Does anyone else have this problem?

Lately the studio art classroom has become an unofficial "hang out" spot for (it seems) just about any student who has had at least one art class even though they might not be currently enrolled. Something even funnier? A ton of those students also happen to be some of our school's star athletes! Never fails that the change of classes always brings at least four students into my class just to "fist pound" with me, give me a hug, or tell me, "I HAVE to take an art class next semester!!! I can't believe I don't get to be in here this semester!! I AM DYING!!!!"

In the words (and ways) of my students #smh.

Who am I kidding? I LOVE my kids.

Seriously. If the administration and building super would give me the OK already, I would definitely have knocked down the back wall of my classroom by now and tripled the size of my room to accommodate all of the kids that I have to kick out of my class because technically they aren't supposed to be it!!!

Partial reinvention of the ol' wheel

The 3D Design class is almost completely done with the/our first installation art exhibit the school might ever see and some are even in the process of moving toward our next project: Inspired paintings on a (very) textured surface!!!!

With Easter close enough on the timeline, it's about time for us to kick off our egg-centric (get it? eccentric!! HarHarHar!!!) project for this year. In the past, I've done egg art in the way of them being giant (-ish) egg shaped paper-mache sculptures.  With my attention span being about as long as my three-year old daughter's I'm easily bored doing the same thing twice and definitely thrice. So? This year the 3D class is going to experience egg art in a different fashion! We are going to try our hand at something called "Egg Cubism" that I stumbled upon in my blogroll at least a year ago.  I'm so excited to get started because the project itself couldn't be timed better for a myriad of reasons...

• I love doing a non-objective piece for the second project (for any of my classes) because it really helps me to break the student artists out of the shells/boxes that they think exist when it comes to their own understanding and abilities of their artwork. I would do this right off the bat with their first project but their 1st project are so much better at being things that are straight-forward type assessments so that I can see where everyone stands to start out with. 
• This spins the idea of the egg art we have done in the past in a way that is very interesting and definitely offers new perspectives!
• Since this is an inspired project, it allows the students to spend a lot of time looking at and considering all of the resource library of the visual art collectives we devoted so much of the art budget too last summer when we did our annual BIG order. (See the picture above for just HALF of the library we have at our disposal)
• It utilizes UPCYCLING!!!!  That's something I adore doing whether we have the art budget to support our endeavors or not. Why? Because it introduces the possibility of really good visual creativity/creation in a "green" way.

Later today I will be stopping by a local boutique cupcakery (I am buddies with the owner and the head baker!!) and picking up over 70 egg cartoons from them for this project that will kick itself off next week. Egg-citing? (I know. You are already tired of my egg-cellent efforts to make this as punny of an experience as possible. *wink*)

It is well with my soul, it is well

Spent a chunk of the weekend on grad school work and also trying to stay ahead of the game with set design and painting of the Sound of Music production. Ever heard of that saying that goes something like, "If you're on time - you're late, if you're early - you're on time... " Amazing for us but we actually might be on time or even early.

This set design and painting as been the most intense undertaking we have ever done but it's going to be so worth it. On Saturday afternoon, before I went to the set painting, I actually dropped to my knees in the shower (actually one of my favorite places/ways to pray because it makes praying a truly sensory experience) and laid out all of my "issues" to God because I was just feeling completely buried and crippled by them. Prayers aren't like birthday wishes in that if you tell them they don't come true [I seriously don't believe in that anyway!] so I have no issue telling you that my actual prayer was pretty much, "Lord God, I CANNOT do any of this without you but I even if I could I WILL NOT do this without you!!!" My prayers were answered and deliverance was offered in ways I never could have imagined when I showed up to the set painting and had so many people with their hands and feet ready to go and boy did they go!!

I have NEVER been good at delegating but after laying all of my inadequacies and woes at Christ's feet and opening my heart for Him to just take over as He saw fit, it was like I was definitely on auto-pilot and everything just fell into place beautifully.  The amount of work that was accomplished was that which should have easily taken two weekends rather than just one evening.

Two of some of the advanced art students in the midst of the faux marble effect painting. I love seeing how they both ended up in the same place in the end (not pictured) but started out in obviously differently ways/approaches.

Just a sampling of the AMAZING mountain ranges done by one of the school's most talented student artists in maybe all of school history.

One of the best parts of the whole day that I have not yet mentioned is the fact that this past weekend's round of set painting included my daughter and my husband. I am a bit of a workaholic but that doesn't mean I enjoy being away from my family in the least. I guess it could be said that I want it all but I definitely acknowledge that I can't have it all. *shrug* Well, sometimes, (I believe especially when you give "it all" to the Lord and trust Him to do as He sees fit) I get way more than I could ever bargain for and that just happens to end up being ALL of what I wish I could selfishly have.

