How a Clock Inspired Me to Decorate! (and a Review)

True Confessions: I have decorating-phobia. I know, it seems kinda strange, the art teacher who takes wild and wacky fashion risks has a fear of hanging a single thing on the wall, but it's true. I am fully aware that my taste level is questionable, at best. The beauty of fashion is that you can take off that rainbow wig, those cat eye glasses, fish net tights, faux fox stole and that telephone print dress (you think I'm making that outfit up? Get yourself here) and try again tomorrow. With decorating tho...well, things are a little bit more permanent. I guess that means I have a fear of commitment. Don't tell my hubs.

So when Regency Shop, a modern design retailer out of Los Angeles, contacted me and asked if I'd like to review their Nelson clock, I readily agreed. I flippin' adore anything mid-century mod and, after taking one look at that clock, I fell in love. The problem was: where was I going to put it? Most of my house is decorated to the point where I'm kinda happy (is it just me or is decorating a continuous work-in-progress? WHEN WILL IT EVER END.) However, we do have a spare room that sits over our garage which the real estate lady called a "bonus room". Over the last seven years, I have referred to it as "the bogus room", "that room the cat likes to vomit in", and "that space where I occasionally attempt to exercise". This past summer, it became "the book-writing room" and, having spent months creating in this open space, I realized I really enjoyed being in the bonus room. What I didn't love was the look of the place. But I had no idea what to do about it or where to start. 

When I got the Nelson clock in the mail, I was immediately smitten. It put me in the mind of Mary Blair and the Disney ride she designed It's a Small World. The painting I created inspired by Blair was one of the few things I'd actually got around to hanging. I decided to pair the two pieces together and see how that worked. 

Just seeing this clock and thinking of Disney makes me smile!

As soon as the clock was hung above the painting, I was inspired! I started pulling out all of my favorite thrift and estate sale picks from over the years and playing around. 

One thing I always struggle with when decorating is a color palette. I know you need one...but I love ALL THE COLORS. As strange as it may sound, that clock helped keep me in line. I used the burnt orange, black, gold, shades of sky blue and avocado green as my guide. It really helped me decide what worked (according to my wacky vision) and what didn't. 

After putting together this wall, I decided to create a gallery wall along the stairway. I've always wanted to make one and I had stacked of framed works of art ready to go...but, again, decorating phobia stopped me.

I was so inspired by how well my wall had come together, I thought, what the heck!

Again, I used the colors in the clock as my guide. Those amazing molas and the basket were thrift store finds, if you can believe that. The prints are REAL and signed Charley Harper prints which I got a decade ago when a print shop was going out of business. In the stacks of matte board they gave me, I discovered these signed prints. I had no idea what they were until years later. The wall sconces are from Anthropologie's sale room (do they have any other rooms in that place? Because my wallet says they don't) and the LOVE signs are from my friend Bebo. 

This is the view from the stairs. I spent a whole lotta hours at that table this summer, working in air dry clay, writing and snapping photos (I'll keep you posted on dates for the book as we get closer, eep!). I purchased an extra large foldable table a year ago as an inexpensive and expansive work space. I love to cover my work surface in oil cloth because it's happy and easy to clean. By the way, did I mention that I like color? And prints. Love me some pattern-y goodness. 

This area was given an update as well. When my husband and I first bought our house, our main priority was to pay the house off. (My hubs is very monetarily minded. True Story: the day I met him in the computer lab where I taught, he asked me two questions. One, "do you have a boyfriend?" and two, "do you have any college debt?") That meant very little cash was left for much else. For that reason, almost everything in our house is from the thrift store, a discount joint (we love Big Lots) or homemade. That ottoman on wheels? I made that with some lumber, foam, wheels and IKEA fabric. 

Of course, anything we do spend cashola on has to be Asha-colored since it's sure to become covered in cat hair. When we went furniture shopping, the hubs carried around a tuft of Asha hair to make sure that it would match. I can't even make this stuff up.

One decorating phobia I DON'T have: overdecorating for Christmas. I just can't stop!

Storage in a craft room is a big deal, as y'all know. I love using this vintage sewing box for my paint stash. Also, that chest of drawers is filled with art makin' supplies. 

Our bonus room has a wet bar which is never used. In fact, we filled the wine area with our books!

Y'all don't even know how happy this room now makes me. I still have a couple more projects I want to do to make this room feel complete but, for now, it's in a really happy place, I think. 

 Thanks to this guy. By the way, the clock operates with a single AA battery. The white base is metal and rock solid. The entire clock feels heavy and solid, not flimsy or fragile. I'm in love. 

