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  • Banner with colorful artwork promoting an art shop featuring kindness coloring pages, artist activities, and resources for teachers.

About Marcia Beckett

Marcia is an elementary art teacher and loves painting, drawing, sculpture, art journaling and clay. Her blog, Art is Basic, features many exciting art projects for kids.

Creativity Exercise

I’m going to have some of my students do a creativity exercise on the first day of school to get their juices flowing.  Creativity TestDirections:  Use your imagination to invent something that we could add to the school.  It could be something real, made-up, unbelievable or something that we could actually add to our school.  It could be added to the inside or outside of the school grounds.  It could be decorative or functional.  Draw a very detailed picture of … Read more…

Clay Figures

Two small handmade clay figures of zebras, one climbing a block with letters and numbers, and the other on the ground near a striped barrier.

So, you may remember that I made a couple clay figures as demos for a kids’ clay class that I taught.  I painted the girl and put her in a chair that I had.  This is a chair made of sticks that my neighbor made.  He nails them together and ties them with some sort of twine to hold them together.   With the other guy, I painted him, and put him in a box.  The box I had bought … Read more…

Making Pendants

Close-up of colorful wire-wrapped stones, ideal for jewelry making, on a yellow background.

Making jewelry is one of the hobbies I enjoy.  When people ask me what kind of art I do on my own, I have a hard time saying what I do… I love photography, jewelry making, collages, drawing, watercolor, clay.  I dabble in a little bit of everything.  So, my mother-in-law and I went to a craft show in Madison this weekend and we want to start selling some crafts.  She is thinking about sewing some kids’ capes for boys … Read more…

Weaving Camp Part 6

Woven fabric with colorful strips and blue floral patterns on a burlap background, showcasing intricate weaving techniques.

3rd graders’ burlap weaving with feathers Burlap weaving made by 4 year old Weaving on BurlapWeaving camp has been over for a couple of months now and I’m finally getting around to updating the last of the lessons I taught for the camp.  Just a refresher, the weaving camp was for kids going into kindergarten to about 3rd grade.  Each day focused on a different type of weaving and kids could sign up for one day or all of the … Read more…

Collages I made for the baby nursery

Close-up of various yellow rubber duck toys piled together, with one pink duck sitting on top.

Duck Collage #2, 2009 I thought I would post some pictures of collages I made a year ago for my soon to be born baby girl, Daria.  We were trying to think of a theme for the baby’s room and I wanted something slightly neutral in case we ever had another kid and it turned out to be a boy.  Or, in case these ultrasounds were wrong and it turned out we were having a boy.  One of my coworkers … Read more…

Really Cool Drawing Site

Cool drawing of a bird with simple lines and wispy feathers against a white background.

While reading Mini Matisse’s Blog I learned about this really cool online drawing program that allows you to draw with different types of marks:  fur, webbed, squares, ribbon, sketchy and others.  I’m in love with how it looks!  I have an idea to draw using this program, then print them out, add color with paints or colored pencils and then incorporate them into a mixed media collage. The only thing I don’t like about it is that it appears once … Read more…

Cute Artsy Baby Blog

This blog shows pictures of a baby on top of towels arranged in an artful scene.  They are so adorable!! These pictures are gorgeous, but they make me mad for two reasons. 1.  My baby NEVER slept peacefully like that for the first 3 1/2 months.  Like NEVER.  I would always have to hold her in a sling or sleep with her in order to keep her sleeping.  Even when she fell asleep and we gently transferred her to a … Read more…

Clay Camp for Kids– Week Three– Birds in a Nest

A clay sculpture of birds in a nest perched on the edge of a small clay bowl with a flat background.

Here are some of the things we have been working on during clay camp for kids. The kids are going into kindergarten-6th grade. Week 3 I taught the little ones (entering K-3) how to make pinch pots for birds’ nests and then how to form a bird. All of our projects will be painted next week. This is a good project for learning how to make pinch pots. First make a pinch pot with a couple of eggs in it. … Read more…

Drawing Lab for Mixed Media Artists

Drawing of a blue bird with a single visible eye, beak, and part of a wing on a postcard background created by mixed media artists.

I purchased Carla Sonheim’s drawing book, because I’m always interested in looking at new drawing books or new mixed media art books and this is a combination of both.  She has a lot of drawing exercises on her blog also.  As an art teacher who avidly researches all sorts of art lesson plans, I have seen some of these drawing exercises before, but Carla puts her own unique spin on everything.  I really like how the book is laid out, … Read more…

  • Banner with colorful artwork promoting an art shop featuring kindness coloring pages, artist activities, and resources for teachers.