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Category Archives: painting

Art Projects that Go Along with Children’s Books

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A selection of children's books on a gradient background, featuring titles like "It's Okay to Be Different," "Elmer," and "The Shape of My Heart." Each book boasts colorful, engaging covers and inspires art projects that beautifully complement the stories within.

Are you looking for art projects that go along with children’s books? Here are 10 art projects that go along with children’s books!  I love to include children’s books in my art lessons.  It’s a great “hook” to capture their interest and also it provides a way for students to see beautiful illustrations and learn about concepts, cultures and other people.   In this post, I share a few of my favorite children’s books that go along with art projects.  Amazon … Read more… →

Grabie 100 Watercolor Set: My New Favorite

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Discover the Grabie Watercolor Set, a favorite among artists. This exquisite collection features 100 vibrant watercolor paints in a sleek metal case, complete with paintbrushes, a colorful floral box, and a blank watercolor sheet ready for your creativity to unfold.

As you may know, I have a little collection of watercolor sets and I love trying out new ones. Previously, my all-time favorite watercolor set was the Sakura Koi travel set. It was just so portable, handy and the colors are vibrant. When I saw this new set by Grabie, I was intrigued and wanted to try it out. 100 yummy colors! Grabie sent me a sample to try out and review for the blog. I was NOT disappointed! (Amazon … Read more… →

Eagle Mural with Summer Camp

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A colorful abstract depiction of an eagle, reminiscent of a summer camp creation, seamlessly blends vibrant, overlapping shapes against a stark black background.

This is a very large canvas we painted during our summer camp! A family donated some big canvases that they decided not to use at home. This canvas is about 5 feet tall! This was available for the kids to work on throughout the week during summer camp when kids wanted to take a break from the other proejcts they were doing. It is now proudly hanging in our stairwell.

Frog and Lilypad- Claude Monet

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Drawing of a green frog sitting on a lily pad surrounded by pink flowers against a blue and purple background.

I have a whole slideshow that I will show my students about Claude Monet and his Impressionist artwork. This is a project I have adapted for distance learning. All of my kids have watercolor paints as part of their art supplies at home. I used this lesson as an idea to adapt my lesson. Usually I have the kids paint on cardboard circles, then attach lilypads using construction paper and tissue paper, but I figured most would not have tissue … Read more… →

Decoupaged Stool and Romero Britto Inspired Hearts Canvas

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Colorful decoupaged stool seat with abstract designs and inspirational words like "Strong" and "Creativity," against a black background.

My students and I recently made two colorful artworks for our school fundraiser. We painted a stool with acrylic paints. I had kids from grades K-3 come up two or three at a time to take turns painting the sections. After the base layer was dry, we used magazine cutout words to decoupage the stool. Black sharpies were also used to outline and accent the edges. Students in grades K-3 helped with this project and I had some older kids … Read more… →

Hot Air Balloon Watercolor Paintings

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Hot Air Balloon Watercolor Paintings

In this hot air balloon painting project, my 2nd grade students learned about types of lines, watercolor gradations and warm & cool colors. I saw beautiful, colorful hot air balloon paintings awhile ago from Painted Paper, which you can see by clicking here. I knew I wanted to try something similar. The students learned about warm and cool colors. I set up liquid watercolors in little cups inside muffin tins. I have tried so many different ways to set up … Read more… →

Georgia O’Keeffe and Flower Paintings for Kids

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Four vibrant flower paintings, labeled as a Georgia O'Keeffe study, set against a purple background with the title below.

I love these tempera paint flowers that are inspired by the artwork of Georgia O’Keeffe.   These close-up paintings were created by my 2nd grade students last year. The children used photo references to draw large flowers. Then, they painted with colors and finally, outlined in black paint.  I really love the white polka dot on black background in the top right picture.  I may suggest a patterned background to students next time I teach this project.     To tie in … Read more… →

Fall Still Life Paintings with Kids

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Colorful still life with fruits, flowers, a golden goblet, and a decorative spray on a vibrant gradient background, evoking the essence of fall.

