Tuesday, November 5, 2013

In the Art Room: Trying Something New

The Art Room Foyer...that's right, my room is so big it has it's own entryway. I'm totes spoiled, ya'll. You can learn more about the Smartest Artist Game (seen on the right) here and read about our day-to-day attempts at routines and procedures here.
You ever find yourself watching those amazingly terrible infomercials where you're all, "who would buy that?!" only to get sucked in a little further to discover that the 'mercial is speaking directly to you and that product they're pitching could quite possibly solve all of your life's problems? For example, how about the Better Marriage Blanket which, with it's activated-carbon fabric, a material "used by the military to protect against chemical weapons", can put an end to the silent and deadly problems which reek, er, wreak havoc in otherwise happy marriages? Or what about the Rejuvenique Electrical Facial Mask, which closely resembles Jason's Friday the 13th hockey get-up, but packs a nine-volt battery electrical shock punch to those pesky wrinkles. I just know in my heart of hearts that with 5 easy payments of $39.99, my life would be perfection, right?

Such is kinda the story of my life in the art room. I see a problem, I dream up some incredibly perfect way to fix it and...it either turns out shockingly bad (like my facial mask) or super stinky (shoulda went for the blanket). However, in this here post, I wanted to spare you the stink and share with you the (so-far) successes. So here's a list of some new things I'm trying and enjoying in the art room this year. Enjoy and puh-lease let me know what new things you are giving a go this school year. Shake Weight Paint Brush, perhaps...?

I Can Statements. In my neck of the woods, my students are to be told several times just what it is they are learning and what it is they'll be accomplishing. I'm also supposed to tie that in to the state standards and put it in kid friendly terms. So just to the left of the bulletin board seen in the top photo is this miniature dry erase display of their current I Can's along with the permanent standards. When the children enter my room, they walk along a line I have taped to the floor. When the first student has reached the end of the tape and all have entered the art room, I have the students repeat their daily I Can's after me. This helps us all to focus and puts an end to the question, "What are we doing today?!"
Time Timer. I have Art Teachers Hate Glitter to thank for this. She made mention of using this in her art room and I was excited to try it out. With 30 minutes for art making, I am always watching the clock and I am also always losing track of time. More often than I'd like to admit, one class is cleaning up while I have another class walking in (at which point we play the "Let's Watch the Other Class Clean Up and See How Well They Do" Game...which is a totally boring game and Milton Bradley ain't going to be making a version anytime soon).
My students love this thing. In fact, when they walk in and take a seat on the floor, if one of them notices I've not set the time, they'll ask to do it for me. As time moves on, the red pie gets smaller and finally ends with a loud beep of the alarm. This has become our signal to clean up. What I love about this is that the children have become more aware of time management. You can find the Time Timer here.
See, Think, Wonder. After repeating our I Can statements at the door, I'll often pick a student to "be the teacher." This student will sit in my chair and discuss a work of art I have on my easel. The work of art will often be created by our Artist of the Month. The "teacher" is to ask the children "What do you See?" (note the camera icon) and they are to respond like they would with me, by raising their hand. After speaking with a couple of children the teacher can then move on to "What do you Think?"  (lightbulb) and "What do you Wonder?" (question mark). This game is great because it buys me a little time to get supplies out on tables and it allows me to pre assess students knowledge, thoughts and questions about a work of art.
Also on my board I have my I Can statements posted again for their viewing pleasure. By the way, the display on the right was created with the children's messy mats and a poster from Target.
Good Music. My husband and I love going to theme parks because they are magical. And I want my art room to be a magical place in the school. With all that often goes on in a half an hour, it's hard to stop and make a magical moment happen for the children. So good music helps. This amazing CD has been on constant rotation in the art room. It's calming, quiet, recognizable and, well, magical. Next on my music wishlist is the Star Wars soundtrack.
Choose Your Own Adventure. Did you all read Choose Your Own Adventure books when you were kids? I loved them. If you are not familiar, you read a short chapter and at the conclusion, you can decide, as in the case of this book, if you A. Want to invade a monastery, B. Go on a Viking raid or C. Fight in a Viking battle. From there, the book takes you on a wonderful adventure of your choosing. I've been reading this to my fourth grade students (I've deemed it inappropriate for those younger due to Viking violence) and it has sparked so much creativity with their Viking drawings. As a class, we vote on the adventures we go on. Even in my short 30 minutes, I can manage to read a couple of adventures. There is an enormous library of these books on amazon. In fact, just today I purchased Ninja and Samurai adventure tales. The kids are thrilled.
Snap Snap WOOOSH. I suck at clean up procedures. There. I said it. Mostly cuz we're running late. However, with the Time Timer keeping track, we are getting better. Our new procedure is that when you hear the alarm, you clean. Once your table is clean with everything put in it's correct spot (having a mini trash can on the table as seen on the right in the photo above really helps) and all of the students are standing behind their pushed in chair, they count down at their table and collectively snap their fingers and give me the "Snap! Snap! WHOOSH!" with a wave motion of their arms. They are to only do this once (otherwise they will do it repeatedly and drive me nutz) at which point I'll check their table for neatness. If they are good, I send them to line up. If not, they are asked to continue cleaning and give me the signal again when they are ready. So far...it's working out pretty well.








