Sm'Arties

Pencil sketch

2011-12-04T05:03:00.000-08:00

Snapshots done up in "pencil sketch" at picnik.com, for use in a previous project.

Mandalas

2011-12-02T07:27:00.000-08:00

The Sm'Arties learned a bit about mandalas as a design motif. We looked very briefly at the history of this circular art form, but our main interest was as an inspiration to art.

Variety of mandala coloring pages, mostly simple enough for elementary coloring skills.

Intricate mandala coloring pages

I gave out some mandalas as coloring pages, but we also created out own mandalas.

How to draw a mandala

Their assignment included the stipulation that they create as many layers of design as their ages in years. So, as a minimum, our 4th graders had to have 9 layers of design; our teenager had to have 13 circles.

Karate mandala

We used polar graph paper to keep our circles circular. Some students chose a theme to pursue; others chose the theme of 'pretty designs.'

Dart board mandala

printable polar graph paper

Car race mandala

Recycled T-Shirts

2011-12-01T11:54:00.000-08:00

We had creative fun recycling T-shirts at my daughter's birthday party. Go here to take a look!

Op Art Contour Hands

2011-11-16T08:16:00.000-08:00

Sm'Arties had fun with this lesson found on Artsonia, inspired by artist Bridget Riley.

I think most children enjoy optical illusions. These lines flow over the hands, creating the optical illusion of fluid encountering and flowing over a hand.

50 Trees

2011-11-15T08:10:00.000-08:00

In keeping with our Science interest in Botany this year, our art lessons are often inspired by plants. At this meeting of the Sm'Arties, we drew trees!

Our trees were not scientific botanical drawings, but fun, stylized, realistic, abstract, themed...just a page full of TREES.

I put out skinny Sharpies and Flair pens. I found it interesting that the 2 girls jumped right in with ink, but all the boys chose to use pencils. We looked at some printouts of trees for a little inspiration/copycatting. Thanks for the inspiration, artists Susan Wolsborn and Eloise Renouf! We love your trees!

She of the 50 cats with creative names also names all her trees:

It's no surprise that Charlie Brown's tree made an appearance.

Along with a forest of great variety.

...and the next week they brought their assigned homework - draw more trees!

Faces

2011-11-14T15:30:00.000-08:00

This project comes from Art Projects for kids' Chuck Close Portraits.

Earlier in the fall, I took head-and-shoulder snapshots of each Sm'Artie. At home, I loaded the pictures onto picnik.com and edited them to give a black-and-white pencil sketch effect.

We traced the portraits onto graph paper, and then colored the squares.

The rules: no realistic colors (hair can be green and purple; it cannot be brown), use 2 consistent colors on each big section.

Sm'Arties hit the woods!

2011-10-29T19:43:00.000-07:00

I am 2 art posts behind, but here is a little of what our homeschool mini-co-op is up to these days:

...well, when the Sm'Arties hit the woods last week, they were botanists, classifying plants with Science Geek.

...and discovering the occasional beautiful insect.

Want a closer look?

And when the field work was done, it was time to play!

Ferns Four Ways

2011-10-18T19:04:00.000-07:00

This fall Science Geek is teaching our Sm'Arties Botany. Most of our art projects will have a certain botanical twist, too. Our first - depicting ferns four ways!

The day before Sm'Arties , Earthgirl and I took a little hike on the nature trail that adjoins our property, collecting ferns and mosses for the mini-co-op to study. Science Geek did her thing, looking at vascular and nonvascular plants, then it was time for art.

We made a fern print using an ink pad, a fern rubbing using a crayon with the fern, vein side up, held under the paper, a pencil sketch, and a "magnifying glass" pencil sketch.

Crayon rubbing

Ink stamping

Clockwise: Magnified view, crayon rubbing, ink stamping, pencil sketch

I'm looking forward to tying science and art together - it's a great school year already!

Starting again

2011-09-28T15:42:00.000-07:00

Hurray! The Sm'Arties are back together again!

And we get new notebooks!

Black and silver Sharpies, and permission to doodle - a pretty good first class, don't you agree?

Oh, and little metallic bead-like stickers, too - it turns out they make good frog eyes.

Final Summer Post: Last Minute Craft for Gym Camp

2011-09-28T15:33:00.000-07:00

Note: I wrote up this post 2 months ago, mid-summer, but didn't load in the pictures until now. The children loved the way this bookmark turned out. I'm using my tester bookmark in our workbook for Story of the World, Volume 3.

