Tag: school (page 13 of 15)

July 21, 2011 / 0 Comments

Christmas in July

I know, I have written about this before on my blog, but in the States, it is a big thing to have “Christmas in July” sales and events. This is not the case in England, where people look at you, as if you are half mad to even mention such a thing. As school is shortly coming to a close for us (tomorrow is our last day, Yipee!), I thought this would be a good time to use a bit of the Summer break to begin working on a few Christmas/winter-y projects.

One, being my crocheted granny blanket, which I have yet to have the chance to begin, with all the craziness of school going on around us. But, also to possibly start a few Christmas projects early. Here were a few things I came across and I might just try to make some of these, or at the very least be inspired by them, especially the sock monkey coffee cup wrap, he has personality!

Do you begin your Christmas making projects early, or are you a last minute kinda gal (or guy)? Enjoy!

Now is a good time to start collecting vintage cookie cutters at thrift stores and yard sales. These “frames” would be gorgeous to have up all year round!

These mice would make perfect teacher’s presents or classroom gifts. If you changed the colors they would even be cute for an Alice in Wonderland Themed Birthday Tea Party.

Want to make your own granny square blanket to stay cozy with when the weather turns frosty, go to Meet me at Mike’s for a granny square tutorial.

This sock monkey coffee cup wrap is too cute. Perfect for your coffee lovers, any time of year.

(All images copyright their respective blogs)

July 16, 2011 / 0 Comments

Tents

We have ONE week left to go of school and I am so ready for it to be over! This last term has felt as if it has gone on forever. It feels too long to still be in school, I am ready to enjoy a little bit of a Summer break.

Summer meant a lot of things and happy memories in my house growing up. One such memory in particular was the summertime rituals my sister and I always did. We played outside, creating bike “roads” out of chalk on our drive way. We went swimming, we went to the library and signed-up for the summertime reading list.

We ate ice-cream and fresh peaches from the farm. We played an endless game of monopoly that we made span the entire length of our Summer break and we built tents. We built huge tents with old blankets and sheets, sometimes encompassing a table and chair and part of a couch in our giant fortress.

We played underneath it, hung out, read, watched movies through our special “spy” hole aimed at the tv, we just had FUN. When I saw this tent tutorial, I just loved it. It brought back all of those little memories. This is a lot fancier than what we built, but I think just as magical.

What a fun summertime project for you and your little ones. I can just see it strung with fairy lights, filled with cozy blankets and pillows and the perfect place to lay down and read a book on a rainy day, falling asleep to the gentle pitter-patter of the rain, with the magical glow of the twinkling lights overhead.

For the how-to click here.

All images are courtesy of Grosgrain Fabulous. Original Post from Cakies.

May 25, 2011 / 0 Comments

The Enchanting Lotte Reiniger

Right before Christmas, one of the Art teachers in my department, decided that she would have the students create shadow puppets as a nice little wind down to the week that we were breaking up for the holidays. I love shadow puppets, there is something very magical about them!

She showed the students a video by Lotte Reiniger, so they could get an idea of what kind of final outcome they were aiming for and to see how the process works in actuality. I had never seen these Reiniger videos before and I fell in love with them. They are beautifully crafted and absolutely enchanting.

She was a true visionary, ahead of her time in innovation and even beat out Walt Disney in the designing of and use of a multi-plane camera to achieve distinctive visual effects. She was filmed to show her working through her creative process and it is truly astonishing to see how quickly she sketches and expertly cuts the puppet she is creating.

As a group of digital Art students are now working on a similar shadow puppet project, it made me think of these bewitching videos, so I thought I would share them with you! There is such a sweetness to them and they are without a doubt, timeless interpretations of beloved fairy tales! Enjoy!

(Still images courtesy of the Animation Archive)

March 28, 2011 / 0 Comments

Hear Me Roarrrr….

I am roaring into the week. We put our clocks forward this weekend and suddenly everything and everyone seems to be “springing” into action.

There are exams and meetings and yoga classes to attend this week, cleaning and laundry that has to be done and somewhere in there, time to just sit and be with Mr. Michie; because that is more important than anything else on my “To-Do” list. So, I am just going to keep on roaring and go with it!

(Image by Christine Hale, “Roarrr” added by Jennifer Michie)

March 11, 2011 / 1 Comment

What Big Teeth You Have!

