DIY: 14 Faves of 2014

Well, Happy New Year's Eve-eve to all y'all! One of my fave things to do during this time o' year is to look back on the past and reflect on some of my happiest memories. I've been doing this the past coupla years and I really enjoy it (you can visit 2012 and 2013 here if you so desire). I hope you don't find it nearly as torturous as those Facebook "This is my life in a coupla rando posts and pics that some pimply teen working at FB picked for me. Thanks for being apart of it." thingies that keep clogging up your newsfeed. If so, my sincerest-ish apologies. 

For humoring my self-indulgent reflectin', I've got a giveaway for y'all! One of my fave things about 2014 was that I started the Artsy Book Club. We started out with a BANG! reading One Drawing a Day and really having fun with it. The prob? Drawing each and every day is taxing, y'all. However, I did love the bond we created. My next book club read was a double header (Teach Like a Pirate and Printmaking Unleashed) which I think was a big ole mistake. I was overwhelmed trying to read them both. So this time around, I'm throwing a book out there that I've been meaning to read for ages and I think we'll all benefit from and Ima gonna give one of you a copy! So, what's the book, you ask?

A true classic, amirite? AND one that I've never read. Here's how you can enter to win:

1. Leave me a message in the comments about what was your fave memory from 2014. 

2. Don't forget to include your email address! I'll let you know by Sunday, January 4th.

We'll begin officially book clubbing on Monday, January 12th. There are a million inexpensive copies of the book in the used section on Amazon (that'd be where this giveaway copy came from!). I do hope you'll join the Artsy Book Readin fun!

And now, on to 14 Faves of 2014 (in no particular order)...

1. My Artist-Inspired Dresses. The craziness continues. I started this artist/artwork-themed dress thing last year after creating The Great Wave dress. My most recent one was this Lichtenstein number (I've got a couple on my sewing room table right now just waiting to be created). 

This Starry Night Dress was actually started at this time last year over winter break. The light up part is my ab fave. 

Woof, this entirely needle felted The Scream dress had me seriously questioning my life's choices. It took me foreverness. I don't wanna even know how many hours were poured into that dress (although I do know that about 3 seasons of Project Runway were watched whilst needling away). I took a lil hiatus from needle felting after that number. 

But once I learned that there was a Kandinsky exhibit coming to The Frist Center for Visual Arts, I was back at the felting biz-natch. You can see the dress on the left and the one on the right by clickin' the linky-loo, Cindy-Lou Who

 2. Feature in Nashville Arts Magazine. From the interview to the photo session to seeing it all in print, that was easily one of the coolest things of 2014 for me. You can view the entire interview here incase your eyes cannot read flea-sized font. 

 And you can read all about that photo session and interview here. 

 3. The Artsy Sew Along. Originally just called the Apron Sew Along until we finished the aprons and people kept joining the fun (I love Denise's Frida/El Dia de los Muertos apron, don't you?)! I've got a new sew along project in store for us so if you join here, you'll be able to stay informed. If you are still wanting to get your apron stitching on, go here. There's all the links to the videos and tutorials you'd ever want (well, not really. But it's a start). 

 3. Going to NAEA in San Diego. Twas an absolute blast! It was basically Art Teachers Gone Wild which is always the best kind of party. I'm most def going this March (and leading two sessions, whuuuh?! Y'all best come and hold my hand, ermkay?). I loved meeting some of my fave bloggers and awesome art teachers. From left to right, that's Phyl, Patty, Rina and the lovely Donna. If you click on their names, you will be blown away by their awesomeness. 

And of course, Nic Hahn of Mini-Matisse! Like, seriously the nicest gal everrr.

4. Leading my first professional development at Cheekwood Botanical Gardens. Y'all. I was so super nervous to be leading that workshop! I mean, I'll teach kiddos all day long but other art teachers?! Who am I to tell 'em what to do? My nerves were set at ease by that awesome group of art educators and it was such a fun experience that I can't wait to do it again. 

5. Speaking at Bowling Green State University. That was another spooky/thrilling experience that I absolutely loved! Although, I gotta tell ya, my fave part was meeting Laura Dean of Painted Paper. Her blog is insanely creative and always an inspiration. 

 6. Gallery of Gratitude. As art teachers, we hang artwork in the hall all the time to boost the kid's self esteem and to show off their hard work. However, it's not often that we create art work to booster the esteem of others and congratulate them on their hard work. But that's just what our Gallery of Gratitude did. And the impact it had on my coworkers was very touching. This was easily one of my fave art projects of 2014. 

7. 4th Grade Legacy Mural. This project was one that came to me two weeks before winter break. The idea: have my 4th grade kids create a legacy for the school and present it as a Christmas gift before winter break. Getting this completed caused multiple panic attacks but with the help of my buddies the custodians, the bookkeeper, my librarian buds and all my fab fourth graders, it was finished and revealed to our principals. 