Her voice in the message sounded kind of desperate. She even ended the message with, "Please, please. please, please call me." That's 4 pleases. Well, you can't say no when someone asks you with 4 pleases - and those are just the last four.

See, that week was second week of Gymnastics camp. We only planned to attend one day of this camp, and I only planned crafts for one day.

But Monday afternoon, our dear friend and camp-organizing coach learned that the mom doing crafts on Tuesday had an unexpected schedule conflict arise. And Coach called and said, "please, please, please, please..."

So I looked around and said, "Hmmm...Mod Podge, file folders, non-bleeding tissue paper squares, ribbons...BOOKMARKS!"

Now I know that we can pick up a handful of bookmarks for free every time we walk into the library, but still, it's fun to make one, isn't it?

This is a recycling craft, too - bonus! Our background was used manila file folders. So when one of the children said, "My folder says "Orange County DEP," I could say, "It used to be a file folder for Orange County Department of Environmental Protection, but now we are recycling it!" That idea was a hit.

I had them trace the general shape of a bookmark onto their rectangle of paper. Then we tore the tissue paper into shreds.

Then we got out sticky Mod Podge and brushes. It seemed like most children prefer wet, sticky, messy art and crafts, doesn't it? We painted on Mod Podge and laid down the tissue paper. We painted a layer of Mod Podge over the top to give the bookmark more shine (I did this step for the "Littles" group while they took a play break.) It was fun seeing how the different color combos came together.

Homeschool Hooky

2011-09-01T19:43:00.000-07:00

We've started back to school, like most of our friends in public schools, private schools, and homeschools. But on the first day of public school, we played hooky!

3 Sm'Arties at Stevie B's instead of at school

Tuesday was soon enough to pull out Math and Grammar.

Sm'Arties won't start meeting for a couple of weeks, but I am excited to start pulling together art projects for the first few weeks! Thank you, generous artists and teachers who share your creativity online - you are coming through for me again!

Introducing Poundcake Kitty

2011-08-17T14:07:00.000-07:00

Remember Poundcake Cat, my favorite of the page full of copycat kitty drawings?

Well, a kitty has adopted us. He is our front porch kitty. He has found himself a home. And he is Poundcake.

Meet Poundcake.

Day 4 Gymnastics Camp Crafts

2011-06-30T19:06:00.000-07:00

Tie Dye Shirts!

No, not real dye, SPRAY tie dye! Did you think I was going to get involved in rinsing and wringing out almost 50 T-shirts again in 98 degree heat? NO WAY!!!!

The purple and blue are our favorites. Even with coupons for Hobby, Lobby, Joann's, and Michael's, this is a more expensive craft, so I tried to get by with just enough. Just enough, however, is not enough. Next time I will buy several extra cans and save the receipts in hopes of returning a few. As it is, I will be getting some more cans and taking them to regular Gymnstics team practice, because we ran out of paint during the last group. Learn from my mistake!

Our methodology is to lay the shirt on the ground/newspaper/cardboard, scrunch it around and spray color 1. Then pull it open, scrunch in a different direction and sray with color 2.

If the shirt has a logo on it, spray it anyway!

Reserved for the boys: camo set!

I loved it that quite a few children showed up the next day wearing their newly decorated shirts.

Day 3 Gymnastics Camp Crafts

2011-06-29T12:16:00.000-07:00

Glass Refrigerator Magnets!

We made these same fridge magnets last year. The campers who were there last year were excited to make magnets again. This year I chose a couple of patriotic scrapbook papers. This year, too, I found (well, our gymnastics coach found) the large flat-backed glass marbles at Dollar Tree. They were a hit!

Day 2 Gymnastics Camp Crafts

2011-06-28T12:52:00.000-07:00

Bugs on Rocks!

I painted bugs on rocks last spring with the Sm'Arties, and at the time filed away the idea for Gymnastics camp.

To make the process flow quickly, all the rocks arrived with little faces - eyes and a mouth. The perfectly round eyes come from a dab of white paint applied with a pencil eraser. The black eyeballs are dots from the handle end of a skinny paintbrush. I drew the little mouths, some happy, some squiggly. Each child picked a rock and got to work.

I only brought about 3 regular and 2 skinny brushes so I could keep control of the groups.

Our procedure:

- Line up.

