What the Art Teacher Wore #97 and Last Call for the Best Dressed Contest!

Feelin' Frida-ish Monday: I have a coupla after school art clubs, in those small groups, we have the most enlightening convos. One girl asked, "We learn about men artists a lot. Aren't there any girl artists?" I had already been thinking about how I'd like to introduce more contemporary artists next year (this guy does it all the time and has me inspired) but now I know that more female artists need to be thrown into the mix. So! What contemporary/female artists do you introduce in your art room? dress: thrift store; necklaces: Forever39, ahem, 21; belt: Anthropologie; tights: Target; boots: Seychelles 

I don't know what life is like on your end of the world but I'm sure it's crazy-busy. Especially if you are a teacher. End-of-the-school-year projects to wrap up, mountains of artwork to sort for our school-wide art show, let's-get-rid-of-this-stuff spring cleaning, the list grows by the day. So this week, I thought I'd share with you just some of the things we've been working on in the art room. Complete lessons on this here blog to come, but for now, you'll have to savor these sneak-peaks.

AND, just so's ya know, Wednesday, April 30th is the LAST CALL FOR THE BEST DRESSED ART TEACHER CONTEST! Yes, I'm shouting at you, that's how excited I am! So many of you awesome art teachers have sent me snaps that left me rolling in laughter (which is a good thing, I swear! Ya'll are the best!). 

What's the Best Dressed Art Teacher Contest, you ask? 

Well, here's the details:

Nominate yourself or an art teacher buddy!

Simply send an email to me at cassieart75@gmail.com with a photo of your best artsy look. High resolution photos preferred, please.

 Please include a short bio about the art teacher and what inspired the look.

Photos and bio will be shared on this blog on April 30th.

Open voting on this blog will end on May 5th and the winner will be announced May 7th!

The winner will receive a magical prize along with an interview on this blog.

So! what are you waiting for? Shoot me an email, you crazy art teacher, you!

So if I'm not found Buried Alive under the 400+ clay projects that the kids have created over the last coupla weeks, it'll be a miracle. These clay stars were created a couple months back. Our original intent was to glaze them and "sell" them back to our parents with the proceeds going to charity. However, due to some personal stuff, that had to get placed on the back burner. But now we're back! And I just knew I'd never be able to get 400+ stars glazed and fired along with all those projects. So I lurked the interwebs for a possible solution and saw something about coloring clay projects with crayons...(well, construction paper crayons were recommended but, in the state that my room is currently in, there was no finding mine)...

We painted over them with watercolor paint (I asked that the kids pick just one color, por favor) and viola! Colorful and completed in a snap! More details about these stars and how they were created in an upcoming post.

Bump-It Up Tuesday: So I had a hair appointment after school on Tuesday (not that you'd ever be able to tell I got my hair cut. I'm such a chicken, I always just get a couple inches taken off. So boring!). Once seated in the hair-cuttin-hot-seat, I proceeded to unravel the following from my 'do: 11 Bobby Pins, 2 Pink Bows and 1 Extra Large Bumpit. My hair dressers reaction, after regaining her thoughts, "Ohmigawd, IS THAT A BUMPIT?!" I live in the South, ya'll! It's Big Hair or Die! shoes, sweater and top: thrift store; skirt and belt: Pin Up Girl Clothing 

Speaking of clay projects...my 3rd graders created these Chinese-inspired clay dragons. Ya'll, this project was such a hit! I would easily do this again with all grade levels. The creativity was off the chain crazy! I can't wait for them to glaze them so I can share the easy-peasy lesson with you. 

Some of my 4th grade students created Panda's with Personality (oh boy, ya'll. Do they ever have personality!) while another group created Asian elephants inspired by the painted elephants in India. Many added jewelry, fabric and flowers to their elephants. I have a feeling these are going to be the most colorful elephants ever.

So Stinkin' Tired Wednesday: Seriously. The end of the school year is near...and my work load only builds as I'm sure yours does as well. This photo was the only one I managed NOT to be yawning my head off in. dress: vintage, thrifted; tights: Target; shoes: Dolls by Nina

After finishing off our clay projects, We Returned to Our Normally Scheduled Program, Already in Progress (said in that officially dorky voice). Which means my 4th graders added either bamboo, cherry blossom trees or pine trees to their large (12" X 18") watercolor painted backgrounds. Lesson to come, promise!

