking about her pet portraits. This year, my school is reaching out to the local animal shelter and working with them on several projects. I have been trying to come up with a way for my students to create portraits of the adoptable pets. With this method, I can drop by after school, snap photos and have the kids use these. I know they will LOVE this project. 

Having the kids create coloring books of the portraits would be a wonderful fundraiser as well. I'm telling you, when I walked outta Camilla's house, my head was spinning, I had so many ideas. She truly is magical.

 When Mitch came home from work that night, I was so excited to tell him about my experience with Camilla. Every sentence started with, "...and then..." 

Camilla also shared her latest project called Paint the Town by Numbers. I learned so much about the back story behind this new endeavor including how she dreamt up this project and is bringing it to fruition. I'll be certain to share that with you in a follow up blog post and video. She was even kind enough to give me one of her paint by number kits which I enjoyed on Thanksgiving, in between plates of food. 

What a wonderful time I had hanging out with Miss Camilla! I'll be certain to share my video'ed lessons to company my visit here. I often update my YouTube channel before I share here so subscribe to stay tuned! 

Special thanks and a warm hug to Camilla for being so open to an interview and being a lovely host. Have fun, y'all!

Art Teacherin' 101: Episode 12

In last week's Art Teacherin' 101 blog post, I shared with y'all my concerns about teaching peace, love and kindness this coming school year. I feel there is a great need to bring this teaching into our art rooms (and all classrooms, for that matter!) and build it into our curriculum. But how? It's not a "standard". We don't have an "I Can" for that. It's not required of us...and I don't recall learning how to teach kindness (like, whut?!) in college. We cannot expect children to just KNOW how to be kind. We don't expect them to KNOW how to hold a pencil, cut a piece of paper and not spread glue all over their hand and lick it off (ahem). We teach them these things. So, in that respect, we can't expect them to know how to treat each other with peace, love and kindness. We DEFINITELY can't expect that of them when our collective actions, displayed on every news outlet, shows we don't know how to treat each other either! 

So, for that reason, I'm on a mini-campaign to bring peace, love and kindness into my art room this year. I do hope you'll join me...and share your thoughts, books and lessons in the comments below. United is how we are going to accomplish this goal. And we are doing it for the best reason possible: our students and their future. 

My apologies for getting a little long winded here. And emotional. I was trying to keep it together! 

I've been scratching my head and wracking my brain to come up with ideas. One way I thought we could kick off this campaign for kindness is with a little something I'm calling the #calendarofkindness and #peacefulheART. I do hope you (and your students) will feel free to join on your preferred social media. I know even my school district is already on board! I'll be posting in Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and using those hashtags. I can't wait to see what you share!

I've also created a long list of books that I cherish and share in my art room below along with projects that I've found to be successful. Please feel free to add your two cents in the comments so that we have a growing list of books, resources and projects for peace. 

 Many of my art teacherin' buddies shared their fave books with me so I'll make sure to add them here. However, I only felt comfortable speaking about the books I've actually read and used in my art room. Love the What Do You Do with an Idea...what a great book to start the art year with! Also, The Hundred Dresses is a short chapter book. I like to read it aloud to my 3rd and 4th grade students while they work. It's a book that teaches about kindness...and makes me cry every time. As does The Giving Tree. Anything Shel Silverstein has written speaks to my students, they love him!

 I love these books that celebrate our differences while explaining how we are also the same. The Colors of Us is read to my students every year before we learn to mix our flesh color for self-portraits.

My copy of The Big Orange Splot is so worn out, I've read it to my students to much. It's another book that points out our differences and explains how that is what makes us unique. It also does an excellent job of teaching how we should celebrate the differences of others. Remember: when we teach children to first love themselves, they will be able to love one another. 

So anything Todd Parr writes is awesome. And happy. And colorful. 

Have y'all read this? It's fan-freakin'-tastic. Get it in your library stat. 

Also check out Linda Kranz's other book You Be You...it's excellent as well.

 Now, let's talk projects. Here are a handful that I've done with my students to cultivate a culture of kindness. The Gallery of Gratitude was a huge hit. 

 Each employee of our school was drawn and written about. They cherished these images and words and have them on display in their offices and classrooms! 

This hangs proudly right outside the art room door. From floor to ceiling. It really is OKAY! Different is grand. 

The Village of Kindness was a successful collaborative project that used recycled materials. I loved how happy, colorful and sweet this display was for our art show last year. 

 Each house had a door that, when opened, shared a kind message.

 This school-wide collaborative now hangs proudly in our school office. It was created by all students to show that we have heart! 

This love-based mural was so easy that it was my sub plan! I've created a video to teach this lesson. Feel free to use it in your art room!

Here's an oldie but goodie that we created a couple of years ago, a We Are the World mural! It was a fun and impactful way to kick off the school year. 

Of course, The Dot is a great way to start the year as well. It also promotes self-love and how that love can transmit to others. Here is a list of fun Dot Day art projects. 

Art can also help those right in your own backyard. We did just that with out Houses to Help project! 

Here's a list of some other projects that promote kindness:

* Empty Bowls

* Pinwheels for Peace

* Cards for Hospitalized Kids

* Art Drop Day

* Paper Cranes Project 

* Kids Guernica Project

* Grants that Promote Peace

* International Day of Peace

Please feel free to add your ideas below...and I look forward to seeing your #calendarofkindness images starting August 1st!

In the Art Room: Another Chalked Ceiling Event!