And so thrilled with my new space. Just had to share with y'all! Happy Thanksgiving if you are stateside and have a wonderful week!

In the Art Room: Romero Britto Inspired Selfies by Fourth

Hey, kids! I'm just back from a FABULOUS conference in Texas that was seriously a whirlwind of fun. I'll be certain to share that experience with you soon but before I do, I thought I'd let you in on how that Romero Britto-inspired selfie project went down. In a word(s): colorfully amazing! 

I've been sharing with you a ton of self portrait projects of late as that's what I'm sending away to be framed for our Artome art show. In case you missed, check out the Royal First Grade Self-Portraits, Second Grade Super Hero Selfies and the Third Grader's Sandra Silbertzweig Portraits. 

I wanted my fourth graders to learn how to draw a face with correct proportions but with a playful and colorful twist that reflects their personality and interests. And that's how I settled on this Romero Britto-inspired lesson. Complete video'ed lesson here: 

 By the way, I update my videos multiple times weekly...if you wanna stay up to date, subscribe here. 

The video provides a quick introduction to Britto and his work, just enough to give them a taste for how colorful and pattern-y his work is. 

The kids really respond well to learning about contemporary artists and pop art seems to be their fave. 

This project took us 3 one hour classes to complete. The students used 9" X 12" sheets of drawing paper as that is what the Artome framing format allows. On our first day, we watched the first third of the video. We drew our faces along with the video, traced over our final drawings in Sharpie (I gave the kids plenty of time to return to their seats with mirrors and alter their drawings to their liking) and used lines to break up the background. Here's what we had after day one:

The following art class, we watched the middle portion of the video where I chat about pattern. I really wanted the kids to create patterns that reflected their interests. I did provide idea sheets of simple patterns like the ones Britto uses. After 30 minutes, we watched the final portion of the video and had just enough time to explore color. Here are the results after the second day:

By the third day, we'd watched all of the video and knew what we had to do to complete our masterpiece. I really thought this would be a two-day project...but with all of the details the kids created, it lasted a pinch longer. 

 We used both colored pencils and Prismacolor Art Stix (a class favorite for their vibrancy) to color. Art Stix are like the lead of colored pencils in oil pastel from. They are richer in color than your average colored pencil. I talk about them somewhere in this clip:

Sorry, not sure when, but I know they are in this clip somewhere!

 The kids and I both were really pleased with their hard work. So often, older kids struggle with self-portraits as they want them to look "just right". Doing a self-portrait in a guided drawing format really relieved stress and insured that all selfies looked fabulous. 

You know that the 10 year old crowd can sometimes be tough to please...but this one was a crowd-pleaser. 

Even my students who sometimes struggle with fine motor skills or sticking with projects for long periods of time shined in this lesson.

You know they feel good about themselves with the "too cool for school" fourthies give you hugs at the end of art class. 

 My favorite comment: I never knew I could draw like this!

I'm shipping all of these out to Artome tomorrow and our art show is at the start of December. I'll be certain to let you know how that goes. This will be our first Artome show...I'm really excited!

Y'all know we do a HUGE end of the year art show where everything that every kid has made is hung up. I'm super stoked that for this show, I don't have to hang a thing!

I hope y'all have a fabulous week leading up to Turkey Day! I'll be in and out on this here blog with lots to share...so, during your break from stuffing runs, be sure to drop on by. 

In the Art Room: Super Hero Selfies in Second Grade

Here they come to save the day! Second grade selfies are on their way, y'all. I've been sharing with you the self portrait projects my students have been creating for their Artome art show. So far, you've seen my Royal First Grade, the third graders' abstract self portraits inspired by Sandra Silbertzweig and the fourth graders Romero Britto-inspired selfies. For second grade, I decided to do a take on this fourth grade lesson from last year. The kids LOVED creating these super hero versions of themselves so I just had to share this lesson. Here is a video of my fourth grade's lesson:

Like I said, I did alter this lesson quite a bit to fit the needs of my wee second graders. Lemme tell you how we made them.

I see my second graders for 30 minutes, twice a week. So this here lesson is broken down into bite sized bits. 

On day one we: chatted about Vincent van Gogh and Starry Night. We spoke about creating movement and texture in our sky with line, shape and color. Using florescent oil pastel (my favorites are these), we created an evening sky. The following art class, we used watercolor in a cool cool palette to paint our skies. 

The following class, we chatted about cityscapes and silhouettes. I found that there are plenty of images of city silhouettes online if you just do a quick google search. I printed off several and placed them on tables as idea sheets. We used watered down black tempera paint and small brushes to create our cityscape. Larger brushes were used to fill in the silhouette. I watered the paint down a pinch as I find that it makes the paint have more viscosity. 

