Fall Weekend

Two Pumpkins reminds me of a perfect fall day:)  

Did you have a good weekend so far?  I did for the most part except it was so rainy and cold here in Cleveland.  The husband and I did some cleaning and organizing and I worked on a new painting and some ideas for a new artwork.  I also ran on my treadmill for the first time since April.  Yuck!  I love running outside a million times better than the treadmill!  It was so rainy and cold though that I had no choice:(  

Anyways, I am off to work out and possibly work on some Christmas card ideas...yes, Christmas already!  I am hoping to have some cards in my etsy shop by November.  Here are some of my cards from last year that I will be offering again:

 Well have a great Sunday!  I will leave you with this relaxing song that I am currently listening to by Colin Hay.  Yes, he is the lead singer from Men at Work!  I just love his mellow voice though...perfect for a rainy Sunday morning.  Have a good one:)

 

Grisaille Update

Hello!  Hope you are enjoying the weekend already!  I just love Saturdays! I got to sleep in until almost 8 today!  I am enjoying this now because I know when our little lady arrives I will not get to enjoy sleep as much:) 

So, how are you?  Things with me are pretty busy especially with school.  I am having a pretty good year so far and have the best students!  I just posted some of their artwork on my classroom blog, PHS ARTROOM if you would like to check it out.

A couple of weeks ago (yes it has been that long!)  I posted about a technique called grisaille.  The technique involves in creating a complete black and white value underpainting and then glazing color on top.  Here is my painting that I started with color added to it now.  It is not done by any means but i wanted to show you how the value underpainting really comes through underneath the applications of color. 
Here are the two paintings:
                                                  Before:  Black and White Underpainting

After:  With Acrylic Color On Top

I still need to add a ton to this painting but I sometimes like to leave it looking unfinished when i show my students so they can kind of get an idea of my process.

Anyways!  Hope you have a lovely October weekend!  The husband and I are going out to buy some wonderful fall-inspired decorations today.  I am all about mums, pumpkins and decorative squash and berries.  So excited to pretend to be Martha Stewart today:)  Have a great day!

Leaves of Change

 Hello!  Here is my newest artwork in my etsy shop.  It is called Leaves of Change and reflects my LOVE of this time of year!  It really is starting to feel like fall here in Ohio. 

Hope everyone is doing well!  I have been very busy with the school year and also with getting things ready for our newest addition coming in December!  The husband and I are so excited and can't believe in 3 months we will be parents!  Wow!  

Have a great rest of your weekend!

Grisaille or Grissaille painting

Hello!  Hope everyone had a lovely weekend:)  I had a wonderful relaxed one with the husband!  I just wanted to pop in and show you a little grisaille painting I am working on.  Grisaille or Grissaille...I have seen it spelled both ways!  A grisaille is basically a value underpainting that can be glazed over with color.  I love this technique and am currently having my painting classes do this for their first "real" project this year.  So here is the beginning of my grisaille:

Once I finish it I will post the end results:)  I am so excited to glaze color over it though!

Busy, Busy, Busy

Well I have been neglecting this blog haven't I?  It always seems to happen at the beginning of the school year!  I have been very busy with my classes and have been feeling incredibly exhausted!  The little girl has been sucking the life out of me I guess!

I hope you are doing well and enjoying the changing of the seasons.  I am so excited for fall...I just love cooler temperatures, honeycrisp apples (I bought some already!) and pumpkin spice lattes!  YUM!


I just wanted to stop in and say hello and that I have not disappeared off of the face of this earth!  I will be posting more soon, I just need to get myself organized! 

I will leave you with this wonderful, oldie but goodie song that I have loved for years.  I just found my Mazzy Star cd and was so excited to hear Fade Into You again!  Makes me think of my high school years:)

Well I am off to do some school work, talk to you soon!

Nursery Artwork

Right now I am working on some artwork for the nursery.  I am going to stick with light purple, light yellow, white and green.  I don't have much progress done but I am hoping to work on it this week.  I will post the finished results!

We got our crib bedding from Land of Nod and we just love it!  Her room is pretty simple so far but I am sure we will find more things to fill it up!

Hope you had a great weekend!  It went so fast didn't it?  The husband and I just relaxed and went out to dinner and grilled out.  It was beautiful weather in Ohio and I can't believe that in 3 months it will be almost December!  I can't even think of snow right now!

Jack Henry also had a great weekend.  He hung out with us and sometimes I found him looking very pensive.

I wonder what he was thinking about?!

Candy Corn and High School Art Projects

That's right..I caved.  I bought some candy corn even though it is still August and candy corn is more of a fall thing.  Oh well, it was delicious!

Well I hope you have had a great week!  Sorry I have not written on here in an entire week but I was crazy busy with the first week of school and our open house on Thursday night.  I was at school until 9 pm Thursday!  I think I am going to have some wonderful classes though so I am excited for that!  

I have been working on getting my students ready to start their first project on Monday.  My intro to art students will be doing a project that kind of resembles a patchwork quilt.  Here are some examples from previous years:

 

 

 Basically students divide an 18 x 24 piece of tagboard into a 3 x 3 inch square grid and draw whatever they want on top for their subject matter.  I then have them use at least five different art media (paint, cut paper, colored pencils, marker, pen, etc.) to create an artwork that shows contrast between their subject matter (positive shape) and the background (negative shape).  We just learned ALL about the Elements of Art and Principles of Design so they will also have to make their artwork balanced, unified, show movement, pattern, etc!