Art Class Homework. They asked for it, I swear! In fact, they can get pretty grumpy when I don't have anything for them. So once a week, I'm making art homework available for the taking. My plan is to tie it in with our artist of the month and see just what they come up with. Once the art work is returned to me, we look at it and recognize those young artists at the beginning of class. I'm plotting a way to display these hard workers efforts and I'll share it with you soon.
Personally, I think an Ice Cream Dress is a FANTASTIC idea...and has given me lots of food for thought...so to speak.

And there you have it! Okay, you're turn...what are you doing in your art room that works? And if I Act Now! can I please get it for just 3 easy payments of $19.99...? Because that'd be better than a Better Marriage Blanket, ya'll! 


Sunday, November 3, 2013

What the Art Teacher Wore #81

It-Always-Feels-Like-Somebody's-Watching-Me Monday: Not sure what freaked the kids out more, the fact that I was wearing pants or that my pants watched their every move. Best be behavin', ya'll. sweater: Anthro label, bought at Buffalo Exchange; necklace: vintage, gift; pants: originally purchased at Target, DIY-eyes by me; shoes: Miss L Fire
Greetings, ya'll! I do believe when the clock struck 3:30pm on Friday, a collective art teacher sigh rang out through The Universe. Was this The World's Most Wacky Week or what?! In my neck of the woods, not only did this week involve Halloween but I had my first evaluation and it was Spirit Week and our school-wide Fun Run (or, in our case, being the tigers, the Tiger Run. Which I tried to convince the kids that it was called such because tigers would be chasing them...but no one was buying it. Except for kindergarten. And they ran super fast). Needless to say, I've spent this weekend attempting to recover.

These past couple of weeks, I've been a wee bit of a slacker when it came to my weekly outfit posts. This wasn't totally intentional...but something happened recently that turned me off to posting my outfits. Unbeknownst to me, an outfit of mine (go here and see Thursday) was the cause of some debate on pinterest. I admit, that outfit was a stinker, but the couple of negative comments really caught me by surprise (I've noticed that one commenter who called the outfit a "disaster" [it truly is, ya'll] has since removed her remark). However, the kind words of complete strangers (one being an art teacher herself) really made me feel good. So, to those like-minded, crazily-dressed artsy folk, let's ignore the not-so-nice and focus on the positive! Because, really, life is entirely too short not to wear faux-tiger-fur shoes with pocket-watch tights and be a delightful disaster, doncha think?!

Whew! With that mess off my chest, here's what I wore...and some artist love to Rene Magritte...
Rene Magritte was born in Belgium in 1898 and died in 1967. The kids have been absolutely fascinated by his work and have had many great debates on his surreal images. We've chatted about how Magritte liked to take objects that are real but combine them in such a way that they couldn't possibly be real. For their art homework, my third grade students were to combine two real things and make them into something surreal. One girl came back with a drawing of me. I know I'm weird, I didn't know I was surreal. Sur realz, ya'll?
The Human Condition, 1933  You know, in case you weren't confused by his paintings enough, ole Magritte liked to mess with you via his titles as well. After our grand debates, when the kids learn the title, they're all...Mind. Blown.
Monster Mash Tuesday: I only had the chance to wear this outfit twice before packing it up until next fall. And both of those times I was visiting the same doc's office...which means they must think I wear this get-up everyday. In fact, one nurse said, "oh! I remember you from the other day...you were wearing that same dress!" Embarrassing. dress, sweater: DIY, go here; tights: Target; shoes: Crocs, thrifted; belt: Pin Up Girl Clothing
Not to be Reproduced, 1937 I have to share this quote by Magritte describing his paintings:
"visible images which conceal nothing; they evoke mystery and, indeed, when one sees one of my pictures, one asks oneself this simple question, 'What does that mean?'. It does not mean anything, because mystery means nothing either, it is unknowable."

