THERE'S A NEW ETSY ARTIST IN TOWN

I'm thrilled to share that senior,

Kaili Hamada,

 has started her own etsy shop.

I wanted to be one of her first customers so let's see what I purchased.

First I have to say that I'm so impressed with her presentation.

Once you take the wrapped package out of the mailing envelop

you see the tissue wrapped with one of her tye-dye bands,

 and her thank you sticker includes a special thank you note.

And Kaili was definitely paying attention 

when I'd bring in things that I've bought thru the mail from other artists.

They usually throw in a little something special, 

and Kaili did not disappoint.

Check out the darling boys Polo shirt she made for my grandson Syd.

Thank you Kaili, 

that was so very thoughtful of you!!!

And here is the masterpiece I bought from her.

A perfect spiral pattern with amazingly placed colors.

If you've never done tye-dye,

this technique takes a lot of practice to get it just right.

I love it Kai,

and I will definitely order more pieces from your shop.

Good luck to you sweet girl!

I'm so very proud of you for putting your work out there. 

What's On The Line?

TYE-DYE EXTRA CREDIT

all classes

This is the first year that I've kept out the tye-dye dyes all year long.  

As they run out I've been buying new colors and filling the buckets back up again.

 I'm surprised and delighted when I walk out my classroom door 

because I never know what I'll run into.

What I do know is that it will be colorful 

and will make my heart happy that the kids are taking advantage of this fun opportunity. 

Senior Kaili Hamada took one of her pieces 

and made a zippered pouch for her good friend for Xmas.

I asked Kaili if she had ever put in a zipper before and she said no,

that she just kind of figured it out.

I tell you these children crack me up,

they are just amazing! 

Two Crazy Girls

After receiving many positive comments and e-mails about our Tye-Dye Unit the other day, I thought you mightl ike to meet the creator of my frock and many of the other items you saw hanging on the Tye-Dye lines outside my classroom

Here is cutie-patootie junor Hazel Cruz of tye-dye fame.  

She is getting so many requests for her creations that she's having a hard time keeping up. 

I told her she needs to start charging.

Let me know if you are interested,

I'll pass it on.

:)

Let's See What's Hanging...

on the line outside my classroom door.

Lot's of tye-dye going on.

My Beginning 3-D kids are now teaching their friends the art of Tye-Dye,

and now we've got at least 5 kids in the classroom everyday after school rinsing the excess dye out of their garments

 and hanging them on the line to dry overnight. 

What's so cool is that many of these kids are band students who have never been able to fit my class into their schedules.

And they are coming into the art room for the first time in their 6 years at Whitney.

I'm almost thinking of leaving out the dyes all year long to attract even more students.

So every morning when I walk up to my classroom 

I see wonderful design and color as it should be.

And the kids are finding all sorts of things to dye,

as you can see. 

Juniors Hazel Cruz and Erin B. are especially getting some crazy wonderful results.

In fact,

 I gave Hazel a frock of my own to dye, 

and as you can see she did a fantastic job for me.

Thanks Hazel!!!!

Laarnie Barcelone - Student Profile

Senior Laarnie Barcelon is having a banner year as she breezes thru my Advanced 3-D art class.

In her free time she is in my room during lunch and after school creating adtional art works.

In these pix she is trying her hand at painting her dress with the left over dyes from the beginners tye-dye unit. 

Our principal, Dr. Rhonda Bus, just happened to drop by as Larnie was having way to much fun 

And her is the lovely Laarnie showing off her finished piece,

very cleverly accenting it with black jacket and belt for a very pretty picture.

Just Messing Around

Wanted to share what I've been up to as my students are tye-dyeing and eco dyeing.

I had some old fabric that I had blueprinted on many moons ago, so I cut it up into small pieces and thought I'd experiment.

So far I've tried two different processes over top.

In this first one I laid down a bunch of leaf windfall from around the school, bundled it up and stuck it in the eucalyptus dye bath for a good steam.

And below I tied the piece up two different times, two different ways going into red first and then into yellow Rit dye.

Here you can see the back side 

and the imprints of the close pins I used to hold it together in the dye.

I really enjoyed the results in both and plan to do more experimenting.

Happy Kids = Happy Teacher

A glimpse into the set up for Tye-Dye.

I get a lot of requests from art teacher across the U.S. about lesson plans, and set ups for certain assignments, 

so I thought I'd start taking additional pix of my students at work. 