- Pick your rock, write your name in Sharpie on the bottom. Both names, please! - we have 3 Hannahs and 3 Graces.

- Hold your rock, and get back in line.

- When it is your turn, paint the little half-circles for wings in a solid color. DON"T DECORATE IT YET!

- Get back in line. Hold your rock.

- When you get to the front of the line, your rock will be dry enough to paint some decorations - spots, stripes, etc.

- Leave your rock to dry. Miss K-Sue will spray it with shiny spray later.

Day 1 Gymnastics Camp Crafts

2011-06-27T12:22:00.000-07:00

Last year I ~~got roped into~~ volunteered to do crafts at Gymnastics camp. Fun? Hot? Overwhelming? Exhausting? Heat exhaustion-type exhausting? All of the above!

So, of course, I did it again last week.

My campers ranged in age from 3 to 13 years. There were over 45 campers, divided into 5 groups. Group 4, the 12 boys, were a riot. The challenge for me is to discover what kind of crafts are not unreasonable in expense, work in the timeframe, hopefully dry by 1 p.m., and can be made doable for preschoolers and highschoolers; boys and girls.

For Day 1 (and Day 4!) I took a page from Earthgirl's 6th birthday party, a 70s shendig, and brought a spool of leather thong rope and a big container of pony beads. Simplicity itself!

They were a hit with girls and boys.

Shooting the photos - outtakes

2011-06-24T13:19:00.000-07:00

I had so much fun taking pics of the Sm'Arties , each holding my 50-cent frame, and then editting. I love the fact that digital cameras allow me to take a bunch of pictures and save just my favorites, enhanced via picnik.com. The outtakes from this day were fun, too.

We are the Sm'Arties

2011-06-09T20:31:00.000-07:00

Alienated Names

2011-06-09T20:02:00.000-07:00

I am not sure where I first spied this fun lesson. Maybe it came from Kinderart. It's so much fun, and the students love the results so much that many art teachers have "alienated" their students :)

How to: Fold paper in half length-wise. Using the fold as the bottom line, write your name, your friend's name, or your Alias in GREAT BIG cursive letters in Sharpie or marker. Getting the writing BIG ENOUGH is the hardest part.

The original instructions I read suggested you not add any letter tails (g, y, etc.), but sometimes adding the opposing tails gives some cool results.

Trace the name so that it is mirror image to the first name. If the paper is thin enough and the writing dark enough, you can trace through, but if necessary, you can refold the paper the opposite way, trace name # 2 on the backside, then unfold and trace on the front. Turn you paper upright and...ta-da! An alien appears.

Trace him/her in Sharpie or dark marker, find his features, and embellish and color away! Scare you friends! Or make them laugh!

Spooky: Here is another take on this lesson from Kid's Artists.

Squaring off

2011-06-09T08:48:00.000-07:00

When I rediscover where I first saw this little project, I will insert a link - credit where credit is due!

Many folds! We need 8 triangles showing.

Writing the words to fill up the space. This means the middle letters are the largest letters in the word.

Write each word 8 times. If you are brave, you can use Sharpies right from the start.

Almost done - smooth it out.

And color! We like the Multicultural packs of markers, crayons and colored pencils - all those browns!

But frogs like bright colors :)

Illuminating

2011-06-09T06:10:00.000-07:00

Hello, my name is Remiss. I have not posted here for weeks. Now I am trying to edit four sets of pictures and finish up posts from this school year - all by the end of this week. Wowee....

The last few art lessons of the year all rotated around letters and names. I had meant to do an ambitious lesson set on the Florida Highwaymen, but did not feel ready to do those artists justice, and kept pushing the lessons back...another...week. Finally I conceded that the Highwaymen must wait for next year.

We had fun illuminating letters though, alienating names, and putting words into boxes.

Most of the Sm'Arties have already studied the Middle Ages and seen examples of illuminated letters, but time has gone by, the students are older, their art skills are more developed, and it was a great time to look back a few centuries to the time when every book was a work of art.

I showed the Sm'Arties samples of illuminated letters, gave them squares of cream-colored cardstock, and let them create.

Their themes and interpretations surprised me!

When they were done, I mounted the squares on slightly larger squares of dark leathery-look scrapbook paper for a bit more of a finished look.

Last Sm'Arties of the school year...

2011-05-17T19:29:00.000-07:00

...and I am 3 posts behind!

The posts are almost completed...really...just a few more days...maybe next week...