Magritte Wednesday: This here is my fourth Artist of the Month outfit and it was completed just in the nick of time! Official DIY post to come. hat: DIY by me; jacket: Anthro, gift from a friend; blouse: gift from a friend; tie: made by me; tie tack: my 15 years of teaching pin!; dress: thrifted, DIY by me; cloud tights: ebay, just search "cloud tights"; boots: Lucky Brand, Marshalls
The Son of Man, 1964 Perhaps one of Magritte's most recognizable works, this was part of the inspiration behind my outfit. The kids noticed that Magritte repeats certain images in his paintings. The "balcony" appears in several of his paintings, often with a nest resting on it.
The Great Family, 1963 I was inspired my the repeating image of birds filled with clouds for the skirt portion of my dress. That image is also the inspiration for a mural project the third grade is currently working on. I cannot wait to share with you the end piece.
Eye of the Tiger Thursday: As I mentioned, it was Spirit Week and I'd failed to participate...I just couldn't wear my pajamas to work for PJ Day (holey t-shirt and stinky sweats? I think not) and don't have any sports gear for Football Team Day (like, ew) but for Dress Like a Tiger Day, I was set! dress: thrifted vintage; sweater: felted by me, DIY here; tiger tights and tiger ears: Amazon
Spring







Tiger Run Friday: Not long ago, we spent a week in the art room tie-dying our Tiger Run t-shirts our school colors. It's always exciting to see how they turn out (looks like my dying skillz are lacking) and fun to see all 400 plus students, teachers and faculty wearing their shirts. For the occasion, I decided to go all out with my tights...just don't ask me how. That'd be a TMI of epic proportions. shirt: tie-dyed and altered by me; skirt: Anthro, gift from a friend; shoes: Puma; tights: Target

Kissing Magritte, Joe Webb, 2012 So in my search for all things Magritte, I stumbled upon this amazing image, as well as many others, by the contemporary collage artist Joe Webb. This dude used real vintage magazines (no computer/photoshop images) to create his surreal collages. I'm in love. Go here and check out more of his beautiful vintage-y surreal-tastic work.
...AND another annoying plug for my Facebook page. "When will it end?!" you ask? Probs never. Sorry.

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

DIY: Magritte Costume

 I hope your Halloween is a surreal experience! 

An official DIY post about this here get-up is in the very near future...but I'm guessing you now know who our Artist of the Month is!

 I actually wore this on Halloween Eve as it was: A. My day to be evaluated so why not? B. It's Spirit Week at our school, which I love but it was also Pajama Day and I didn't think wearing my pj's would be appropriate for my eval. Because there's just something about smelly sweats and a holey t-shirt that says "unprofessional" in my professional opinion. However, this proved to cause great confusion amongst the wee ones who kept inquiring: "Are those your pajamas?!"

Oh, and a funny side note about my evaluation (I'm in a chatty mood. Can you tell I'm in a chatty mood? Sorry, no one else will talk to me and you look like an easy target): I was observed with a normally chatty class that was creepily well-behaved and quiet. When their teacher came to pick them up, this happened:

Teach: How were they?

Me: Um, amazing! Like, kinda-freaking-me-out good. What did you say to them?!

Teach: Well, I told them that one of the principals would be in your room watching you. When one of the kids asked me if you might get fired if you didn't do a good job, I told them, "Well, that's not my decision to make..."

Bwahaha! It's nice to know the kids like me enough to keep me outta unemployment.

Until I get my official Artist of the Month DIY post together, you can check out my other artists dresses here: the Andy Warhol Soup Can Dress, The Jackson Pollock Splatter Paint Dress and Hokusai's Great Wave Dress.

Oh, and you can now find me on my Facebook page.

Happy Halloween!

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

In the Art Room: Vicious Vikings!

If ever the words adorable and Viking could be used together in a sentence, it would have to be upon viewing these painted and collage-tastic works of art. I mean, just scroll down and take in the hilarity. Super-Awesome-Cuteness-Overload. With a touch of axe-wielding angst. The perfect combo for a Viking, says these first and second grade artists.

(hey. I'm whispering this to you. that's why it's in italics and lower case. all images of children that you see here are published with permission of viking parents. because i like my job and would prefer not to get fired.)
Now before I go into the details of this lesson, I have to give a big fat hairy shout out to my (sadly, former) student teacher Rebecca who taught these young artists as well as Laura of Painted Paper who inspired this lesson. Rebecca taught the first through fourth grade students a Viking unit based on her summer travels through Norway. You can see the third graders' Viking ship collages here. For the younger artists, she decided to create a lesson that turned the kids themselves into Vikings.