Sorry to bore you with lesson ideas!  I am officially in school mode!  I have not done any art for myself this whole week and I am starting to miss it!  Hopefully next week/weekend will be a little calmer!

Meanwhile I am keeping myself sane with music (as usual) such as this lovely song by  Ray LaMontagne.  

Hope you have a wonderful weekend!  I will try to write more next week:) 

Art Bulletin Board Ideas

Wow...very exciting title to my post.  Sorry!  Since school is almost back in session I have pretty much been living in my classroom.  Today I spent the majority of my time working on the bulletin boards in my classroom.  Since my school (and every school it seems!) is on a tight budget, I had to purchase my own bulletin board paper!  My favorite thing to use is colored wrapping paper.  I love Hobby Lobby's huge rolls of fun patterns.  However for my bulletin boards I stuck with white and blue as my main colors.

Here is the start of one board:

Elements of Art Board:

I  painted the entire border with gold, silver, white and turquoise tempera paint.  It took forever but gives the border some depth I think!  The elements are all made from some lovely stamps I bought.  Luckily I had a student stamp out the elements for me last year so I didn't have to do them again!

Here is my Principles of Design board.  It is hard to see but I listed each principle and put an artwork next to the principle that illustrates it.  I am going to be adding definitions next to each principle as I go over them with students in class.

Notice the Romero Britto artworks I have hanging above the board?!  Kids LOVE his art!

 Here is where I keep most of my supplies.  This bulletin board was kind of a pain to do because I had to stand on the counter and staple the paper onto the board.  Keep in mind I am 6 months pregnant!

Check out all of the NEW labels on my supplies!  So fresh and clean to start the year:)

Lastly here is my Old Guitarist  by Picasso bulletin board.  I just got this poster from amazon and wanted to make it a focal point in my classroom.

Well that is about it for today.  I better get to sleep because I have meetings all day tomorrow, a dentist appointment and dinner with a lovely friend!  School officially starts Wednesday.  I hope I am ready:)  Meanwhile, I am listening to this song by David Gray constantly on my ipod.  I am in love with his voice and he is one of my favorite artists to listen to especially around the fall.  Also check out this song by Florence and the Machine.  You might recognize it from the Eat, Pray, Love commercial.  The video is definitely creative and interesting:)

Well have a great evening!  I hope to write soon.  The next couple of days are going to be a bit crazy!

UPDATE:  Hello!  I just wanted to post some more bulletin board ideas for anyone interested!  Looking at my blog statistics I have found this post to be one of my most popular:)  For all of you teachers out there here are a couple more ideas:

 Animals in Art Bulletin Board

This bulletin board is made up of past student artwork and color printouts of animal art.  I have found that borders are super important in the overall aesthetic of a bulletin board.  I use construction paper and usually paint on top of it to make it more interesting.  For the zebra pattern I just made copies of a zebra printed folder I had and placed it around the bulletin board to unify everything with the sign.

Color Theory Bulletin Board

For this bulletin board I hung up some of the creative color wheels left over from previous years and included vocabulary such as the primary, secondary, intermediate and complementary colors.  I also used the space above the bulletin board to display a poster by Kandinsky and paintings that display the use of complementary colors.  

 Other bulletin boards from previous years:

Black and white pattern is actually tissue paper I bought at Target!  Cheap and easy way to cover space!

A more simplified approach...Matisse inspired also!

 And if you really have time....

I hand painted this bulletin board and had students create cool leaves if they finished their project early.  

I hope some of these ideas were helpful...I will continue to post more as the year goes on!  If you would like to see my class blog click here for project ideas.

Back to School

Do you like my wall of faces?  This is from my classroom at school.  I have these horrible steel doors in the back of my room and decided decorating it with crazy, fun art portraits would be a nice way to cover up the blandness of the doors. (Do you notice the little red face in the bottom right?  This is from my red cup drawings from last year.  One kid didn't want to draw so this is what was turned in to me...oh my...)

Yesterday was the first day I went back to my classroom all summer.  It felt like I had never left!  Oh summer how I miss you already!  I got some work done but still need to do a ton!  One of my main projects is to make my bulletin boards look fun and cool.  I think I am going to buy some colorful wrapping paper and tissue paper to dress my boards up a bit.  With all of the budget cuts my school is facing, they seemed to have gotten rid of the large rolls of paper I used to use for my bulletin boards:(

I will be sure to post my fun and cool new bulletin board ideas on Monday:)  If you have any ideas I would love to hear them!

Have a great Saturday:)

Organization

Today I am going crazy organizing my closet, my desk, school stuff, etc!  It is wearing me out!  I finally went through my closet and figured out what pants, skirts and dresses will no longer fit me since being pregnant...so depressing!  There is a small amount of clothes that will still fit...so of course I must go shopping! Most of my shirts are pretty flowy and loose so I at least have a bunch of tops to wear once school starts.  Today I had a doctor's appointment and I got on the scale and almost gasped!  Wow..this baby girl is growing!  Everything else was fine at the doctor's which was awesome because I tend to be a worrier!

Anyways here is my semi-organized desk space....I have this overwhelming desire to throw away anything that I have not used in awhile.  Maybe I am nesting already?!

Mr. Jack Henry stayed by my side as I organized and cleaned. 

 

I don't know how he feels about getting his picture taken..he looks a little wary of the camera!

Well I am off to relax after a day of organizing!  Tomorrow I am going to my classroom for the first time all summer!  I must mentally prepare myself on going back:)  My new W magazine came so I am going to lose myself in some fall fashion!

Have a great day!