What is Wrong with You, Thursday?!: Wow, this outfit was a let down to the folks, both big and small, in my school! The 4th grade decided that they had never seen me in "short shoes" (um, I'm guessing that means flats?!) and my librarian buddy dubbed this a "too normal" of an outfit. Humph! Time to get outta these Short Shoes and step up my Non-Normal game, I guess! top: Target; skirt: vintage, etsy; shoes: gift; headband: made by me; necklace: The Paper Source

Meanwhile, in 3rd grade, we excitedly finished these Ming vase inspired still lives. We spent a long time on this project but learned so much...I'll be sharing this lesson later this week. Stay tuned, ya'll!

Hittin' the Town, Friday: Almost everyday after school, there's something going on. Whether it's an art club or meeting up with buddies, I'm always running. I had decided that, with art show approaching, I should spend more after school time in my art room...but I just can't! Not with buddies that I need to chat and shop with. Tamara, thank you for snapping this photo at my happy place -- Anthropologie (where I walked out with a not-at-all-necessary $298 dress for $26, eeee!). dress: made by me (go here for the craziest food-processing-foot-cutting story everrr) 

My 1st grade friends made clay koi fish...and while those dry, they are creating these koinobori (Japanese for Carp Kite) for May 5th which is Children's Day in Japan.

I actually picked up these die-cut paper fish years ago through Roylco and never got around to having the kids create them. This time it worked to be the perfect tie-in, as well as a super short project while our clay drys out. I'll share with you more about this project soon. Ah! So much to share with ya's!

In the Artroom: 4th Grade Viking Ships

I'm just gonna tell you right now, this is one photo-heavy blog post. Which is totally not my fault. I blame my amazingly talented 4th grade artists who just so happened to kick some serious Viking butt with this project. They absolutely loved the Viking unit that student teacher Rebecca introduced (before heading off to high school-land) and I really think their amazing work shows it. Call me a brag-a-saurus (been called worse, trust me) but I'm in love with these works of art.

If you've seen some of the our Viking projects this year (like the 1st grade Viking self-portraits or the 3rd grade Viking ships), then you know a coupla things about how the lessons were designed: 1. They're collage-heavy. Seriously, I think I have a teaching problem(s); 2. They incorporate several different techniques and media; 3. And just about all of the projects take approximately a million years to complete.

I know. I told you, I've got teaching problem(sssss).

And yet I keep coming back to projects like these. Le sigh.

What I really enjoyed about teaching this unit was all of the media the children were able to explore (watercolor, colored pencil, permanent pens) as well as the techniques (painting, sketching, shading, collage). So I thought I'd walk you through our big fat Viking Unit. So put on your horned helmet (horny helmet...?) and hang onto your long ship (dare you to say THAT ten times fast), cuz we're about to get our Viking on (er, what? Never mind. Just keep reading, please).

As you know, my classes are 30 minutes long. So on the first day, using a folded 12" X 18" sheet of paper, the students had to decide how they would like their sky to appear. We brainstormed ideas of what could be seen in a day or night time sky. Using oil pastels, students drew stars, clouds, a sun or a moon. They were given both yellow and white oil pastels. From there, they could begin painting but they had to use analogous colors only. Students were encouraged to paint with horizontal brush strokes (and by "encouraged" I mean and the stink eye if scrub-painting commenced). Several students were unable to finish in that short amount of time and were given the opportunity to continue work the following class.

On the third day, students were given a tri-folded piece of 12" X 18" piece of paper. Rebecca introduced them to three different watercolor techniques. For splatter painting, the students were given the choice to paint wet-on-wet or wet-on-dry. For the wet-on-wet technique, students had a small sponge which they could swipe their paper with water before splattering. This gave the splatters a soft look. For wet-on-dry, they simply began splattering which gave more defined dots. For the mid-section, students were to paint wet-on-wet and add a sprinkle of salt when finished. For the last section, students were to again paint wet-on-wet and when finished, cover with a piece of cling wrap. This was left on the paper over night and when removed, had the cool effect you see on the bottom.

The next class, the collaging began. The students cut each of the three sections down the fold. Then they were instructed to tear each section horizontally creating a wavy line. From there, they painted a line of glue (we keep our glue in cups [think butter dish with a lid] and apply with an old paint brush because I HATE glue bottles. But I'll save that tirade for a separate post) on the straight edge of the paper and added it to our sky to create a horizon. Another strip was added directly below that one.

This process was continued until the bottom of the collage was covered in a lovely sea.

Oh! A tip: Once the kids have used the oil pastels and painted over their drawings, sometimes beads of paint will form and leave unsightly dots. If this bothers the kids, have them go back over the (now dry) paintings with oil pastels again. That will cover up the dried paint dots.

We chatted about blending oil pastels to create a three dimensional look for the sun or moon. This genius got it.