On the first day of the lesson, the kids painted the papers for their backgrounds. In one (insanely busy) half hour class, the kids chose one 12" X 18" piece of construction paper for the back ground and two pieces of 12" X 9" paper in white and green. And here's how it went down in bullet points. Because I love me some bullet points:
  • (oh, so pointy!) The kids began with the larger paper. Using a sponge the size of their hands, they stamped white paint all over the top half of the paper. Once finished, they chose a smaller sponge and two colors of their choice to blend into the white paint for their sky.
  • From there, the children moved onto the two smaller papers. On these, they were to use a dry brush technique with green, white and yellow.
All that in 1/2 hour. Hence the gray hairs
The following class, Rebecca showed the kids a Power Point (is that one word? Should it be in caps? Do I really care?) of her travels and the beautiful landscape of Norway in the summer. The kids were then shown how to tear each of their green painted papers lengthwise and glue them down. The trick to teaching this lesson is making sure that the children begin gluing the background land first and slowly work toward the foreground. I'm kinda in love with this collage technique. I used it here for our Paris collages and here for our Egyptian ones.
For the body and assorted details of the Viking, the kids created another piece of painted paper. I wrote an entire blog post about this process which you can read all about here, if you wanna.

Our end result looked a little like this. The side on the right was used for the body of the Viking. For this, the kids cut the entire painted paper in half, folded the side you see on the right in half and, along the fold, traced half of a Viking body template and cut it out. Now before you freak out because a template was used, lemme 'splain myself: 1. I have a half an hour. Sometimes short cuts are a necessity. 2. Folding the paper in half, tracing half a template, cutting and opening the paper to discover (surprise!) a whole Viking body is an excellent means of teaching symmetry.

As the children worked on that, Rebecca called the kids aside for their Viking photo-op. She took two photos of the kids: a picture day smile and a fierce Viking face photo. In the following class, the children were able to chose between the two.
At the start of the next couple of classes, Rebecca would introduce a new fact about the Vikings to the children. They learned all about Viking culture, clothing, the long ships and long houses as well as their fierce ways.

The kids learned that they'd have to create a helmet, shield, weapon and some clothing for their Viking. Oh and "weird animal skin shoes" as one student called them today.
One of my favorite things about these Vikings is how some appear to be missing some teeth! This Vike-ette musta been in some rough battles to get her teeth knocked out. Either that or she's from Kentucky (just kidding, Kentucky friends!).
Once the kids chose their photo, they carefully cut around their face and glued it to their body. Braids and beards were added with construction paper which is much easier than it sounds. For this, Rebecca and I split the boys and girls up so that we could give individual demos to each group. Once the hair stylings were complete, helmets were added.
The next couple of classes were spent collaging boots, belts, sheilds and, everyone's favorite weapons! Well, almost everyone's favorite. I did have two sweet students who asked if their Viking could be reading instead of wielding a weapon. What were they reading, you ask? One was holding a book titled "How to be a Good Viking." Adorbs.
Don't tell anyone but this Viking's face is secretly my fave. With his expression and that mustache, he reminds me of Salvador Dali, don't you agree? I love it.
As a wrap up, I asked the kids the following questions today: Who were the Vikings? What did they do? Where did they live? I jotted down their answers on the board and I was so proud of everything they had learned. I wish Rebecca could have been there, it was a happy teacher moment for sure. 

The students were to then write a small paragraph about their Viking. With the exception of the one that said his Viking "cills peepel" (yikes! Gonna do a rewrite!), what they wrote was so fun to read. Almost as fun as those Vikings themselves! 


In other news...I now have a Facebook page for this blog! You can go and like it (or not, be that way) here:


Because I'm super computer un-savvy, I've yet to figure out how to create a link on this blog to take you directly to my facebook page. My apologies. I blame my pea-sized brain. If any of you computer geniuses out there would like to offer some advice, I'll gladly take it. In the meantime, up there's the linky-loo, "like" if you like. And thanks for dropping by!

