Just Plain Crabby

Not  me.

 The artwork.

Yet another catch-up post.

This one is from the beginning of the Summer. 

School started today in the Atlanta area even though it's just the beginning of August.
 Some see the start of school as the end of Summer. Not me.
I will hold on to Summer until the bitter end.
So this beachy, crabby project fits the bill.

This was a guided project in that we all did our outline work together 

and then we got creative and gave our crabby guy some serious personality.

This is the best kind of project.

 After the basic shapes are down the artists get busy adding color and texture.

 We talk about color and tools and they get so into the painting process. 

They just paint and chat and it is so fun to be in a room full of creative children. 

Aren't they awesome and fun?? 

Love the polka dot water.

And this guy?? He cracks me up.

 I can just see him shifting his eyes from side to side before he takes off down the beach.

Actually, it's hard to be crabby when you are laughing at these fun paintings!!

Daisies Are The Happiest Flowers

Do you know what movie that's from??

 I love Meg Ryan and I agree.

 I love cheerful, roadside daisies.

 I also loved, loved the show "Please Don't Eat the Daisies" when I was young.

 ( That'll date me, for sure.)

Someone dropped off an unwanted canvas - a large one. Yay!!

I spent a couple of cold, wintry afternoons painting a giant stylized daisy on the canvas.

It was red, so first thing - a turquoise base coat.

Then some basic shapes to create a stylized daisy.

 ( This is what I use my kitchen tools for!)

Outline in black.

My go- to Sherwin Williams paints.

Just filling in with cheerful daisy-ish colors.

 This color is Pickle.

 I want to have the job where I sit around looking at fabulous colors 

and thinking up their names.

SW, call me. I'm available.

Someone at church gave me the canvas so back to church it went.

The next daisy inspired project was painted at

 a little art camp with my favorite 4 and 5 year olds.

They made these canvases for their Moms :)

Then at the beginning of the Summer the stylized daisy painting

 inspired a project at another art camp.

The artists ranged in age from kindergarten to 4th grade 

and they created some pretty amazing line work.

Again, each one is so unique.

They definitely got creative with their colorways.

Aren't these fun? Didn't they turn out great?

I like them better than mine!

A Little Manger Scene for Everyone

A few weeks ago at 
our Starry Night event at church
we used baby in a manger centerpieces and I wanted all of the children 
who attended to have their very own baby in a manger as well. 
Remember the budget was non-existent 
so cue the craft supplies hanging around at church or that were free.
In the "free" department I always like TP roll projects :)


I had my youth helpers cut the TP rolls in half lengthwise. We used a short piece of wire to hot glue a small wooden star to the TP roll "manger" I bought a huge bag of thin, small wooden stars at Hobby Lobby and spray painted them with paint I had. The starts were $2.97 for a zillion stars. I have more than half left for another day.This prep was done in advance since hot glue was needed.

Then they cut a bunch of short pieces of raffia from an old bundle that was in the closet. 
Everyone has some raffia hanging around :)

An old white sheet that I have been using for projects for literally years was torn into strips about 3/4 of an inch by about a foot.
 It doesn't need to be exact and tearing looks great - no need to cut.

I bought this bag of little clothespins for $1.97 when wooden items were 40% off at HL. 
Then we let the children glue some "hay' in the bottom of the TP roll manger with a star. They made two little Sharpie dots for eyes on the clothespin and then "swaddled" the clothes pin with the torn sheet.
 It doesn't matter how they go about wrapping up the baby - it works every time.

They were so cute and they loved carrying around their little baby in the manger and the parents thought they were adorable. It was a quick and easy craft with low cost, small amount of prep and every age child could accomplish it!

I have been getting hang out with some 6th graders at a neighboring church once a month.
Their director invited me to come "make art' with them once a month. It is a ton of fun and she gives me a lot of freedom in choosing the projects to go with the verses or stories that are a part of their lessons.

They have a big, creative space and they are NOT afraid to get messy!! My kind of peeps. And, my friend has paid interns who will help set up and clean up whatever messy project I come up with!!! That's a bonus! 
Right before Thanksgiving we got a head start on the Advent season and made these ornaments from my favorite, Crayola Model Magic air dry clay.

 

 

 

They always turn out perfectly. 
This project is great for all ages and they can make several so they can give some as gifts!!
We challenged them to take one of their ornaments and give it to someone they don't normally give gifts to - even a stranger in a random act of kindness and bring a smile to someone's face. You never know when someone's day might be changed by even that small gesture. I can't wait to meet with them in January and see who followed through. That's kind of a tough assignment for a sixth grader.

Fall Color

We had a little Art Camp yesterday and we had a great time watercoloring Fall leaves.

We used Dick Blick liquid watercolors
 and a couple of colors mixed from diluted acrylic craft paint.

Since leaf shapes are a little tricky and this is the beginning of 4 year old preschool and we haven't drawn together yet, I created a couple of leaf shape tracers to help us get started. I'm not a huge fan of tracers but I also wanted them to be successful and feel great about their first art experience of the year. Later in the year we will do this project and it will be all their work without tracers!

After they traced the outline
( tracers that you draw inside of are so much easier than tracing around the outside of a shape.) they drew the veins on the leaves.  This is where the art starts to reflect their personalities :)  Some are very evenly spaced, some drew one or two lines and others drew tons of veins on the leaf.

This is a Sharpie resist technique. The Sharpies won't run when we start watercoloring. The paper is a heavyweight but reasonably priced watercolor paper from Hobby Lobby.

 

We painted our Fall leaves with warm colors.

Then we painted our backgrounds with cool colors.

 

 

Aren't they gorgeous?

 

 

 

 

It's still Summer-y weather in Atlanta but we are looking ahead to a colorful fall.

Talk, Talk, Talk!

I've been all over the place this summer and I have talked and talked.
With a lot of energetic, dedicated teachers. Both paid and volunteer.


I was invited to present at quite a few Preschool Training Conferences this Summer.
I spoke about creativity in the classroom the most often -
creative practices for both teachers and learners.

I was in the Scout Hut at a beautiful Catholic School in Dunwoody on Friday. What a great group of ladies. I take all my goodies and info with me and we get excited about the upcoming school year.

They were good sports - we talk but we do some silly things, too.

I was also at a conference in Griffin, Georgia talking about creativity in education as well.

The sessions at this conference were 2 hours long so a little different set up. That's a long time to talk.

 

So we did silly stuff at that conference too.
Gives the ladies a break from all my talk, talk, talk.

Then I jumped in the car and took off for Greenville, SC to present at my first national conference - cue butterflies :) It was for the General Board of Discipleship of the United Methodist Church ( I'll never type that again - what a title!) and it was about creativity in Christian Education.  There were paid staff members and volunteers at this conference. It was a ton of fun and we had a blast in downtown Greenville. What a great place to visit and explore.
We ate dinner at a place called Tupelo Honey Cafe - worth the drive back to G'ville just to eat there.
They have several locations - I highly recommend it!

This was the room I was in - one of the art classrooms at the Methodist Church they held the conference in - huge and old and beautiful. I loved their art tables and stools.
 

And look what was painted on the walls. Fun.
 

I also presented in Marietta at another Preschool Training event in conjunction with the Georgia Preschool Association and SAUMC.
This was all about multicultural studies and sensitivity and is incorporated with travel themed units for the classroom. Made me want to go someplace exotic.

This was all about multicultural studies and sensitivity and is incorporated with travel themed units for the classroom. Made me want to go someplace exotic.

 

 

 I'm off to a couple more in the near future and
then I have been invited to a conference at the beach in October!!! Woo Hoo!