My daughter and my husband joined me for ALL of the set design and painting and my daughter was an absolute angel (she will only be four in June!!) and my husband was THE MAN and got some serious amounts of major set work done as well as managing a chunk of the people who were there to just help out. Seriously. The whole thing was orchestrated like the best well-oiled machine you could ever imagine.

(Pictured) Two of the loves of my life: hands stained with paint from a perfectly wonderful day of painting and my wedding ring set from my endlessly supportive husband specially designed so I don't have to take it off ever - even when I am doing plaster or clay sculpting!!!  And he doesn't just encourage me symbolically like this since he was getting his hands dirty right alongside me.

Hard to believe but it was just a little more than five years ago that I used to sit alone in my little condo (just outside of the boundaries of Charm City - that's where I was working before I gave up a pretty wonderful second career) and I would look out my windows at the sky and dream of a job that would allow me to design, create, and PAINT with the gorgeous colors I saw every evening at dusk. It was in my heart to do that and I knew that God had given it to me. As my work BFF Megan would put it, I hitched myself to that dream and then just recklessly pursued the path that I felt God would straighten for me to realize the dream. And here I am. I swear to you I am LIVING that dream!!! 

I know life will never be easy but I can tell you that life IS good because GOD isn't just so good but He is so very incredibly wonderful. 

Everybody's favorite: Cave art!!!

The Interactive Art History classes started the prehistoric art unit and so far they are L-O-V-I-N-G the cave art project I implemented last Spring.

It is the messiest of all of the projects and even when you are doing all of the steps correctly, it's pretty close to impossible to not get your hands dirty. For as much as the kids fuss about the messiness though? They always cite it as one of their favorite projects of the whole course.  I can't blame them for loving it. Plaster of Paris is SO cool to work with!!!

Mixing the plaster of paris and then pouring it onto trays to start the sculpting process.

Some of the students ended up breaking their cave chunks but that's OK! Nothing that gorilla super glue won't fix and(!) the cracks that result from a broken plaster piece end up making the pieces look that much more realistic overall.

Some of the students weren't loving the uniformity of the edges of their cave chunks so they chiseled down the edges of their pieces to give them a more realistic feel.

Painting has begun!!! I expect that it will take them somewhere around 3-4 days of layered sponge painting in order for them to achieve the effect painting results they ultimately are going for. After they get the visual texture and coloring right? It will be another 3 days or so to do the actual designs/forms to imitate the cave art we looked at.

So embarrassing but this is one of the sinks in the art room!!  This happens at least once a year and Friday of last week seemed to be the day. There is no standing water in this picture but if I try and flush the drain that's just what happens. At one point I was standing on the counter plunging the drain (I am so hardcore like that *wink*) and then I had to call in reinforcements in the form of our building and facilities management. I am good friends with those guys despite the fact that I create so many issues for them on any given day.

So, that's where we are so far with the cave art project. I am thinking that the students will turn out even higher quality/more creative pieces this year because 1) I have more experience doing this project having done it before in two different forms, 2) I had some really great examples of last year's student work to really show them what they should (and shouldn't) do with their work, and 3) I just plain have a really fantastic and enthusiastic bunch of student artists this go 'round (par for the course as it has been for most all of this year).

Sticking it out

Our first venture into installation art exhibitions is going well and coming to a close (as well).

*sigh*

Students are gradually finishing up their individual portions of the installation and I am slowly taking each of them and joining them to the others that are finished. Slowly (but surely) they are understanding what we are going for.  They helped me to figure out the best "formation" to create (see below) and each color will be grouped like this and hung from the hooks all the way down the art gallery hallway.

I am hoping to have all of the students finished with their individual portions no later than mid next week and then have the whole thing installed by the end of next week/beginning of the following week. I'll be sad to see them disappear from the hooks in the studio art classroom but at the same time? We are running out of hooks!!!

In other news, we have officially run out of glue sticks. *grrrrrrrrrrr*

I don't have any thing official to confirm how this happened because last week we had enough for more than one and a half classes and then Wednesday when I came back to work (after being out of work because my kid has been sick) there were maybe eight glue sticks that were all half used.

I know. (I will do my best not to get any more started than this.)

All I can say is this: DO NOT MESS WITH THE ADHESIVE INVENTORY OF THE ART ROOM.

Truth: I am pretty territorial about the adhesive inventory. I have serious brand loyalty and I also do a very good job at keeping just about every kind of the best adhesive on-hand/in stock so that there (shouldn't be) any issues with dealing with sticking to/with anything.

So, that's that. And TGIF. I'm working on the sound of music set for the better part of this weekend in addition to some major amounts of grad school work so I'll see ya next week some time if I'm lucky.