Copycat

2011-04-20T15:15:00.000-07:00

Recently I discovered Artist/Illustrator Julia Marshall through a little head- up from Suzy's Sitcom. Her whimsical cats and dogs are just the thing to capture the attention of our Sm'Arties. On a recent dreary Tuesday, there was sunshine inside as the Sm'Arties went about imitating Ms. Marshall's style.

I have a kitty, and when she comes in from the rain, her ears look just like that.

We like the way her animals often have simple straight-line legs and tails.

This Sm'Artie started adding guinea pigs to his drawing sheet.

At our next class, I learned one Sm'Artie girl has been trying to draw all 50 Cats!

She's giving them all names.

I like Pound Cake Cat.

The Eyes Have it

2011-04-09T12:19:00.000-07:00

Meet Lily, the newest Sm'Artie!

Last Sm'Artie day was a rainy rainy day. Though we had planned to paint guinea pigs on rocks, it seemed a better idea to do something that did not involve adding more wetness to the day.

Earthgirl has worked hard learning to draw eyes, so this week she directed an eye-drawing lesson.

Rockin' out some more

2011-04-03T20:19:00.000-07:00

This week we painted lizards on rocks. All these painting on rocks projects do best with practice, but they are fun from the very start. They all look best when they've had their final coat of clear shiny spray acrylic sealer.

Next week we are painting animals on rocks, and the group consensus is...guinea pigs!

Rockin' out

2011-03-14T18:51:00.000-07:00

Source material for this lesson and several lessons coming up: Lin Wellford's book and video.

We are going to paint a few rocks over the next 2 or 3 weeks - maybe forever - we love this!

Not having a rocky riverbed nearby, I grabbed a bag of Mexican Beach stones from Lowe's. They are smooth and dark and it feels good just to hold them.

One of the Sm'Arties, who is not pictured in this post, learned that though tossing and catching the stones is fun, it is not advisable to toss them over your head - unless you catch them EVERY TIME. Sad lesson.

We used acrylic craft paint. Some stones were prepainted white, some black, and some left natural. I like the natural dark gray.

When they were finished (and they dry quickly - I used a blowdryer on the wettest ones), I sprayed them with a clear sealer. These have 1 coat. 2 coats is better - more shine.

We think the one with green eyes looks like an alien.

After Spring Break - lizards!

Painted Ladies

2011-03-11T13:00:00.000-08:00

Last year I saw this lesson at Deep Space Sparkle, and I knew that one day the Sm'Arties would draw some lovely houses.

And so we did!

I love the way the Sm'Arties concentrate when they draw.

I love the details.

I love the way they add their own special touches.

I love the way they are eager to show me the results of their homework the next week!

(I love the way I sometimes have to pixilate when they put labels on with their actual name or address)

Great job, Sm'Arties!

Science on my Art Blog

2011-02-22T06:38:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago we dissected sheep's brain in science. Science Geek did not have her camera along, so she is letting me go for the Science posting.

That is actually me in the teacher mode - Earthgirl and I had just dissected the sheep brain during Science Club, another activity offered through our large homeschool group, so I was pretty well up on finding the hippocampus - it's tiny!

This was an extra brain left over from Science Club - offered to SG gratis as a Thank You for judging the high school portion of Science Fair. I brought it home from Science Club in my lunchbag, and delivered it SG after Sunday School in a little gift bag. SG and I - we are not the squeamish types.

I love Science.

Speaking of hippocampus, I found this article interesting - I think I need to go take a walk!

Painting with acrylics

2011-02-18T12:09:00.000-08:00

We have painted with acrylics for 2 classes now - what fun! We used real from-tube acrylics, and some pretty nice brushes. I showed the Sm'Arties how to be respectful and kind to brushes, keeping them wet (after the first week I modified that directive - keep them damp, not dripping wet - this isn't watercolor), putting plenty of paint on the brush, and how to load more than one color on the brush.

Week 1: Just to get used to the paint, I asked the Sm'arties to paint the whole background, let it dry, then do some simple shapes and swoops on top. We used Acrylic Paper and student-grade acrylic paint and brushes.

Week 2: We painted on canvases! These were to be our Georgia O'Keefe-inspired paintings, though it is hard for the Sm'Arties to remember to zoom in CLOSE on whatever subject they portray. Nevertheless, we are pretty impressed with ourselves.

See the little speckled egg in the pinecone? It's a lizard egg - at least, that is what Science Geek told me.

