Little Shop Scenery in Progress...

I have been bouncing around with the scenery for this play- running the gamut from excited to terrified to clueless to irritated, and that was just after school yesterday.  I have a wonderful group of students helping me, let me be clear on that!  HOWEVER, they are goofy after school.  I'm just sayin'.  And now I have to tell the juniors and seniors not to yell at the freshmen!!  SHEESH people.

Play nice folks

They actually laughed at me when I told them that they all would be gone next year and I need the new people when they leave.  I don't think they thought about it in quite those terms.

Please just paint the bricks- not each other

I am going through my hardest part of the  school year.  End of the third quarter is tough, long weeks, rotten weather, cooped up kids.

Meanwhile back in the art room, they are dressing my skeleton......

 Spring sports are here, ready to take my workers away after school.  Seniors are getting kooky, the stress of getting everything together for a production is getting to the cast and the crew. And the director and the queen of the stage. I will spend a huge amount of time at school for the next 2 weeks, and then grades are due right after the play is done.  There will be a couple art shows that go up soon after the play is finished, as well.....  Along with my grade school teaching and lack of time in that school, it is going to be a tough spring for me.  But, I will get through it, one task at a time.

Power tools, paint brushes, all the same to me...

So Little Shop has a set stage, not much moving to do this year, not like last year had!  But this one will have it's own little set of challenges.  Most of them involving Audrey- do you know how hard it is to keep people out of the mouth of the giant plant?  I'm sort of wanting to go take a nap inside of her, myself.

Taped up flat for bricks- exterior scene

Here are a few shots of taping and painting.  This will all look so totally different in one. short. week.  Full dress and makeup rehearsal next Monday!

Which reminds me, I have to go and check out the makeup supplies.....  and on I go.

Oh look- an actor snuck into the area!

Putting a brace back on- for some reason they don't want the flat to fall on them!!

Fine, paint the door red!  

Step and floor painting

The endless bricks

Will become the dentist office

floor painting

Another awesome painter!

Bricks, bricks, bricks

Somedays, you have to search a little more for your joy!  It's there, keep looking.

Happy little clouds, amazing teenagers, and a dirty little secret!

Today was a pretty cool day for me.  I saw a lot of successes and very few failures, and kids that were proud of their work.  Now THAT is a good day.

I have started my advanced art students in a new project that I have personally never tackled before- making a relief sculpture out of clay.  For those of you who do not know your art terminology, a relief sculpture is one meant to be seen from just the front.  It can be a low relief (think of the portraits on a coin) or high relief (think Mount Rushmore for a Rocky mountain high relief!!) or somewhere in between.  I did a sample of a horse galloping in sort of a cloud of smoke or fog- never saw that coming, am I right???
One of my students has worked out a wonderful Loch Ness kind of dragon that is swirling in and out of water- not an easy accomplishment for a clay piece.  Good job, girl!  The rest of the students have not yet worked out the details yet, but I will keep you posted.

Cattails and field

A work in progress

We also did some good work on the big scenery back drop for the play.  I have some grainy pictures from my phone to share, I will produce better ones as time marches on towards performance weekend.  I rocked the clouds in the sky this afternoon, I am always striving towards improving my cloud work. I feel it is still a bit weak, but I'm getting there.  While surveying the scenery I decided it needed a little more life, and I figured out where I am going to put a small herd of cows.  I did my first one literally by hand.  I finger-painted it.  Don't tell my high school kids, they are always begging to finger-paint.  They will not be finger painting in MY class, they make enough of a mess as it is.  But my dirty little secret, people,  is that I finger paint during scenery creation ALL THE TIME.  Why use a brush when you can use nature's own brush- your hands?  Which is how I come to have paint slobbered all over me and my clothes and my shoes- I sort of wallow in the paint.  But I clean up after myself!

My favorite flower- the daff

So, I get outside to finally go home and surprise!  It is snowing- again.  Jeez.  I would like to present a spring garden picture that will make you feel warm and spring-like.  I was complaining to Lola about the weather, but she would have none of it.  She has to stand out there in that stuff all day long.  Jacpot was all full of snow, so he apparently doesn't mind.  Fred is stuck inside doing tax returns so he prefers that it stays nasty until April 15.  Fred is no fun at all!  Or at least not until April 16!

Until next time.... be a joy giver, not a joy stealer!
And find a way to finger-paint!