Pig Pen! Where are you?

I realized I've barely posted throughout the month of February. I could feel guilty about it but somehow I don't. It's been busy, I've been preoccupied and to be honest, I haven't been online much in the evenings.This is what I'm currently looking at. My art room is set up for clay and 3 grade levels are getting dirty and kicking up dust with me. I feel like Pig Pen.....
See the crab? That's my stool. Crabby stool for the crabby art teacher.....or so I say.
Tomorrow we finish up 3rd grade suns and I can stop changing my hand color to a lovely
terracotta red. It's a fun project where the personality of each student gets to show through. Gotta love that tongue sticking out.Another project we finished last week. We were invited to paint tiles that are now being installed in the new Maryvale Pool bathhouse. Each child was asked to draw a picture and approximately 200 images were selected, transferred to the tiles and painted. These were the batch from 1st, 2nd and 4th grades before being picked up and fired. We can't wait to see what they look like on the new building. I love public art and especially the fact that our students could participate.
I had an 8" x 8" recipe swap page to make. I was stumped for an idea for awhile. Here's my handmade background paper. Gesso was painted onto cardstock. Once dry, I sprayed Glimmer Mist using a newly acquired stencil. There was enough Glimmer Mist to lay a piece of appear on top and get a decent negative image. It wasn't a clean transfer which I actually liked best. My finished page is floating around in the studio somewhere...Next Project: My page for a Wizard of Oz collaged page swap. My theme was the "yellow brick road." I had a few options for how to do the actual yellow brick road but once I took this picture at the Tempe Center for the Arts I knew what I was going to do.
I'm still taking Kelly Kilmer's A Prompt a Day online class but I knew I wasn't going to be able to work on it during the month of February. It took a little time to finish January and I think I still have a few lay outs I haven't shared yet.

I grabbed a store bought journal for the first month and I plan on continuing with it for February. I wanted to make a book for March from scratch. It just so happened that a coptic book binding class was being offered last weekend at the Paper Studio in Tempe. I'd tried the technique once before and didn't like it but I kept thinking about the fact that coptic binding allows for opening a book flat.Here's the end result. Perhaps because it was the 2nd time around or perhaps I was skeptical I'd enjoy this but I am very happy with the end result. I might even try to make one on my own. The paper is nice bond paper so I don't know if it will hold up to a months' worth of visual journaling. I haven't started my March pages yet.
Hi Debbie! Recognize the ornate tape? I ran out to my car to grab it while I was decorating the book covers. Good thing I swung by Frenzy Stamper and picked up some new decorative tape. YUM!The Chicklet has been cavorting with characters. Monday was Dr. Seuss' birthday and her school celebrated with Pajama Day. She went to school in her jammies and then we attended Literacy Night in the evening.

The Chicklet goes onto another school, middle school, for 5th grade. She was the only child in her class to dress in jammies. I guess some of the kids think they're getting to old for that. That's sad. Our kids are growing up so fast these days. I'm glad the Chicklet still enjoys this stuff. I keep telling her she'll have plenty of time to take on more responsibility as she gets older.