One of the presentations I was most looking forward to going to at NAEA ’19 was the author Peter H. Reynolds. Most elementary art teachers are familiar with his books.. they are all so colorful and teach about those concepts we want our students to learn. The Dot The book called The Dot is the one that I think most people have heard of. I have done lots and lots of projects about dots using this book. You can see … Read more…
The National Art Education Association conference this year had some thought-provoking and inspiring speakers, as usual! In this post, I will tell you about Amy Sherald and Howard Gardner. Next, I will share about Peter Reynolds! Amy Sherald, portrait artist The first speaker I went to see was Amy Sherald, who is best known as the portrait artist for Michelle Obama’s presidential portrait. Here is a video of her talking about this portrait. Amy Sherald creates large scale figurative paintings … Read more…
I had a very exciting trip to Boston last week for the National Art Education Association Conference. If you have never been to one before, you should really try to go some year. It’s quite the experience! The conference was from Thursday-Saturday last week and it was jam-packed full of workshops, speakers, vendors, meeting friends, site-seeing and walking back and forth around the hotel/conference center. I am going to split up my experience into a few different blog posts. Here … 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…
Some of you might know that I am a Girl Scout troop leader! This blog is mostly for talking about art teacher related things, but I thought other Girl Scout leaders might find this useful! I made this math sheet up for my Girl Scout troop! They are 3rd graders and they enjoy math, so I figured they would get a kick out of this sheet. (For the one I gave my girls, I used their names. I changed the … Read more…
My students are making kindness bookmarks now when they have free time. These are some positive mindset affirmations and mantras that I wrote or collected. Great for kids! Great for art projects or art journaling! For a high resolution PDF copy, visit my TPT shop for a FREE DOWNLOAD: 100 Positive Mindset Phrases for Kids
My 3rd and 4th graders are currently making messes with paper mache! They are building and paper maching masks. They learned about Pacific Northwest Coast masks, but also masks from around the world. Here is a sneak peek of what the masks might turn out to look like- they made some preliminary sketches.. What do you think?
I have a new art lesson plan to show you! I wrote this for a substitute lesson, but you can make it as simple or complex as you want to. My students were very interested in watching me design my snowman picture and they were amazed at how detailed the background was, but also they felt confident they could create a Pop Art snowman picture of their own. This lesson is available for purchase in my shop and includes Snowman … Read more…
I used this simple “Snowflake Starter” to help my 1st and 2nd graders draw their own snowflakes. This is a great way to teach about radial symmetry. If you are going to use watercolor paints or glue thicker materials on to the paper, print the templates onto thicker cardstock. Simply draw shapes or designs on the spokes of the snowflake. If you draw something on one line, make sure to repeat the same shape or design all the way around. … 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 Dad recently received this amazing gift that I thought you would be interested in seeing! My Dad went in for some serious surgery a few weeks ago and a group of quilters from his church made him this beautiful quilt! The reason it is so special is that the quilt is made up of square of HIS pen and ink drawings. Every year, my Dad draws many pen & ink drawings of places he visits on vacation and of … Read more…
I am so excited to let you know that I recently was interviewed on the Art Class Curator Podcast! I was so honored to be invited by Cindy Ingram to be on her show. Visit her blog, Art Class Curator, to hear the podcast! Show Highlights: Marcia shares how she started her own art blog What makes Marcia’s school different from most How Marcia and her fellow teachers work together to reinforce lesson plans Marcia shares examples of how her … Read more…
This past summer, there were painted Bucky Badger sculptures all over our city. The Badger is the mascot of the University of Wisconsin. I wrote all about it in a previous blog post which you can read here. I shared already the large collaborative Bucky Badger puzzle designs we made. After we made the large group Buckys, each student made their own smaller Bucky design. They had the opportunity to design it however they wanted. Take a look at some … 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…
