DIY: Feature in Nashville Arts Magazine!

Do you guys even know how hard it is for me to keep a secret? It's so difficult, in fact, that upon befriending someone, I usually have to have what I deem a super serious (meanwhile, they foolishly think I'm joking) convo about how they should never, never ever, tell me anything they don't wish for at least football stadium of folks to know. So when I was asked by Nashville Arts Magazine to keep my lil photo shoot/article under wraps, I nearly had to bust out the masking tape and seal my lips shut. 

Okay, I take that back. They didn't actually say I had to keep it quiet but I kinda decided that I should. I mean, what if the photo shoot went all horribly wrong and I ended up looking like the big ole goof that I am? OR, worse, what if my interview went so badly that I had to search and destroy all copies of the November issue of Nashville Arts? 

By the way, I know the copy is tough to read but if you go here, you can view it much better. 

Thankfully, none of that happened...which is all due to the wonderful folks at Nashville Arts Magazine. I had so much fun chatting and sipping tea with MiChelle Jones, the author of the article. And Juan Pont Lezica was just the best photographer ever. He had a vision for the layout of the photographs and did such a great job leading and directing my (completely inadequate) modeling. 

So just how did all this come about? Well, it seems that way back when I created my first Kandinsky dress, The Frist Center for Visual Arts shared it on Twitter (so, does that mean they "tweeted" it? Y'all, hep me. I'm reopening my Twitter account [deets to come] and I feel so lost. You guyzzz, I'm too old for this!). That's when Paul Polycarpou, the editor of Nashville Arts Magazine emailed me and said they'd like to chat with me about a feature. And I was all, whuuuuuuht?! I mean, y'all. I create these dresses to wear in my art room, to share with my students and the 5 people that read this blog (thank you, 5 people!). When I've picked up issues of Nashville Arts Magazine in the past (it's a beautiful magazine, friends. From the layout to the articles and the photographs, it's all visually stunning), I often thought, "maybe one day when I get back to creating art, I'll see my work in here." Little did I know that I've been creating art all along, just the wearable kind. It was so truly flattering for Paul to notice this and want to share it in Nashville Arts.

The interview with MiChelle was so much fun. Just like chatting with an old friend. The interview took place in my packed-with-fabric sewing room and it was so comfortable and easy. The following week, I had my photo shoot which had me just a pinch freaked out. Especially when I was asked, "will you be bringing your own hair and make up-people?" to which I replied, "Um. My what?"

So after a day of art teacherin', I drove my car full of clothes, lipsticks and hairspray to downtown Nashville for the shoot. Juan Pont Lezica was super nice and patient and, thankfully, had a vision for the photo shoot. Which was great cuz I had nuthin. Now, I don't know if y'all know this, but I take my own photos for my blog. Hubs got me a remote control clicker and I just set up my tripod and snap away. I have my three set poses (that if you scroll through my previous posts, you'll begin to see over and over and ohhh-verrr): 1. Hand on hip(s), 3/4 angle pose (lawd knows one never ever faces a camera head-on); 2. Weight on one leg, bend the other. Look off to the side, always with head down, never up (don't nobody wanna see that much chin/neck); 3. Smile. Because when I don't smile, them my BRF flares up. 

Well, apparently those are just my own made up rules. Juan helped me to loosen up and try new poses that I wouldn't normally attempt...and I was pretty happy with the result.

Although you can't see it, this here is the Keith Haring number. You can read all about it here. 

So glad I thought to perform my biweekly shave-up-to-my-kneecaps the eve before the shoot. 

Kandinsky Concentric Circles Dress here, my first Kandinsky dress here and details on my felted Starry Night light-up number here. 

We managed to get through the photo shoot in just under three hours. Because I didn't want to take forever between photos, I simply altered my makeup slightly (adding more eye make up and changing out my lip color as the shoot wore on). I was surprised how well my normally non-cooperative hair worked for me. 

Campbell's Soup Dress after Warhol here, Munch's The Scream felted mayhem here and Hokusai's appliquéd Great Wave dress here. 

And there you have it. My attempt at being Fierce/Excited/Sullen/Angst-y just like I learned from Tyra watching all those ANTM episodes years ago. Thanks, T!

