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…
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.
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Today I have a special artist to introduce to you. His name is Justin Bua. I was able to get an exclusive interview with him, so keep reading to learn more about his art.. in his own words! From his website, “Justin BUA is an award winning urban artist. His DJ poster has sold more than any other print of our era. His celebratory paintings of hip hop imagery document turntable, b-boy, MC and graffiti culture. BUA is one of … Read more…