For the long ship, the students were given the option to trace a boat template. This ONLY gave them the general shape of the boat, not the head or tail shape (calm down, template-haters. Breathe). From there, the kids were given these directions:

1. Draw a sea serpent/dragon head and tail in pencil. The kids were shown about a trillion examples (some printed from images found online, some from books).
2. Add texture somewhere to your sea serpent.
3. Add shields and add designs to them that represent your Viking clan. The kids traced bottle caps for their circles.
4. Add curved lines to your ship to show the texture of wood and the 3-D quality of your ship.
5. Trace in thin Sharpie.

All that mess took a couple of days. They got really into their drawings. Reading the book mentioned in this post as they worked really sparked some creativity. After their drawings were complete, they then had to:

1. Add color to the sea serpent and the shields using either Sharpies or colored pencils. Shading was demonstrated.
2. Use watercolor paint on the boat.
3. Cut out VERY carefully. Which involved me saying a lot of this:

Do NOT cut off the head. Cut in...sloooooow...moootiooooon.

No, I cannot cut it out for you. 

I'm sorry your hand is cramping. Maybe all those spikes weren't the best idea. Keep cutting.

Do you think Vikings whined this much? Me neither.  

Some of them added Vikings to their ships. Oh, the hilarity.

And just when they thought I wasn't mean and cruel enough, I threw creating a 3-D sail into the mix. Go back to that 3rd grade Viking ship post for details on how to make the sail. All this typing is making my hands cramp. Sorry. I'm one of those whiny Vikings, in case you didn't know.

Shading is tricky for these guys...but they CAN do it. We talked and talked and talked about it and...guess what? They got it! Some of them had to make a couple of sails before they were successful, but in the end, we had shaded sails. Victory! Some kids decided to add a clan design to their sail. They were to lay out their pieces before gluing down, as you see above. This helped them settle on a good composition.

Are you checking out this detailed cutting work? And this was by one of my hand-crampers. I knew she could do it.

And this one was by my friend who said he couldn't shade. When he finished that sail, I had him to hold it up so the class could give him a round of applause. And then I put him in charge of encouraging other slacker-sail makers. A job he did very well.

So, one million years later, we've got Viking ships! And I really don't know who is the most proud, the kids or me...although I'm guessing it will probably be Rebecca. 

Okay, the end. You can take off your horny hat now. Thanks for reading.

In the Art Room: Circle Loom Weaving with Second Grade

When it comes to art lessons, I'm not much of a repeat offender. Since I like to change up the cultural theme of my art room every year, my lessons usually follow suit. However, I always have my 2nd grade create a circle loom weaving for a coupla reasons:

* It's excellent for building fine motor skillz and pumpin' up those wee hand muscles. And what kid doesn't want super strong man-hands?

* It's chock full o math connections: measuring, pattern making, long division (okay, maybe not that last one but you get the idea.)

* It reaches those kids that might otherwise slip through the art cracks (dude! what if there were such a thing as "art crack"?! Would that be like the equivalent of huffing a sharpie and drinking the paint water?!) Particularly my boy students. They absolutely thrive on weaving, being the tactile learners that they are. In fact, I overheard one little guy tell a buddy whilst weaving, "this is the best day of my life, I love this!" Daawwww.

All that being said, I've not been in love with how I've taught circle loom weaving in the past. Usually when we wove on a plate, we simply started with a blank Chinet plate, created our weaving and used markers to color the rim of the plate (go here and scroll down to 2nd grade art to see). Last year, in an effort to change things up a bit, we did the whole weaving on a CD thang which was cool and all but I still wasn't in love with the end result.

This year, in an effort to try something totes different but still make sure the kids got in their much needed weaving time, I opted to have them paint their plates before attaching them with woven greatness.

 Wait, you wanna make a Painted Plate Circle Loom Weaving too?! Okay, kids, russell up the following: 

Chinet Plates. Ya'll don't use anything less. These bad boys are as good as a canvas as far as plate-painting-surfaces go.

Tempra Paint. I only use Crayola's Washable Paint. The colors are about as good as it's gonna get in an elementary classroom.

A Loom Template. You'll thank me later, ya'll.

Yarn and Beads.

 Over the course of 2-ish art classes, we painted these plates. On our first day, we chatted about Kandinsky's concentric circle paintings and created our own. The following art class was spent using the World's Smallest Paint Brushes to craft those patterns that you see. By the way, if these look a pinch familiar to you, I shared these plates in a recent post about (attempting) to teach good craftsmanship. 