A few painting with acrylics links:
http://www.ehow.com/how_5811214_teach-acrylic-painting-children.html

http://www.ehow.com/how_7676982_paint-using-acrylic-paint-children.html

http://acrylic-painting.blogspot.com/2004/06/buying-acrylic-paints.html

This artist mom paints with her young daughters: http://debrha.wordpress.com/

Take a close look

2011-02-11T18:25:00.000-08:00

The Sm'Arties are preparing to paint with acrylics this month. I am looking forward to having fun and making a big mess, but first we are preparing our eyes to draw and paint small things big on our papers. We looked for inspration to some Georgia O'Keefe paintings.

The boys liked that she painted things like cow skulls.

We tried to make the images run off the page.

I really find pencil-and-paper classes to be my favorites. When the Sm'Arties get an assignment, they settle right down and draw.

This was just a pencil class, but sure, they could color their pictures if they wanted.

A few links regarding Georgia O'Keefe and some of her art:
Georgia O'Keefe bio

PBS intro

Calla lily on gray

Jack in the Pulpit

Light Iris

Purple Petunias

Summer Days

Deer's skull with pedernal

Cow's Skull with calico roses

Black Cross

Frogs Playing Pianos...

2011-01-26T14:34:00.000-08:00

...origami!

Puppy!

Blue frogs!

A froggie on my shoulder, and one in hand.

Sm'Arties!

Origami links:

Almost all of these have more links. Grab some scrap paper, because you will probably want to start folding.
Frogs
Pianos
Our original source for origami pianos
Fun folds for children
I wish I had seen this "storygami" of Penguin Pete before class.

This means...

2011-01-25T16:56:00.000-08:00

The Sm'Arties must be back!

Sm'Art Moms

2010-12-16T16:38:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas from some of my favorite moms and me!

Now, to plan for next year...

Nutcrackers!

2010-12-15T08:01:00.000-08:00

All over the world of Art Teacher blogs I see classes drawing nutcrackers. I thought drawing and coloring a nutcracker picture would be a very nice last class before Christmas break. This week we only did half-hour classes to accomodate a gift exchange, pizza instead of our usual sack lunches, and LOTS of playtime. The day was festive!

I demonstrated nutcracker drawing techniques, using this lesson from Art Projects for Kids.(Kathy has 3 other nutcracker posts showing nutcrackers colored with oil pastels, watercolors, crayons - all pretty!) We outlined with black Sharpie or black Slick Stix, then colored them with Slick Stix. Nice results!

Here are some other Nutcracker art lesson links:

Art Project Girl

Georgetown Elementary Art Blog

Kinder Art

Carving forth Christmas Cards

2010-12-15T06:12:00.000-08:00

Last week: This will be the last stamp-carving class we do as Sm'Arties. The children have improved in their dexterity as we worked carving erasers for 3 classes. Of course, their expectations are higher now.

During this class, I limited them to just carving one stamp, though I had some mercy when a stamp was ruined. I wanted to focus on making a card, showing them how to layer their stamped piece so it is framed on the card front. So they would not be too frustrated if a stamp was turning out poorly, I told them they could use any of the stamps for their card. At first, two or three asked, "So I can use your stamp?" I said yes, anyone's stamp, and each said, "That's what I am going to do, then. I want to use your stamp." But when the time came, each Sm'Artie used his/her own stamp. They had so much creativity and heart invested in their work!

Science Geek discovered these little Christmas erasers at Dollar Tree - cute! We tried carving around some of the shapes. The Christmas trees worked best.

Earlier, just to see how it would work, I carved 2 Santas - one as a positive image, and one as a negative image. The Santas did not work very well. They looked like scary mountain men, some with blue goggles.

One of my stamp pads has green and red halves. Once this discovery was made, some bisected red and green snowmen made their appearance.

Look how this tree looks like it is set against a winter night.

Love the simple star.

And "Peace on Earth."

Science Geek got in on the carving, too.

I showed the children how to layer the stamped image with pretty scrapbook or colored cardstock and adhere it to the front of a card. In one sample, I used a little foil mini-cupcake holder. I brought some pretty paper and Science Gook contributed a few pieces from her stash.

The children were delighted to see how the framing set off the stamped pictures.