Hey, y'all! This Friday I will be leading my second grade artists in our (now) annual Chalked Ceiling Tile Event! We did this last year and it was an absolute blast. I had my doubts about teaching an entire grade level a project all at once with such a messy medium as chalk...but it went off without a hitch. I'm only changing it up a pinch this year in that we'll be chalking flowers instead of butterflies as they are no longer in our second grade curriculum. I'm also planning to film the demo process so I don't have to talk over the sound of a grade level of students, parent volunteers, teachers and the noisy multi-purpose room. I'll be certain to share with you what we create! But today I thought I'd bring back photos last year's event.

To read more about it, click yourself here. It was apart of the many legacy projects I've done with the kids over the years. In fact, that's what my summer presentation for AOE was last year! I thought I'd share with you what I presented below (now that nearly a year has past, I can share it with you here!). Are y'all attending this upcoming AOE online conference? You totally should. 

You can find more info about the projects mentioned here:
* Gallery of Gratitude
* Our School has Heart
* Chalked Ceiling Tiles
* Village of Kindness
* Johnson Elementary Legacy Mural

Legacy murals and school-wide collaboratives (aka schollabs) are something that I feel so passionate about that I paired up with Janine Campbell at NAEA and did a lil presentation about it! If you'd like to see our prezi, feel free to check it out here.

Janine is a fabulous educator and speaker! She brought us to tears with her stories of how her schollabs have impacted her students and community. When you attend NAEA conventions and see Janine's name pop up as a presenter, make sure you attend!

Back to those butterflies! I thought it would be fun to add to our butterfly tiles by adding flowers. I can't wait to see what the kids create and just how amazing they look in the ceiling.

But seeing these photos makes me realize just how much prep work I have to do before Friday. Thankfully, I had a wonderful high school student shadow me today who prepared all the plates of chalk (thank you, Chloe!). I'm sure I'll get it all done in my usual Cassie-fashion: last minute, panic-y, sweating-like-a-pig and hyped up on coffee. Yep, that's how I roll.

In other news, I'm also delusional. With less than 30 days left in the school year, I still think I have time for new units of study. I had to take a hard look at my calendar today and come to grips with the fact that I just can't fit it all in. Le sigh.

But the ceiling tiles, that's gonna happen! And I'll be certain to share it with y'all when they are up on the ceiling with the butterflies. Until then!

In the Art Room: It's Okay to be Different! Part 2

Y'all. I realized recently that I never shared the finished product of our Todd Parr inspired It's Okay to be Different mural. Which wasn't an accident. It's been on my To-Do list to finish this beast (there are still 140 more selfies that will flank the sides of this bad boy) and when I exhaustedly sighed to my buddy the custodian this evening that I really should stick around and do it, he said, "Eh. Go home and put your feet up. Do it tomorrow." He's a super smart dude so I decided to take his advice and work on it later...but share it with y'all today! 

When you walk out of my art room door, this is the first thing you see, these silly, happy and different faces! I went through the process of just how the kids, kindergarten through fourth grade, created these painted and collaged pieces in this post so be sure to take a peak!

Our inspo was this fun and colorful book. This book is short and sweet and perfect for my various age groups. It also packs a powerful message: it's okay to be different! I try my hardest to stress this, self-importance and uniqueness in my art room. All our lives, we are told to fit in, follow along, do whatever it is that Susie is doing that gets her oodles of praise from her teacher. But just how boring would life be if we were all Susies? You're YOU and nobody else...and that's simply wonderful!

Not to mention totes adorbs. 

As the kids finished off their selfies, I started collecting them and laying them out on a huge roll of paper. We happen to have this 12' wide roll of paper at my school which I've pretty much claimed as Art Room Property. I love using it for murals like these so I can just start hot gluing these guys down. 

We've done several murals at my school (full list with links below) and I've been asked by a handful of art teacherin' types if the kids are ever sad that they don't often get their pieces returned to them. I explain to them at the start of the project that their handwork will be enjoyed by many for a long time (this piece will probably stay up until the start of the new school year and possibly beyond. I really love it!). I also snapped photos of them to eventually pop up onto ArtSonia so the kids will have the chance to share with family in their online gallery. 

 However...I do have this wild and crazy idea. Once I [finally] get all of the pieces hung, I want to snap a couple of high resolution pics and have their work made into fabric on Spoonflower! AND THEN make a dress from it. Oh, but that's a secret. Don't tell los kiddos. Especially not the dude on the top right. He looks like he's having a bad day already. 

Big Ole School-Wide Collaboratives and Murals are super fun but, not gonna lie, a whole lotta work. I've shared many of mine in the past. Here's a lil list if you wanna take a look-see:

• Dot Day Collaboratives (a project for each grade level!)
• Henri Rousseau-inspired Mural
• Chalked Ceiling Tile Collaborative
• Magritte Mural
• The Johnson Elementary Legacy piece
• Our School Has Heart Mural
• Gallery of Gratitude
• Winter Program Collaborative
• Monet-Inspired Mural
• Wishful Winterwonderland Mural
• Warhol Soup Can Mural
• Heather Galler-Inspired Mural by first grade

Whew! And if you just wanna read more about school-wide collaboratives, get yerself here, kids.

And when your done clickin' on all them linky-loos, pop over here, check out these awesome blogs and throw a sympathy vote my way, would ya?

Until next time, just remember, IT'S OKAY TO BE DIFFRENT*, er, DIFFERNT ;) 

[diffrent: when you pay a different rent then you and your landlord agreed upon. "C'mon, man. I told you the rent was $50 a night, not $45. Don't be pullin' no diffrent action!"]