Sunday, October 27, 2013

DIY: Matching Monster-Mash Dress and Sweater

This is my sadistic Trick-or-Treat-If-You-Dare face. Although, five days a week, it's known as my Continue-to-Annoy-the-Art-Teacher-and-this-Smile-is-Gonna-Be-the-Last-Thing-You-See-Before-You-Enter-Timeout-Town. I blame said Town for the gray streak.
  Alright, I know what you're thinking: another Halloween DIY?! Um, yes. And a couple more to come. I know, I know. But before you think I'm employing a sweat shop in my sewing room (not a bad idea) or getting all jacked up on a candy corn/coke combo and working into the night (closer to the truth), lemme just put rumors to rest and tell you that this dress has sat finished (and unworn) in my sewing room for a coupla weeks. Mostly cuz, after putting in the final stitch, I tried the dress on and the words, "I hate this dress," came outta my mouth.
 Now when I spotted this monstrous fabric at Jo-ann's, I had to scoop it up because of it's retro-y awesomeness. This was after I made a vow at the start of September that I was Not Going to Make Another Halloween Dress. I mean, I made three last fall! That el Dia de los Muertos number, the Be-witched dress with that adorable Tammis Keefe-inspired fabric and the Horror Flick dress. A fourth dress was absolutely unnecessary! And, yet I found myself at the cutting counter loading up on a coupla yards. Because a vow made by me (even to myself!) is about as lasting as a fart in a windstorm.

After digging through my pattern stash, I settled on ole Simplicity 1803 which I've used more times than I can count. That pattern needs to be taken away from me -- it's like a bad boyfriend I just can't get away from. (My apologies, Brad Pitt, for bringing you into this blog post. But you know our relationship went on far longer than it should have. I just can't help that your enchantment for my good looks and charm was not reciprocated. Ole Ang will have to do.) 

 So sorry you had to witness that. Poor Brad.

Now, where was I? A fart in a windstorm...my break-up with Brad... hatred for this dress...ah, yes! That's it. When I got the fabric home and had settled on ole Simplicity, I decided to use black cotton on the side of the bodice as well as the back and the straps. I just thought that'd break up the pattern a bit as it's rather busy. But when all was said and done...I just had to shelf it and step away. I wasn't loving the dress and that bummed me out.
This fabric immediately had me singing Bobby "Boris" Pickett's 1962 chart topper Monster Mash. If I could get my mitts on that original album, that'd be totally Rad Pitt. By the way, this linky-loo is truly a monster mash of the best retro horror flicks ever made. Watch it.
I blame Jo-ann's and this adorable fabric for my vow-breaking. It really is all her fault. Darn that Jo-ann.
After a week-long pouting session that involved guilt-free retail therapy at the local thrift store, I came across this perfect snotty-green cardigan. I thought I could wear it over the dress and it might hide the bodice which was the source of my dress-hate. But first, I just had to felt-orize (you know, accessorize with some felt) the thing.
Like a real pro, I sketched directly onto the sweater with an ebony pencil (which, as it turns out, you can't erase for sh**) and commenced needle felting. By the way, it's nearly impossible to felt teeny-tiny details (which my subconscious kept telling me but I silenced that ole bag with a glass of wine or three) so I took to embroidering such small stuff as Drac's teeth, tie, facial features and outline.
You can clearly see the embroidery on Frank's face. I enjoyed this technique because the felt made the fabric stiff and easy to embroider. I'm definitely going to remember that for future felting/embroidering adventures.
Now, lemme interrupt this hear blog post so we can talk about My Hairs. I've mentioned before how I've gotten rather lazy with my hair stylings of late. Well, recently I received an email from the folks behind the website The Amazings. If you've not heard of it, The Amazings is a website that offers classes by mature and experienced artists with a multi-mission: Preserving knowledge. Celebrating handmade. Encouraging generations to collaborate. Sharing stories. We don't have one purpose. Our craft classes are a means to many ends.

Doesn't that sound...amazing?! Let me tell you, it truly is. I was generously offered Glamous Retro Hair Do's taught by hair stylist Michael. This course was broken into six separate mini-classes which demonstrated how to set and style three retro do's: a 1930's chignon, a 1950's rockabilly look and a 1960's Bardot style. I literally sat with a pencil and paper, took notes and made sketches, that's how informative I found this to be! For today's Bride of Frankenstein-esque look, I watched Michael demonstrate how to roll one's hair in rollers (correctly as I've been doing it all wrong!) and style to achieve a desired look. My favorite take-away tidbit was when Michael said you don't have to make your hair look exactly like some specific retro style but make it "your own interpretation." 

I'll be certain to try out more hair stylings in the future from this course and, when I do, I'll let you know. There are so many other amazing (sorry, I had to say it!) craft courses on this website, I'm excited to try some more.
 Once my felting was complete, I re-tried the dress on, added the sweater and belt and was...much happier, I gotta admit. Now I'm the proud creator of FOUR Halloween dresses. Surely there will be no need to make any more...(don't call me Shirley).

Until next time, I hope you have an exciting couple of days getting ready for the most spooky holiday of the year! I've got a costume to put together (hint: I'm dressing as this month's Artist of the Month!)...fingers crossed I finish in time. 

Are you dressing up? Whatcha gonna be? I'm dying to know! Oh...Brad's IM'ing me...again...gotta run!