“What big teeth you have!”,exclaimed Red Riding Hood, to what she believed to be her ill Grandmother, lying in the bed, only to discover that it was in fact, a wolf! This seems to be the week of grandmothers turning into wolves, where all is not what it seems.

A week where everyone seems to be baring their teeth. I do not know if the “new” moon has made people crazy, or if the stars and planets are simply not aligned this week? Is there something in the water? Have people begun to drink the Kool-Aid? Has the long Winter finally made people just snap? Or does everyone have Spring Fever? This past week has been a week where almost everyone I have crossed paths with seems to be completely off kilter.

People have been snappy, or in an unusually odd mood that is out of character for them. I am so happy that it is the weekend. Hopefully, next week will bring with it a sense of calmness to everyone, because the franticness of this week was almost more than I could take.

This has been a week of being with “wild things”! As Maurice Sendak, wrote in one of my favorite books (Where the Wild Things Are):

“And the wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws.”

There has been a lot of roaring and gnashing this week. There is something in the air, others I have spoken with have noticed it as well. I am just hoping that all this windy weather we are getting at the moment, will blow it right back out of here, because I would like an easier, calmer and more peaceful week next week, then this one has been!

March 3, 2011 / 0 Comments

Cramped for Space

Our little cottage is getting very cramped at the moment, we seem to be running out of space! We worked so hard cleaning and organizing while we were on 1/2 term, last week and the house looked so clean and cozy. You have to stay on top of things in this little house, or it will attack you!

But, this first week back at school has left it in a sorry state. There are piles of papers to grade, more things I have fished out to bring to the Art Cupboard, just waiting to be taken, projects I am working on…

It looks like my weekend is planned. Saturday morning, I am tying my hair up and getting to work, this little cottage needs to be put back in order!

(Image: Vintage Alice in Wonderland Illustration by A.A. Nash, found on Flickr)

February 25, 2011 / 1 Comment

Art-O-Mat

When I was in College, they installed one of these in our Art Department. It was there on a trial basis to see if something like this would work! Well, we all loved it! What is it? It is a refurbished cigarette machine that sells art instead of cigarettes. I adored the fact that in keeping with the style the design was still very much the “old cigarette case” look, that very 1960’s-esque edge to it.

I don’t know if they have changed this part or not, but we had to use a special “token” to get the art out. You handed in your money to the Art office and received a chip that you would use to collect your chosen piece.

You really had no idea what was going to be in the boxes. The images used to “describe” it, was either just the Artist’s name or a very brief line, like, “man in a box”. You didn’t know what was going to pop out and that was half the fun. There was all sorts of things from mini oil paintings, to a book of photographs that told a story, to miniature statues, sometimes it was just typed text that had been pasted down and decorated.

I love the idea of “Art for the Masses”, and I mean this in the best possible sense. Not mass produced cheap art, but the Andy Warhol idea of mass production, in the sense that you were creating 20 or 30 of the same thing and quite possibly something to never be created again, but for $5, everyone had a chance to own a little piece of Art. It made it accessible and Art should be accessible. (I know I stray here a bit, in that Andy Warhol was mass producing to make a point about Art, but I think you get my point as well.)

I have the very lovely Sherry to thank for tweeting out this pic to me, it made me smile!

If you don’t already follow this gal through twitter, you certainly should, she is a sweetheart! Thanks for sending me this image, Sherry!

(Image Copyright: MerrieSherrie “Art dispensing vintage cigarette machine, Cosmopolitan, Las Vegas”)

To learn more about Art-o-mat, click here

February 19, 2011 / 0 Comments

A Trip to the Tate

I had the great fortune of leaving the cupboard for a little while on Wednesday and I got to accompany an Art trip to the Tate. It was a treat walking around with the students, getting to sketch some things in my sketchbook and taking as many photographs as I could.

I haven’t been to the Tate in quite awhile. Mr. Michie went on a school trip before Christmas and he inspired me to want to go again after such a long absence. However, they were hanging so many things that a lot of the rooms were closed, so I didn’t get a chance to see as much as I had hoped.

One piece I did see was by the conceptual artist Cerith Wyn Evans. Who had a stunning, ballroom size Venetian chandelier hanging in a room; that lit up very slowly and once warmed up the lights would flash on and off. It was so beautiful and yet surreal to see in white this room, the bold colours of the chandelier’s droplets and flowers were all that stood out, against the blinding light when the bulbs reached their highest power.