My third, fourth and fifth grade students just finished up these gorgeous fall still life paintings. Over the years I have built up a collection of fall decorations, artificial leaves, pumpkins and gourds.  I also brought in some real pumpkins and gourds as well.  If you want to do some seasonal art and still have solid art standards covered, observational drawing is always a good go-to lesson. For this project, we talked a little about arrangement and composition, which usually … Read more… →

Yayoi Kusama Dotted Pumpkins for Kids

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A stylized yellow pumpkin with dots and lines on a colorful, patterned background, inspired by Yayoi Kusama.

I love the results of this dotted pumpkin project inspired by the dotted pumpkins of Yayoi Kusama.  I did this art lesson with 3rd/4th grade. (Amazon Affiliate links have been used, at no extra cost to you.) I based our project after the lesson taught on the blog Plastiquem.  First, I read the book Yayoi Kusama, From Here to Infinity, which is an inspirational book about her artwork and life.  This is on my list of top 10 favorite books … Read more… →

Zen Houses Workshop with Jodi Ohl

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Whimsical painting of a small, charming cottage with a stone chimney and colorful bunting. A sign reads "The Cozy Creative Cottage,".

I have been a fan of Jodi Ohl‘s artwork for many years.  She has a fun, whimsical style.  Last summer, I went to a workshop taught by her and had so much fun that I signed up for another weekend painting class with her.  The theme last summer was Zen Painting (in an abstract style).  This summer, the class I signed up for was Zen Houses, which uses similar techniques taught in the Zen Painting class.  I loved both of … Read more… →

Children’s Mural at Church about the Beatitudes

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A colorful illustration of people around a campfire with "Pure of Heart, Humble" written at the bottom.

I realized I never posted pictures of our finished mural at church.  I’ve been so busy with end-of-the-year stuff for school. I worked on this mural all year with the 4th/5th grade Sunday School class.  It is 4 ft x 8ft. These were the best kids to work with! They had great ideas, were mature and got along so well! The process was a long one, with a few mistakes along the way.  We started by getting plywood for our … Read more… →

Nest & Chicks added to our Silhouette Mural

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A silhouette mural of children and a dog painted on a school hallway wall, depicting various activities and a tree branch with a nest and chicks.

We made a few updates to our mural at school. We painted the original in 2015. This year, after some unfortunate defacing with Sharpie, we cleaned it up and realized some areas needed touching up. So my helpful middle school study hall kids decided to touch up and help me with some additions. They added the chicks and chicken at the front (every other year our Science department hatches chicks). And then we decided to add a tree branch with … Read more… →

Zen Painting Workshop

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Zen Painting Workshop

I went to a really fun painting workshop last summer for a weekend which I never shared on my blog…. until now!  The workshop is called Zen Painting and it was taught by Jodi Ohl.  I have been following Jodi Ohl’s blog for many years.  When I was looking for some hands-on professional development for the soul, I noticed she was teaching at Shake Rag Alley, which is only 45 minutes away from my house.  My co-worker Martha, who teaches … Read more… →

Creating White Space with Watercolor Resist Pens

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Creating a colorful abstract watercolor painting with flowers, geometric shapes, and the word "shine" at the top, this artwork makes clever use of white space.

Today I’m going to share with a fun technique for older kids or your own personal art journaling/painting.  I picked up the Christine Adolph watercolor resist pen from Paper Source, but you can find it on Amazon here (affiliate link.)  I thought it would be fun to try out.  Watercolor resist works by covering the paper and protecting the area underneath.  You can paint right on top of the gummy resist lines.  When it is all dry, you can peel … Read more… →

Watercolor Sharks and Free Shark Drawing Guide/Coloring Pages

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Two colorful sharks, one large blue and one small orange, swimming in an ocean-themed watercolor painting, beautifully capturing the essence of marine life.

Recently, I reviewed the book How to Survive as a Firefly and showed you a firefly art project to go along with the book.  I also received a free copy of How to Survive as a Shark from Innovation Press.  This book is illustrated in a similar style and is very cute and engaging.  There is a lot of great scientific information about sharks in this book. From the publisher’s description:  How to Survive as a Shark provides a unique take on fish … Read more… →

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