 

By the way, as y'all know, we ALWAYS have those early finishers. For my early friends, I had a wide variety of super hero idea sheets available. I tasked the kids to start sketching ideas for their superhero selfie if they happened to finish early.

 After the silhouettes were painted, I cut up a TON of Post-It notes into tiny pieces for the kids to use as windows. I thought they were a great color for windows. The kids glued those onto their buildings and resumed their super hero sketches.

By the third week, the kids had completed their oil pastel sky, watercolor painting, silhouette city making and window collage. We were ready for the best part: our super heroes! Since the kids had been practice sketching for a couple of days, they were feeling really confident about diving into this final phase of their masterpiece.

 To insure that their heroes would be a good size, I asked that the kids trace a circle for their heads. From there, we chatted about using shapes to create out bodies: rectangles for the torso and shapes for the arms and legs. 

We also talked about masks, capes and symbols. When the kids were finished with their super hero, they traced them in Sharpie. Before coloring, we chatted about finding our skin tone. We also talked about limiting our color palette to three colors for our super hero costume. Checking out Superman, Spiderman and Ironman really helped them understand the idea of a limited palette. 

Once complete, the super heroes were cut out VERY CAREFULLY before being glued into the cityscape masterpiece. The kids were so thrilled with their hard work... cannot wait to see them in a frame at our art show! I'll let you know how they look and how the art show goes. Until then!

In the Art Room: Royal First Graders

Brace yourself. You're in for an overload of First Grade Fantastical Cuteness in the form of Royal Self-Portraits!

Like, riiiiiight?! I can't even, y'all. These selfies are so sweet it's like a lollypop dipped in Fruity Pebbles dipped in milk chocolate and covered in sprinkles (guess who has a strong sweet tooth? GUESS). My fab-o first grade artists completed these just in time for me to get them shipped off to Artome for their frames. And I'm so excited for these are totally frame-worthy. 

I don't often repeat projects but when I was dreaming up a self-portrait unit for all of my classes, I knew I wanted to give this lesson another go-round. I did have to alter the lesson quite a bit as the format of the Artome frames is half the size what I usually have my students work. Lemme tell you how we created these bad boys, er, royal dudes and dudettes. 

I'll break the lesson down for y'all...keep in mind that my classes are 30 minutes in length. This project took us about two weeks to complete. On the first day, the kids were given a 9" X 12" sheet of white paper and tasked to paint that paper the color of them. Before doing so, we read this great book:

In the book, a young girl paints portraits of her friends mixing up their unique skin color. The kids were given brown, black, white, red and yellow paint. We chatted about tints, shades and mixing up a variety of flesh tones. The kids painted their sheet of paper their unique skin tone. 

The following day, on that sheet of painted paper, the kids traced a head template in the middle of the paper and added two vertical lines for the neck. This was done independently and in pencil. Once complete, the kids met with me on the floor for a little guided drawing. We chatted about the proportions of the face and facial features. We drew together in oil pastel. When using oil pastel, I always stress to the kids to use black last and never to wipe their paper as it can smear the pastel. That was completed on our second day.

During our third art class, we cut our portraits away from the painted paper and glued it to a new sheet of 9" X 12" paper. We had a nice chat about painting hair: mixing the right color and creating texture. Once the hair was painted, the kids put those on the drying rack and worked on their crowns. For that, we used gold painted papers and crown templates. I had cut pieces of metallic paper (I found some metallic origami paper to be just the thing!) and the kids added jewels to their crown. I did chat with them about symmetry and balance when it came to the placement of the jewels. It's always good to pack as much educational punch into those lessons as we can!

Our fourth day, crowns were attached to heads and clothing was created. For our clothes, the kids were given a rectangle for their shirt and two squares for their sleeves. These were decorated with my favorite florescent oil pastels (really, where have these BEEN all my life?!) and attached at the bottom of the paper. 

Finally came the background! We used Crayola's water soluble oil pastels for that. The kids could use either warm or cool colors for the background before adding water to paint. 

Ta-da! You might have noticed that some of my fancier friends added coffee filters for a ruffly collar to their shirt, sparkly earrings and more jewels. They really had a lot of fun getting all kinds of royal for their selfies. 

Finally, they had to come up with a title for their piece. "Princess Cutie Cute" will forever go down in history as my favorite title for these precious masterpieces. I cannot wait to see them framed and in our Artome art show! Love to hear about your favorite self-portrait projects, y'all!