My minor in College,was Arts Management and one of the courses I took was a gallery class. One area we focused on, was how do people use the space they are in and interact with the space they are in. I always think back to that class as I watch people in a gallery/museum.

There was no way around this chandelier it was so wide and hung so low it almost touched the floor. You couldn’t miss it. Yet, I stood against a wall and watched people breeze past it, give it a wide berth, as if there was nothing of importance to see, or, they would quickly glance at it and move along. Maybe its sheer size unnerved people, they felt it was too big to interact with, it isn’t as “simple” as standing in front of a painting on a wall. Who knows? It was just something that fascinated me.

I had a lovely day out and I think the students did as well, a lot of good ideas for their exam theme of “Similarities & Differences”. I just thought I would share a few of my favourite images from the day with you:

Theodore Von Holst, The Fairy Lovers, about 1840
Michael Ayrton, The Temptation of St. Anthony, 1942-3
Henry Fuseli, Titania and Bottom, about 1790
William Blake, The Book of Thel pl. 7, probably 1796
John Linnell, The Last Load, 1853
Cerith Wyn Evans, Chandelier

I picked up these two postcards as my treat. I thought they offered an interesting perspective on “Similarities & Differences”, so I am just going to pocket them away as an idea for a student in need:

{Self Portrait with Fried Eggs, Sarah Lucas, 1996 (left) Honeymoon Nude, John Currin, 1998 (right)}

January 27, 2011 / 3 Comments

A Heartfelt Thanks

THANK YOU

I just wanted to extend a heartfelt thank you to you all for your kind words to me on my blog and through Twitter. I try not to use my blog as a forum for rants, but I was more than fired up over the loss of my wallet!

I truly appreciate your outpouring of support. Do not worry, I have not lost faith. How could I, when I have already been shown such kindness from people I have never met?

Stay tuned! I will be revealing my secret project soon!

Jennifer x

**Update: People’s kindness continue to flow. This morning (1-28-2011), I had a colleague bring me a wallet that she received for Christmas and wasn’t using. “Just something to get me through for awhile,” she said! Now, how kind is that!

January 25, 2011 / 6 Comments

Losing my Faith

It is not often that I use my blog as my personal forum to have a rant about things going on, in or around my life. But, excuse me today while I step upon my soapbox. I planned to reveal my secret project yesterday, but when I came home, I was deflated. I felt like an old balloon, that was just barely floating above the floor, the ribbon tail all twisted up beneath it.

Why was I so deflated you ask? Well, I had my wallet stolen out of my handbag at school. Which was in a locked equipment cupboard in my room, but since so many people come and go and do not always remember to lock the door behind them on my personal belongings, someone else saw this as their opportunity.

They must have been very determined, because my current bag of choice at the moment, is a gorgeous Lucky bag that my parents gave me and it is a giant bucket bag and very very Mary Poppins-ish deep, and that was all zipped up and twisted into another bag, so someone really worked hard to get my wallet out.

They walked away with my wallet, about £20 and my bank cards, which thankfully have now been cancelled and had not been used. But, more than the £20 or the pieces of plastic or my favourite green and polka dotted Cath Kidston wallet, bought for me by Mr. Michie, they walked away with my faith in humanity.

I am a girl raised in the South, I was raised by very compassionate parents, with extremely gracious manners. I always make a point of saying “hello” to people I see as I go about my day. I smile. I work my hardest to help people out, I give them respect, it doesn’t matter what others think of you, until you do something to upset me, you have a clean slate in my cupboard. Which is not what was shown to me yesterday.

Today as people came in and out, I watched them like a hawk, I questioned them in my head. I again questioned the turn of events yesterday. I am not an attention seeker, but I did feel it wise to make this known to others, since culprits like to boast, something might be heard through the grapevine.

I was hurt, that after sending out an “All Staff” e-mail, to make people aware, some gave me their sincere apologies, while others who spoke to me just shrugged, because they are complacent and so I am expected to be as well. Well, I refuse to be, a little of my faith in humanity was robbed from me yesterday afternoon and I will not be complacent about that. I will fight to get that back, with every bone in my body.

For, I believe there is good, more good than evil, I will walk in to school tomorrow, I will hide my hurt and I will carry on, a little wiser, a little older and I will continue to seek out the good in people, because surely it is there to be had.