I'm very limited on space,

 so sometimes we have to use the floor.  

Luckily,

 it's old school linoleum and it cleans up easily. although I do put newspapers under all the dye buckets. 

This year we had 7 dye buckets going on, 

so we had to house 3 of them behind the check-out counter.

With only 24 students in this class it wasn't too bad.

Some years I've had as many as 35 in this class,

 and it gets a bit ridiculous around those dye  buckets.

 That's when the kids have accidents like getting dye on themselves and their neighbors clothes..

And guess what, it doesn't come out, it's dye!

Back to the 60"s

PRELIMINARY TYE-DYE SAMPLES

BEGINNING 3-D ART

rit dyes & white paper towels

This unit is one of the many ways I introduce color theory into the 3-d curriculum.

Besides the traditional 60's circular motifs I also show more contemporary techniques and the results are gorgeous.

One of my new favorite new students, junior Hazel Cruz, really got into the whole tye-dye thing, coming in everyday at lunch and after school to do more then required.  

As a result she got in a lot of practice and turned in some fabulous pieces. 

These top three are hers.

I require a single color dip, a two color with overlaps, and a triple color with overlaps.

And of course they can do as many as they want as time allows.

This next one by junior Will Kim, is a 3 color dip in a very contemporary design on the diagonal.

I love the color choices Will made and the way the green and purple look when they are overlapped.

Another new kid that I'm real impressed with is junior Josh Bok.

Just look at this crazy, wonderful mix of traditional and contemporary techniques.

So very cool!

These next two were created by junior Antoniette Jabat.

Above is her two color and below her three color.

Strikingly beautiful.

 And I'll end with a very traditional piece by senior Evelyn Aldana.

It's a three color and the edges of her design look like feathers to me.

So very pretty.

A Whole Lot of Dyeing Going On

This year I left out the tye-dye buckets for the whole first quarter and the kids went CRAZY, dyeing their brains out making gifts for themselves, their friends and teammates.  So our clothesline outside my room was filled on a daily basis.

The kids also got into eco-dyeing their tennis shoes with flowers from around the school.

We are learning and having so much fun in the process here at Whitney High School in Cerritos!

Have I told you lately HOW MUCH I LOVE MY JOB!!!!!!!!  :)

Dyeing with Rust

For over a year now I've made it my mission to collect anything rusty so that I could share rust dyeing with my 3-d students.  This was our first attempt and I think the fabrics came out wonderfully.

Rusty nails, bottle caps, railroad ties, you name it, anything I can find on my walks and at garage sales.  Got these results with Rit Dyes, safe to use with young ones.

Rebecca Tjahja and Kaili Hamada (above)

Vinisha Kothari and Jasmine Lim (below)

Rebecca Tjahja

Cassidy Chansirik and Annie Lin

A Little Color Play

With the clothespins that the kids used to tye-dye with. 

Senior Priyanka Shah couldn't resist putting them in order  LOL

Too Cute to Dye For! - Student Work

These adorable tights were done by senior Alison Lee in my Beginning 3-D class for extra credit during our Tye-Dye Unit.  So cute Alison, I love them.

Wish I could have captured the tiny blue snowflakes better.  I'm a bit out of focus, sorry  :)

The Wonderful World of Tye-Dye Student Work

Oh Boy, did the kids in the Beginning 3-d class have fun learning how to tye-dye.

You can see we used rubber bands, paper clips, clothes pins, staples and string to resist the dyes.  The kids were given the 3 primary colors to dip into as well as black.  These were their results:

Junior Lily Lin

Junior Mark Ilog

Senior Aparna Vancheswaran

Senior Luis Gomez

Junior Sara Shams

Junior Joy Chung

Junior Julia Chanco

Sophomore Alex Rendon

and junior Sheila San Agustin.  Now I know those of you, like me, who grew up in the 1970's are wondering if we do any traditional tye-dye patterns.  Of course,  you can see one below

done by junior Tiffany Lee.  These gorgeous pieces of cloth are going to be the backdrop for a fabric journal the kids will be making a little later in the semester.  In years past they were the foundation for our appliquilts the kids made like the one below by alumni Ashley Chang who graduated in 09.  You might recall that her appliquilt along with this year's senior Kelsey Lee and 09 Alumni Kevin Ni where featured 2 years ago in Quilting Arts Magazine which was a big thrill for us.