Added bonus about NashvilleArts: It's free! You can find copies throughout Nashville and the surrounding communities. 

I was able to get a sneak peak at the magazine on Wednesday when Rebecca Pierce, a writer for the magazine, dropped by my house. She and I are working on an upcoming column I'll be writing for Nashville Arts! I'm so excited about this, I cannot wait to share more details with you. I'm going to be needing your help with this, so stay tuned, friends!

Just what the real spread looks like. It's super trip-y to see, y'all!

Don't you worry, T-Banks, don't you worry!

Until next time, y'all!

DIY: An El Dia de los Muertos Frock

Hola, mis amigos! I hope you all are in fine spirits this All Hallow's Eve-eve and all geared up for your el Dia de los Muertos celebrations (which takes place, in case you didn't know [cuz I certainly didn't until recently], November 1st and 2nd). If your Day of the Dead party looks anything like mine (which will include recovering from a night of binge-leftover-candy devouring) then I totes sympathize. It's just that we don't get any trick or treaters, like, everrr and when we do, I'll be doggone if I'm passin' out the Snickers for a buncha (what's certain to be) crooked-wigged Elsas. Aw, no. Everybody knows that you dole out the crap-candy like Tootsie Rolls (I'm not talking the flavored ones because those are my jam, y'all) first then dip into the good stuff if, and only if, the Tootsies run out. Meanwhile, I'm just over here eating my weight's worth in Snickers as they are Really Satisfying*. 

Despite the fact that I'll be crashing hard from my candy buzz during Day of the Dead, that ain't no reason a girl can't look good. I scored the very last two yards of this fab fabric in August (from JoAnn's y'all but it's available online too) with full intent to stitch it up and wear it throughout October for our chats about the holiday. But, you know, me being slacker-me, that didn't happen. Not until last week did I rediscover the fabric (buried under a mountain of other unfinished/never-started/long-forgotten/oh,-look-a-burrito! projects, of course) and realized I only had a matter of days to get it complete.

 Since it was crunch time, I decided to resort to a sweet little vintage pattern that I've stitched up a coupla times before. This lil McCalls pattern is perfectly precious with a sweet retro neckline and fitted, ahem very fitted (suck it in, sistah, and no more Snickers for you!) waist.

 I used this pattern a coupla summers ago to stitch up this sweet little number (follow the link for a truly epic banana bread story. I know, you wouldn't think banana bread would even make a good story but when Ima cooking it, trust me. It can.)

Oh and here's that super rad fabric I used. There's a lotta great Day of the Dead fabrics out there but this was my fave.

Personally, I totally love that the little dancing calaveras that I stitched kinda resemble those in my dress, yay-ness!

Oh, so here's a view of the dress sans sweater, belt and necklace. Here you can see just how stinking fitted that bust and waistline is. Which I love. A fitted top and a big fat puffy bottom is all I ever really look for in a man dress.

 Oh! And I added more puffy colorful balls to the bottom of the dress. Because, ya know, what's a dress without ballz, y'all? These little dangly dudes were left over from the last time I ball-ified a dress. 

 As for the rest of the outfit deets: sweater: ebay; belt: Amazon; tights: Target; shoes: Gah, I wear these things all the time, they're Crocs found at Goodwill; mask: Oriental Trading

Speaking of Stitching...fire up those sewing machines, kids! Our Dress-a-Girl-Around-the-World Sew-Along begins next week! Yay, I'm so excited!

And speaking of Halloween...if you dress up as a work of art or an artist, don't forget to email me photos! You can enter the Dress Up Contest and possibly be featured in SchoolArts Magazine.

Happy Halloween and el Dia de los Muertos, y'all!

 * Dear Snickers, you are welcome for the endorsement. You can send the case of Snickers to my school address so the hubs won't discover my secret stash. Pretty please and thank you much.

In the Art Room: Second Grade Collage Landscapes Inspired by Chilean Arpilleras

Hey, guys! I'm excited to share with y'all the finished product of many an art class: Second Grade's Landscape Collages!

