watercolor

 

12. Explore watercolors 

I tried this fun technique to make my favorite state, wisconsin. Instead of painting in each sections with the pigmented paint... I first painted the area with water... then when I dipped my brush in each section the watercolor just bleed throughout the section!

Saint Patrick's Day Preperation

Ah... one of my favorite days of the year is almost upon us!

Below you will find the details of our newest festive wreath!

all DRESSed up with no where to go!

Just kidding... There are always places to go!

I made this dress the other day. This was my first attempt at making clothes! I have never done that before. In the end I liked the way it turned out but next time Ill use better fabric... I just grabbed whatever was on sale and it isn't typical clothing fabric... meaning its a tad scratchy and it wrinkles easily... thankfully the pattern of the fabric is so crazy that it doesn't show it too much!

adventures of creating a giant community art project!

Last Friday we had a special "President's Reception" to celebrate all our wonderful donors. The theme was "Halls of Thunder" and everything was comic book themed! 

They had giant cut outs of superheros, cookies that had comic book action words, the invites were a comic strip... comic comic comics!

This event was held on our campus and was set up to showcase what goes on at the school/in the class rooms!

Even the art room!

So I created a special project for the night. I needed to create something that would be easy/not intimidating for people to do AND something that could be done while socializing. After some brainstorming I was brought back to my own high school days where I created a painting of a Roy Lichtenstein print.

Hanging in my childhood bedroom!

I decided to make a paint by numbers/coloring book canvas for people to paint. 

I looked at some old comic book covers and combined a few ideas to sketch out my came plan.

Then I bought a GIANT (5x3) canvas to put it on.... I measured to make SURE it would fit in my car.... but it didn't!

This was my final sketch.

I blew it up to put it on the canvas and then painted/sharpied  the outline image.

Then I painted a few of the sections so people wouldn't be intimated!

A few students who were around for the evening painted a few parts!

Then the pressure was on! (those lamps got a bit hot)!

Work in progress...

Some of the background Dots AND check out how AWESOME this woman is.... She was so into it she sat on the floor!

Mrs. Burns!

Mr. Walsh!

It is pretty much done by the end of the night!

Each artist got to sign their for their artwork!

I touched it up a bit (with a fellow student artist, Victoria) and now it is complete!

valentine's craft

Well a new holiday is coming around.... VALENTINE's day.... and I thought I would make a wreath  for this one too. This one was a bit more than I signed up for.... I am not sure how I feel about the finished project but it was quite an adventure.

Felt Roses!

Up close and personal!

The finished product.... well there are still a few things I want to work on but my patience was running out.

And I finally switched over our holiday quotes (Christmas is over?)

calendar

For Christmas I made a few of these neat perpetual calendars. 

This is the one I am using at work. 

I saw the idea on pinterest... I just thought it was SO simple and cute. Each notecard is stamped with the date and each day I write a brief description of the day. Then NEXT year I will continue and I can look back and see all the things I did THIS year! 

Fun right? 

And I made the box/container out of duct-tape! 

crafts of late

Been doing lots of crafting lately...and I cannot wait to share all the details... BUT I thought I would pass along some remaining Christmas crafts!

I got to use my Grandma's embroidery machine to make these monogrammed napkins for Tomás' Parents!

I got this idea from good old Pinterest.... But I made a booklet of all the Christmas cards I got this year... I figure I can put it out for next year!

new holiday decoration!

Look what I made last night!

crayons!

So I started a new project....

I wanted to decorate my lampshade in my room. I used the colors orange, green and blue because my room is mostly those colors!


The crayons were hot glue gunned to the lampshade...

like the new instagram photos i took!

Then I took a hair dryer and let it do it's magic... It got a little messy... but that is never a bad thing.

One power outage later.... I had a new lamp!

And now it serves me well in my room!

contour line.

Definition: 


Contour Drawing

Contour drawing shows the outline of the subject, and not the volume or mass of an object. Blind contour drawings are those created by looking only at the subject, and not the paper while drawing.

Continuous. On-Going


Recently my students completed a unit on "line" in my drawing class. For the final piece the students did a project that I did in high school (thanks Mrs. Larscheid for letting me beg, steal and borrow... and for being a great teacher (then) and resource (now)).

The students worked on a self-portrait contour style... BUT with a "twist"

Instead of using pen and paper they used WIRE!

I was SO proud of the kids... they are now on display (a first for our school)!

two big thumbs up

to my students!

that is a good looking dragon.

 

Don't freak out... the Dragon isn't real... but I really did make him. I sewed him up last weekend after a pattern I bought on etsy.com.... I went back to the seller's website and she sells the completed dragon for $65 YIKES. Can you believe that much for a dragon!?!?

It was a fun adventure... It was for an "Advanced Sewer" which is NOT really what I am (self taught, only been sewing for 2 years but have only lived in the same city as my sewing machine for a few months)... but I was able to handle it. OK so the head wobbles a bit more than your average dragon head should... but such is life. 

halloween wreath.

 

I can't remember if I mentioned this but Halloween isn't my favorite holiday (I think it makes me miss homemade costumes with my dad.)... but doing crafts does certainly help me get in the mood. Check out this neat wreath I made... It's versatile too (I'll show you come Thanksgiving). 

Halloween does make me miss Pat and Frannie (godfather= Pat) who always have candycorn at their house.