Holiday Round Up

Two of my classes made pictures frames like these: 

They turned out really cute and I did not take pictures until after the kids glued their pictures in, so I did not want to post any of the frames with their pictures in it. 

This year, I did not do too many holiday art projects, but here is a round-up of some that I have done in the past. 

Sock Snowmen

 Snowflakes with Glitter

Snowglobe Pictures

Picture Frame with Tooling Foil

Dreamcatcher Style Ornament

Winter Landscapes

I usually do these in January, but this could be a holiday landscape.

Clay Heart Ornaments

 (I did these again this year, but forgot to take pictures.)

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Glass Fusing

The fourth-sixth graders made these glass fused pendants.  We are gluing the "bails" on the back to make necklaces.  The kids are going to give these as holiday gifts to a family member or friend.  They each made two pendants.  

This is the first time I have done fused glass with kids.  I used the how-to guides from the System 96 website and ordered the glass from Delphi glass.  

Have you done fused glass in your kiln before?  If so, I have some questions to ask you and maybe you can help me troubleshoot a bit.  Let me know and we can connect!

Some of the pendants turned out wonderfully (as I expected) and some of them did not seem to melt evenly.  They are still beautiful and the kids are proud of their work, but I am wondering if anyone has any insights.  

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Free Printable Holiday Card to Color

Free Printable Christmas Card!

Marit, founder of Featuring magazine, suggested that we all make print and color holiday cards to post on the website. This was perfect, because now my holiday card is done for school.  For the past few years, I have made little cards from my artwork to use as thank you notes at school.  If a kid gives me a holiday card or gift I will give them one of my little artwork cards.   Some kids at school saw me drawing this and they all said they wanted one, so I'm going to print off a bunch.

If you would like to print off this card for yourself or your kid to color, go ahead!

Do you make your own holiday cards?  Do you share your artwork with your students?



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Prayers and Love

Prayers and love to those in Connecticut.  I pray for peace, I pray for love, I pray for our country and world.  As a teacher, parent and human my heart is heavy today.

Mixed Media Canvases with Kids

 Thanks for your kind comments about my fingers!  They are actually healing much faster than I expected. 

As you might know, I am a lover of all things mixed media!  I also enjoy occasionally teaching an after school art workshop for my students (I'd love to do more, but since my daughter goes to daycare it's a bit tricky.)  I thought painted canvases would be a great gift for kids to give someone in their family, so I decided to do an after school art class which I taught today.  The kids in this class were in grades K-5, so I had quite a range of skill levels.  23 kids signed up!

1st grade artwork

I bought a bunch of canvases, scrapbook papers and paints on Black Friday (yep, I braved the craziest shopping day to pick up some cheap art supplies.)

5th grader

Each kid chose a 12x12" or 9"x12" canvas and a selection of scrapbook papers.

The kids cut out shapes and imagery from the patterned scrapbook paper.  These were decoupaged on to the canvas using Mod-Podge puzzle saver glue (the kind that you can paint on to a finished puzzle to save it.)  Paint underneath and on top of each shape.  Smooth any wrinkles out with your fingers.  When you are finished mod-podging, use a hair dryer to dry the glue. 

3rd grader

The kids used acrylic craft paints to add paint and designs to their canvas.  Colored sharpie markers were also used for fine details.  It is very important to make sure the paint is dry (with a hair dryer) if you are going to use markers anywhere near the paint.  It will ruin the markers if the paint is wet.  Some students chose to write words on their picture.

Do you see the "love Marcia" at the bottom?  so sweet!  (made by a kindergartner)

The class ran from 3:15-5:00.  The kids mostly all finished by 4:45, which was good because we had a HUGE mess to clean up.  If I did this again, I might split it into two sessions.  It was a long day for the littlest kids. 

Kindergarten-- Lots of expression!

2nd grade

3rd grade

Kindergarten

2nd grade  Great shapes!

1st grade  I love the colors in this one.

4th grade girl

The four seasons-- 5th grade boy

(I just got a twitter account if you're interested in becoming my twitter friend.)
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Egyptian Clay Sarcophagus-- 4th/5th grade

These are the fun sarcophagi the 4th/5th graders made from clay.  We spent a few days learning about Egyptian art and drawing them on paper.  See my previous post about the drawings. 


Due to my finger problem, I'm not going to type out full directions for the clay sarcophagus.. but we traced the template onto slabs of clay for the top and bottom, built the bottom up with coils and then carved designs in the top of the box.  Kids could either carve or paint their hieroglyphs on the box.  We used regular acrylic paints and some fun gold tempera paint to paint these.  (only one firing before painting.)

A couple of side notes:  I am completely fine with them changing their clay sculpture from the preliminary drawing, personalizing it and not using typical Egyptian sarcophagus colors.  It is a good idea to embrace the change as your ideas progress from the first idea to final artwork.

Vote in the Art Ed Blog of the Year contest!

Exercise your right to vote! I just found out from Jessica over at The Art of Education that my art education blog has been selected as one of the finalists to win "Art Ed Blog of the Year!" 

 

There are so many great blogs on this list and they are all ones that I follow on my blog reader.  Take a look at all the ones posted and you will get so many good ideas for your teaching. 

Art is Basic need your help to win! Voting is open this whole week from today through Friday the 14th. Could I ask you to take 30 seconds, follow this link, and vote for Art is Basic to win?! All you have to do is click on the name of my blog in the poll, and click vote.  Thanks for checking out the Art Ed Blog of the Year finalists.  It is so important to keep current on the latest in Art Education and these blogs provide a lot of discussion to the field of teaching art.    Thanks, Jessica, for hosting this contest and spreading the word about so many good art blogs!

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Found Object Faces-- 1st grade

(these are the projects I burnt my fingers on!)  USE LOW TEMP GLUE GUNS!!!

Anyways, these are really charming and fun projects.


The 1st graders learned about recycled art and how to use unconventional materials in art.  We read 2 books by Hanoch Piven, which feature portraits made out of objects. 

The children brought in objects from home that represented aspects of themselves and we assembled the parts into faces in art class.   We used foam board and matboard for the base of the faces.   Scroll down to see more examples of the artwork!

Here are ones we made last year.

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Winter Collages

My posting is going to be limited for a little while.  I burnt four of my fingers on a hot glue gun yesterday and had to go to the urgent care.  Basically the glue dripped on four fingers on my left hand... I was sitting in the teacher's lounge peeling the hot glue off my fingers and crying.  Definitely a shock to the system.  They are ok now... just some throbbing on and off.   I ordered low temp glue guns because I am not going to use those anymore.  So, limited typing now.... just a few pictures of winter collages.

 

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Nominations Open for Art Ed Blog of the Year

Do you have a favorite art education blog?

Do you want to promote your own blog?

The Art of Education blog is hosting another art ed blog of the year award.

Visit the Art of Education to nominate your favorite blog!