Here's some things we learned along the way (with more detail in a hot minute):

* How to create textured papers. I borrowed heavily from my buddy Laura's blog Painted Paper because Laura is my art teacher super hero. Suriously. Her students work is amazin'. 

* How to create a landscape with a fore-, middle- and background. 

* How to create an origami house. Some kids got really into this, creating multiple houses for their landscape.

* How to embellish with puffy paint...selectively. Oh, lawd, y'all. You've heard of the book If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, right? Well, If You Give a Second Grader Puffy Paint was not about to be the sequel in my art room. I was the Puffy Paint Nazi. One false move and it was NO PUFFY PAINT FOR YOU!

* How to create a whip-stitched boarder. So I thought this would be totes elementary for these guys. Turns out kids don't know how to sew anymore and this was ROCKET SCIENCE. Note to self: Have more stitched projects...for the sub to do (haha, I kid. Kinda.)

Now that you know the gist, lemme back up a lil bit and give you the full story. The lessons started with an intro to Mexico and Latin America. You can find my prezi (remember my prezi addiction?) here. 

After that prezi and a quick chat, we spent our first 30 minutes (my first and second grade have 30 minutes of art, twice every six days) creating textured paper with a sponge and tan paint. We chatted about the texture of the Andes mountains in Chile and used that as our inspiration. 

The following 30 minutes were spent learning more painting techniques. We learned how to use cardboard to print flowers or plants, use a texture comb to create textured papers (see the sun below) and how to create a plaid pattern with a dry brush technique. Yes, all that in 30. Sometimes I question my sanity.

The following class, we chatted about arpilleras. You can see my prezi on those lovelies here. After that, we began tearing our textured papers and gluing them to a 12" X 12" construction paper background of our choosing. The key to doing this without having gaps in the landscape is to have the kids begin with the background piece and proceed gluing pieces toward the foreground.  

The next art class, I had the kids immediately grab a piece of origami paper as they entered and meet me on the floor for a origami house demo on the document camera. Before I had a doc camera, I would have simply done an origami demo on a GIANT sheet of paper so they could see all of the steps. With the cam, we all worked together. If time allowed, the kids created more houses or used thin Sharpies to decorate their homes. Initials were written on the back and these wee ones were saved for the following art class.

The next day, I told the kids that they had four goals to reach BEFORE they entered Puffy Paint Town: glue houses to landscape keeping perspective in mind (or not), add clouds/stars/whateverness to the sky, create a sun or moon and add their name at the bottom. If all of these goals were met, they could begin to add puffy paint in dots only on their land. 

I actually have a couple of these beauties that I've found at the thrift store over the years. I love having the real thing to share with the kids instead of just a photo from the 'net. 

Many of the kids didn't reach their goals all in 30 minutes so they needed an extra day to puffy paint. The deal with puffy paint is that it has this habit of sneezing all over art work. So I had the kids use a piece of practice paper to practice dot making before doing it on their masterpiece. The deal with kids is that they get carried away on their practice paper (really? You needed to fill the whole paper with dots? Because now the bottle is empty, dude.) so I started to limit them to 3 practice dots. 

Next up was the stitching. Oh boy. I did go ahead and hole punch the sides of their artwork for them prior to art class. Hate me if you wanna but I just didn't want to spend an additional 30 minutes watching the kids struggle and possibly tear their work as they punched through (sometimes) 3 pieces of construction paper. Added bonus: I now have super big muscles in the right hand. Just what I've always wanted!

Once the stitching was complete, so was the masterpiece! I absolutely love how these beauties turned out and the kids are just as thrilled. I decided to hang them in the hall by paper clipping them together because it's my new fave way to display. 

Speaking of faves, collage landscapes are also my favorite means of teaching about landscapes. For more lessons, you can check out these Collaged Parisian Pictures, Egyptian Landscape Pieces,
and these Tube Castle Landscapes. What's your fave landscape lesson? I needs to know! Until next time, y'all, use that puffy paint the way your art teacher done showed ya!