 Once the plates are painted and patterned, I give the kids a loom template with exactly 19 notches (not nachos) cut into it. The kids are to trace these notches onto the rim of their plate, count to check that they only have 19 lines to cut (because there will be the rando kid that has 55 lines drawn everywheres) and then cut the lines on the rim of the plate. I encourage them not to cut beyond the rim as this will make for a saggy weaving. Which sounds about as ugly as it is.

 Once the kids have their plates (which we now call our looms) cut, they are to grab a small skein of warping string and meet me on the floor. For the correct amount of warping string, I wrap the yarn from my hand to my elbow five times. These small bundles are available in a variety of colors for the kids to choose from. 

Now. Let's talk about teaching the kids to warp their looms. Which can either be like watching a train wreck happen in slow motion or a piece of cake. Lemme show you the cake route cuz, well, everybody loves cake.

First of all, when we are all seated on the floor, with our looms and warp string in front of us, ain't nobody allowed to touch nuthin until I say "go". You even think about touching that loom and yarn and Ima gonna snatch it up. Because, you know wuz about to happen. They'll think they've got it, fiddle around and not catch a bit of direction and the next thing you know, you've got a class of 20 all train-wreckin-it-up. So. Watch me and wait for the "go". 

First step: Put the tail end of the yarn in any notch. There should be a short tail about the length of your finger in the back while the rest of the yarn hangs loose and free in the front. Go. (I tell the kids that their "go" signal to me for the next step is to put their weavings on the floor in front of them. When I see that, I can proceed.)

Next: Bring the length of yarn down dividing the plate in half (see above photo). But, there's a catch. Be sure that there are 8 empty notches on the left side and 9 on the right. That's muy importante, ya'll. Go.

Now: (see left photo) Take the long length of string and have it "go to the right neighbor's house" meaning have your string go in the next notch on the right hand side. Now, this neighbor is super rude and it shouts, "get outta my house!" so the string runs all the way across the plate (see right photo) and makes the World's Smallest X. 

 Next: Rotate the plate so that the length of string is at the bottom (left picture). That story I just told about the string getting kicked out of the neighbor's house? It's a pattern. Which means it's gonna repeat. So, let's do it again! Go to the right neighbors house. Get kicked out. Go across the street and make the World's Smallest X. Rotate the plate.

After watching this routine, the kids walk me through completing my plate warping by repeating this as I go:

Go the neighbor. Get kicked out. Make World's Smallest X. Rotate the Plate.

Which gets shortened to:

Neighbor. Out. X. Rotate.

 You'll know you're finished when your little string has no home to go to. And that will be your weft or weaving string!

The following art class, we start to weave with that wee string.

 The first day of actual weaving is usually the toughest. I tell 'em over and under until I'm blue in the face...and they get it. That is until they pull the string tightly to the middle and it looks like this:

And then they're all "whuh, huh? whuh just happened to my string?" 

At this point, I tell them that they might have to loosen their weaving a bit to see just what they did previously. This will put them back on over-and-under track. When their weft is as long as their hand, they are to double knot tie a new string to the end. It can be a tough first day...but I repeat over and again: Your first day of weaving is the hardest. But you'll get this. And you'll love it. 

And when they do, without sounding like some sappy art teacher, it's pure magic.

During our weaving sessions, some kids sit on the floor with me and we chat and get to know each other. We've taken weavings outside on sunny days and sat under trees. We lay on the floor or relocate to tables where our buddies sit. It makes for such a fun and relaxing environment. 

Since the kids really caught on fast to weaving this year, I thought I'd throw out the option of adding pony beads. Some kids took to it right away, complimenting their designs with a beaded pattern. 

 And others opted out, content to just weave until they reached their limit of a 4" diameter. Once weavings were complete, the last of the weft strings was double knot tied to a warp spoke.

The weaving portion of this project only took us 2-ish 30 minute art classes. Since I limited the diameter to 4" (because I hated the thought of their beautiful paintings being hidden AND because the kids will seriously weave For.Eve.Rrr. if not limited), the project ended up being rather quick. By my weeks-long-art-project standards.

I think I can happily say, I'm thrilled with these circle loom weavings. I will definitely be sticking with this painted plate loom lesson. It's become a new weaving fave. To finish these guys off, the kids will tie a "hanger" of yarn at the top so these can be displayed for our upcoming art show!

By the way, I've shared a couple of weaving posts on this here blog. Some of my faves are the following:

Crocodile Paper Woven Puppets by 1st Grade

Tree Weaving with 3rd Grade

And Pouch Weavings by 4th Grade

What are your fave weaving projects? I'd love to hear!