PERFECT TIMING

Be inspired my crafts kiddos!!

Hey Beginning 3-Ders.

Check out what alumni Kaili Hamada is working on this week.

Same thing as you are.

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. 

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!!!!

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!!!!!!!!  :)

One More Tye Dye Post

Left this one out yesterday, enjoy! What I love about this assignment are there are so many different solutions.

Tye-Dye Extra Credit - Student Art

After my Beginning 3-d students finished up their preliminary exercises and experiments, as well as their main assignment, they had an extra week to go wild and tye-dye as many items as they could. The main criteria being that their clothing were made from 100% cotton fabric. So these are some of the results as they were dying on my walls. My favorite was the one above done by senior Abril Guzman.

We used Rit dye for a very inexpensive assignment. I bought only the 3 primaries and a black,s so it was also a lesson in color theory. As you can see the kids came up with some clever designs.

Tye-Dye Unit - Student Art

A really fun unit for my beginning 3-d students, to reinforce the color theory unit that we studied, was tye-dye using cold water Rit Fabric Dyes (I added salt and vinegar as mordants to each dye-bath to help absorb and set colors). I show them traditional tye-dye from the late 60's and early 70's and then some more modern techniques as well. And then the kids came up with new ideas I've never seen before. It's a learning experience for me too!

We start off the trials on white paper towels (pictured above) and then we go next to squares of bleached white muslin cloth (100% cotton, below). Also this year because my 7th graders were running 3 days ahead of schedule I let them try out some paper towel samples as well (pictured directly above).

The cloth pieces above will be used at a later date for the front and back panels of an appliquilt assignment the beginning 3-d kids will be tackling (below).

Then both groups had time for some extra credit dyeing where they brought in 100% cotton t-shirts and really enjoyed themselves (below). We ended up with many striking pieces from both groups!