What the Art Teacher Wore #120 and A Weekend of Artfulness

More Fall Colors Monday: Every morning when trying to figure out what to wear (are any of you the "laying out my outfits the night before" types? I just can't seem to get my life that together!), I go between wearing fall-ish ensembles and my Halloween duds. What'd you wear this week? sweater: thrifted; t-shirt and tights: Target; skirt: gift from a friend, balls added by me (of course); belt: Anthro; shoes: Dolls by Nina, ancient

I would personally like to make a plea to the universe and the passage of time: Slow the Funk Down. Suriously. How is it that the final days of October are upon us, y'all? It feels like school just began! I do believe a big fat part of the prob is that stores started stocking Christmas decor promptly after removing Back-to-School stuffs. Regardless, I'm starting to get that edgy "so much to do/so little time" feeling and me no likey. 

Edginess aside, I did have some seriously big fun this weekend at our annual state art conference. I left school promptly after my last class of the day, drove the three hours to Memphis and headed to the University of Memphis for a wee reception...

I know, right? I can't quite wrap my head around it either. Mostly cuz I have some serious art teacherin' room for improvement. There are always like 20 things I need to do better. But it was very nice to be recognized. 

And be in such great company. I mean, these ladies rock! Just listening to their bios as they were recognized made me wanna hop off the stage, hide in a corner and throw my big puffy red crinoline over my head. But I saved that for later and offered this goofy sh##-eating grin to the camera instead. More on the rest of the conference in a minute. 

 Floral Embroidery Tuesday: On my lil fall break vacay, I scored this dress on Olvera Street. There were so many vendors selling these cute dresses but the key was finding the one with the best price, size and color. I fell in love with the bright embroidery on the black background of this dress immediately. dress: Olvera Street; belt: gift; fishnets and tights: dunno, Target?; shoes: thrifted Crocs

I took some amazing classes at the conference (I tried to squeeze in photos but decided they deserved an entire blog post so stay tuned, kiddies) and I also taught one! Mine was what they called a "Super Session" which is fancy talk for a One Hour Session So Work Super Fast. Because my time was limited, I decided to introduce needle felting with the option of the participants either creating a needle felted palette or a miniature work of art. After a short instructional chat (which included me on-purpose flipping everyone  off. There's photographic evidence of this...but I had second thoughts on sharing it here. I'm getting conservative in my old age), my "students" set to work. 

Since I couldn't have all y'all there, would you be interested in a lil blog post on this? Lemme know in the comments if you are. I have created a coupla videos on needle felting (along with approximately One Million blog posts) so you can visit here for more of that. 

Here's an example of someone creating their own masterpiece. Don't you love it? This was a simple class to teach as the supplies were limited to wool roving, a needle felting tool, a foam cushion and inexpensive felt sheets for creating our design upon. 

 I know, right? Awesomeness. 

Tilt-a-Whirl Skirt Wednesday: As y'all mightah guessed, I do love me some vintage fashion. And no 1950's circle skirt is complete without a crinoline (we call 'em "can-can's" down here in the South) underneath. I scored my latest can-can from Amazon in the Halloween department. I love it, it's perfectly can-canny. The prob? When I swish past tables in the art room, I often times knock the kids' artwork to the floor. They're all, "Mrs. Stephens!" Oops. Sorry! sweater and skirt: vintage, found at an antique mall

Not even gonna lie, my fave part of these conferences? Seeing my art teacherin' buds. My amazing art teacher friend Debbie Flynt and I have known each other since the very first time I attended Tennessee Arts Academy (which, by the way, is open to all art, music and drama teachers of kindergarten through 12th grade and Should. Not. Be. Missed.) some 10 plus years ago and have been buds since. Jim Dodson is not only an art teacher force to be reckoned with but also the brains behind the art sessions at Tennessee Arts Academy. We have entirely too many fun memories and inside jokes and I wouldn't have it any other way.

 Bustin' a Move Thursday: Wow, I knew this was gonna be a crazy day. I had to haul myself to Memphis after a full day of teaching and get there by 6pm for the reception. I made it by 6:12pm without breaking (too much) of a sweat. jacket: Oh, a DIY to come, I promise!; dress: Target; tights: gift; purse: Amazon

My craziness must have been evident to my first grade kids as they drew my silly face in this portrait. Personally, I believe it's one of my faves. Until we chat again, I hope y'all have a super awesome week ahead!