 8. String Art Project. This project was both a student and blog reader favorite. If you've not given this a go, I really recommend you do. Each and every kid loved it and was successful. And now my 3rd graders are begging to create one as well. I've got an alternative in mind for them that I can't wait to start after break. 

9. Circle Loom Weaving with 2nd Grade. This one was another blog reader/kid fave. Do y'all weave in your art rooms? It's one of my favorite things. In fact, I'm declaring January Weaving Month by hosting a weaving lesson each week on this here blog. I'm also presenting all-things-weave-y at the AOE conference at the end of January! I'm so looking forward to that. Are y'all going? 

10. 2nd Place Art Education Blog of the Year. Speaking of the Art of Education, this was a super nice surprise this year (I know it says 2013 but it actually went down in 2014)! I was thrilled just to be nominated. Shoot, I'm just glad that there's five of you out there that read my ridiculousness! 

11. Tennessee Elementary Art Educator of the Year. Well, that was a super nice surprise! Especially the part where I'm surrounded by some outstanding art educating action like these lovely ladies. Guess who didn't get the "Professional Attire Required" memo (as if I have any clothing that falls into that category!). 

12. Hiking Mount Baldy. Like, wow, y'all. That was a tough hike the hubs and I did this summer. But outta all the hiking we've done, this one was one of my faves. The views were amazing. 

Like, right? Once we caught our breath the view was even more breath taking. 

13. Halloween Horror Nights at Hollywood's Universal Studios. The hubs and I have been going to HHN for years. It's like our fave thing in the world. Seriously, the hubs loves it so much, he starts planning our trip in May. I was able to get this frightening clip filmed while standing at the front of the entrance to the park. Just watching it still makes my hands sweat. And to think we pay money to get chased my these maniacs! 

14. A Ladies Trip to Charleston. Me, my moms and my moms-in-law traveled to Charleston this summer and completely did the town. I'd never been before and the whole place was such a fun and unique experience. Fave part: the dolphin sightings right after these photos were taken. So fun! 

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!"]

In the Art Room: School-Wide Collaboratives!

Hey, kids! I'm comin' atcha with a mere two and some change weeks o' summer vacay left before The Return. Which means, if you are anything like me (and, Lordie help you if you are), you are dreaming up ideas for the new school year. One of my fave things to do to kick off the beginning of the year is have a big ole school-wide collaborative (or "scollab" as I like to call 'em). And lemme tell you why:

1. It gets the kids creating right at the start of the school year! If your kids are anything like mine, they spend their first full week learning rules -n- routines everywhere they go. The cafeteria. The classroom. The playground. The bus. WHICH I know is important BUT I'm dealing with the under-10 set. When they come to the art room they are soooo over that mess. Not only that, but I've had most of my students since kindergartenland. If they don't know my R-n-R's by now, well, when they see that we're gonna create on the first day o' art, they learn 'em real fast. Nothing like a big ole fun and messy carrot to get 'em behaved and ready to create, amirate?!

2. It makes the school look lovely! At the start of the school year, our school halls are empty and nuthin but wall to wall BLAH-eige (my friend Debbie coined this term: blah + beige = BLAH-eige). What better way to spice 'em up than with some kid-created masterpieces?!

3. It shines a spotlight on your art program! Let's face it, you ARE the Donna Summer of your school:

Sing it with me, "I work hard for the money. So hard for it, honey! I work hard for the money so you better treat me right!" However, you just can't run around tellin' folk how hard you and your young artists are working. You gotta show them. Put up a show stopper at the start of the year and you'll have everyone talkin' about your art program. 

Now, I know y'all are thinking, "That's all well -n- swell but what scollabs should I dooooo?!" Well, I'm here today to share with y'all some of my very faves with linky-loos to the blog posts that will walk you thru all of the steppies. Let's start with this fourth grade legacy mural! And, good news, if you are attending this Thursday's AOE conference...

You can hear me chat at length about each of these projects! As well as me questions live at the conference. AND take a tour of my school and get an even better view of these masterpieces. However, if you can't attend, don't you sweat it. I've got ya covered in this here blog post!

The mural is proudly displayed in the front lobby of our school and give a fair amount of fun -n- funk to our entrance way, doncha think?

Another fun scollab we did this year was our Village of Kindness mural/installation. 

Our theme for the school year was Be Nice and what better way to do so than with a village full of houses with kind messages to greet the viewer.

This also incorporated a fun backdrop that was painted by my rockin' second grade artists! More on that process here. 

This scollab is prolly one of my all time faves and it was purely by accident. Our school hosted a "street painter" or sidewalk chalk artist who introduced the kids to her trade. The kids were then supposed to try their hand at chalk art outside on our sidewalks but the weather decided against it. So we used the flip side of ceiling tiles instead! Full details here. 

