Me.

Number 1...

... and number 2...

... it's no surprise they keep us busy.  But sanity's deepest secret is carving out a tiny bit of time for yourself on a regular basis.  Even if it's just crocheting a few stitches on a blanket or plunking out a couple of songs on the piano, those little breathers keep us moving forward.  That said, here's a couple of things I've been up to lately...

This was actually done before Christmas.  I wanted my students to find a way to use their artistic abilities to benefit someone other than themselves (as much as I LOVE "art for art's sake").  We were given the opportunity to design and paint a mural in our church's nursery.  I have "before" pictures somewhere and "after" pictures without all the furniture blocking the walls, but they're on our hard drive and that's like, 15 steps away.  So I snapped a few while at school today...

Embarrassingly enough, you can see that it's still not finished.  Several characters still need shading and mouths... but after a week of 8 hour days we were pretty spent.  So we've taken some time off, and whenever I get an hour here or there I bring in a couple colors to do touch ups.  It won't be too much longer.  The kids did a killer job, it was a long process and they really had great attitudes the entire time.  

This upcoming week is "spirit week" and the cheerleaders have had it rough.  Our school, despite its size is SUPER awesome at sports- unfortunately our cheerleaders are... well, there's two of them.  There's a lot of awesome-ness in them... but just 2.  And they are in charge of decorating every team player's locker, the hallways, the gym, etc.

So I DEFINITELY jumped on that volunteer train b/c I LOOK for excuses to make anything.  I found this super easy/awesome tutorial on pinterest and from it made 45 of these giant, 3-D paper stars. With coupons it cost me $11.  You can't buy that crap.

We hung them in the school entryway, strung them through the hallways, and tomorrow night we'll be filling the gym with them.  I'm super happy with how they turned out.  

We have some seriously talented students in my art class, and I wish I'd photographed more of their work before sending it home with them.  Anyways, here are 2 pieces completed within the last week: this was a grayscale portrait collage.  They crosshatched a 9 shade grayscale on paper, then tore the paper into pieces to create a portrait of their choice of US president.  

This is James Monroe, by one of my seniors.

This is Abe Lincoln (with an eye patch) by one of my 11th graders.

Pretty nuts, right? I love how each of them chose to interpret the shadow/highlight shapes in such totally different ways.  Very satisfiying.  For me, at least.

I've been doing a lot of crochet lately, but no notable, completed projects yet.  (Ever?)