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…
My first grade students had a blast making these Viking ship pictures. They have been studying about the Vikings in their Language Arts & Social Studies class, so it was a fun cross-curricular project. (See more images of Viking ships here.) I have provided free templates for you to use! You can find them for free at my shop here. Here’s how you use them: I hope you enjoy this project as much as my students did! It was a … 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.
Last blog post, I showed how to make different types of painted papers with watercolor paints. We are still doing distance learning, so my students did this lesson at home. These are the slides that I used to show them how to make a shape collage. Shape is an element of art. I like to show a lot of examples from different artists, contemporary and modern.
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…
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 love this lesson! I teach about contemporary artist Justin Vining and the kids explore the qualities of watercolor pencils to create their own whimsical landscapes. You can see artwork from another year at this blog post. You can read my interview with Justin Vining here. I even got this lesson published in a magazine! Here are some of my 4th/5th grade students’ artworks from the end of last year. When teaching this lesson, I show the students some YouTube … 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…
This project is relatively simple and takes learning about lines into the third dimension. I posted about this project back in 2013 and it was one of my most popular blog posts. I usually do a line painting project with the kindergartners. This is a great way to learn about types of lines, practice painting with a paintbrush and develop all those great fine motor skills you want the little ones to learn such as gluing and coloring. 1. The … Read more…
The holidays are quickly approaching! While you are thinking about the kids in your life, consider picking up some creative gifts. Please don’t buy those cheap art supply kits with a lot of different cheap crayons, markers and colored pencils. Spending a little more money will allow the child to experience quality art supplies and they will last longer. Here are some of my favorites. 1. Watercolor Paints- Splurge on a better quality set than Rose Art. The child will … 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…