Now we're thinking of doing this project every year because my administration loved it so much!

 If you want a scollab that will have EVERYONE feeling all warm and fuzzy at the start of the school year, have I got the one for you. The Gallery of Gratitude is an idea I played with forever...and I totes wish I had done it sooner. It meant so much to the faculty and staff to see their portraits and words of kindness written about them. 

Who doesn't love to feel appreciated?! This project def did the trick.

And, last but not least, the final scollab I've got for you here in this post is the Johnson Elementary has Heart mural! If you need a heart stopping show stopper (sorry, had to), this is it, kids!

So, what do you think? Are you ready to tackle a scollab to kick off the start of your school year? If so, what do you have in mind? I'd love to know. Leave me a lil sumpin sumpin in the comments, would ya? Til then...

In the Art Room: A Village of Kindness, Part I

So y'all might recall me mentioning that we're doing a lil Be Nice campaign at my school. Quite simply, it entails us doing something kind for others. In the art room, we created a Gallery of Gratitude for all who work in our school, we wrote letters to fellow artists praising their hard work, and my fourth graders created a Legacy Mural as a gift both to the school and our principals. And just last week, we began work on our latest creative effort in being nice: our Village of Kindness!

Our super fab cafeteria manager has been saving the morning milk cartons and rinsing them out for us (I told you she was super fab) which is great because the smell of sour milk makes me do that Ima-bout-to-heave wobbly neck chicken dance. I seriously have hundreds of 'em in my room right now all in the process of becoming this awesome. The concept is that each house in our village has a door that opens with a nice message inside. This one reads: "Your cool litraly soooooooooooooo cool." Gotta love third grade.

 I'm always pushing the idea of being your unique self in my art room. It's kinda been my mantra this year what with words like original, creative, non-conformist and unique being our Words of the Week. So this message of "UR the Best YOU!" is one of my faves.

So just how did this project get started? Well, every kid in the school is creating a house for our village. To start, we did a quick review of the warm colors and in our first thirty minutes together got about this much accomplished. I only had a coupla rules: don't forget to clean your paint brush and write your name on the bottom of the house. Other than that, paint away, dudes!

On the second thirty minute art class, I read the book The Big Orange Splot. I LOVE this book and so do the kids. If you've not read it, it's about a dude who paints his house "to look like all of his dreams" and inspires his neighbors to do the same. It's a great example of conformist vs. non-conformist. And it serves to really inspire our second day of house painting.

On that day, the kids are given smaller brushes and cold colors. They were encouraged to add any sort of line designs and details they might want. These kids were also introduced to Rizzi at the start of the school year which was a great tie-in for this portion of the project.

 On our third day, the kids were given a wide variety of media to work with to finish off their house. I got out the "funky monkey" scissors for cutting and creating a door and a roof. Oil pastels, paint and colored pencils were available for the kids to finish off their masterpiece. I found that by giving them a ton of media to pick from, they really got creative.

When writing our messages, I told the kids to write something that they would like to hear from a friend. What kind words would really make your day? It was funny to read their responses. I got one that read, "Like your top, bro" and another that said, "You are the best gamer IN THE WORLD!" Many others said kind things about being an awesome artist or smart student. They were such a pleasure to read after the kids had cleaned up.

Since our focus is on kindness AND because I really enjoy reading aloud (just ask my mom-in-law as my fave thing to do when visiting her is read to her the Dear Abby column), I have been reading The Hundred Dresses while the kids are working. It's a chapter book (so the young kids love it for that reason alone) that's all about a girl who is teased by others for claiming to have, you guessed it, a hundred dresses. Turns out she does have that many only not in the way you might think. It's such a sweet book that all the kids (even the dudes) really enjoy. And it fits in so very well with our chats on kindness. 

ADDED BONUS...Here's something super interesting that I found: when reading the book, the kids don't ask for help or even reminders of what to do. They magically remember! They also magically seem to have more focus on their creation! When I discovered this on my first day reading to them, I was all "why has it taken my 17 years to figure this out?!" 

 I can easily say that each and every kid loved this project. And each and every house is totes presh. Our end goal is to attach our village on a painted backdrop. Usually I share with you projects at their completion but I really wanted you to see our works in progress. Mostly cuz they are just about the cutest thing everrrr.

 My goal is to have our Village of Kindness up and ready by Valentine's Day but that's sneaking up on me rapidly so I'm not holding my breath. I'll be certain to come backattcha with a  Part 2 so you can see the finished results. 

 I mean, c'mon. Is it just me or are these not the happiest lil houses? I'd totes live in this wee one. 

Or perhaps this one! They are all just too happy, bright and colorful for me to pick a fave.

 So until then, I hope y'all have a happy, bright and colorful week!