Another Stamp-Carving Tutorial

2010-11-30T06:55:00.000-08:00

I cannot believe I missed this very nice stamp-carving tutorial when I was looking for just such a thing. Gennine's Art Blog is one of my happiest places to visit. I have her December desktop calendar on my desktop. I have always liked bird pictures, and hers are some of my favorites EVER! Check out the stamp-carving tutorial:

Geninne's Hand-carved Stamp Tutorial

Hooky

2010-11-18T14:09:00.000-08:00

This week we had our usual IEW lesson (you go, Keisuzi!).

Then we packed up our picnic lunches and crossed the fence in our backyard to have PE and picnic on the Cross Florida Greenway.

It was lots of fun. Though the day was pretty overcast, we enjoyed ourselves.

We are playing disc golf. The "hole" is off camera.

We collected a few treasures.

I didn't take pictures of the collection of animal bones or the collection of shell casings. Now I know for sure - it's not always firecrackers being set off on the Greenway - sometimes it is target practice.

We saw several gopher holes.

After lunch, we planned to go back to the house for Science and Art.

But Science time came and went.

And then Art time came and went.

And somehow, Recess never ended.

We tuckered them out!

Carving on...

2010-11-12T11:21:00.000-08:00

The Sm'Arties have loved using carving tools to make our own stamps.

This week we carved stamps that had a Florida theme so we could make Artist Trading Cards (ATCs) that reflect our environment.

I am still loving the oval erasers from Dollar Tree

Some of the designs are original; some are based on clipart.

The kittycat face is based on a design on pajama pants!

I had some tired, used legal-size manila folders - they make great placemats. You can draw on them, stamp on them, and then pull them out to use again.

Hmmm...I think Earthgirl may be coloring all over her Science homework...

See the one at top right? See the fossil under ground? Pretty cool!

We are ready to trade!

Special Valentine to Science Geek

2010-11-09T05:08:00.000-08:00

At the end of last week's SmArties class, I showed Science Geek these little Dollar Tree erasers. When I got these, Earthgirl and I decided to NOT use them to carve randomly, but to use the designs to make stamps. I got 2 packs, but think I'll go back and spend another $2. You can see the heart/flower one on the left? I carved it out quickly, using just an Exacto knife and a metal pencil end.

It makes a cute little flower-in-heart handmade-looking stamp. We may do some of these at Earthgirl's Almost-Annual Girls' Christmas Crafts Party. Now, look above at the "I heart U" eraser. I said to SG, "Look how cute these are! I'm going to carve this one!" And she said, "Hmmmm...but wouldn't that make a backwards image?" HA! After laughing at the children for making backwards images, look what I was about to do! We kinda held on to each other laughing at ME.

OK, so THANK YOU, Science Geek! I transferred the image to the back side

So this is for you, Science Geek:

I heart U, Science Geek.

Love, K-Sue

Making Our Own Rubber Stamps

2010-11-07T18:46:00.000-08:00

We are carving erasers into rubber stamps, and then stamping all over the place!

Here are a few places I visited to educate myself before jumping in with the Sm'Arties:

Letterboxing Kids

Stamplovers Only

Ruthann's

Obsessively Stitching

Abigail's How-To

The Craft Junkie

Eraser Arts and Crafts Projects - This site has links to a BUNCH of other sites with little fun eraser-related projects.

What we used: Dollar Tree erasers! We had some rectangular ones and these ovals. The ovals are my favorites, because you can use the pretty oval outline.

I brought just a few tools for carving - Exacto knives, Stabilo carvers, and metal pencil ends (where I pull our the eraser), one still rounded; the others crunched into a gouge. The Stabilo carvers are my favorite - what a difference! Since I only have 2 handles, I just wrapped the ends of the extra blades in Bandaids and we gouged away.

My intent was that the children just carve a bit on the first erasers, just to see how it felt, but they all started carving designs so fast I could not keep up! Before I could talk of how to transfer designs and about mirror-imaging, little trees and stick-figures appeared!

And Jackson proudly showed off his "Jax" stamp. Only thing is, he didn't realize that when you stamped it down...

...but then he got the hang of it. In spite of seeing the lesson from the "Jax" stamp, other Sm'arties had trouble with the whole backwards-mirror image thing - mind-blowing!

I brought along some clipart of Florida images - a palm, and alligator, a sea turtle...

You can use a stamp pad or markers with rubber stamps.

I love the skateboard dude!

Shark attack!

Here is a palm I did, colored with markers, then stamped on a blue ink pad. I love how it turned out in the oval

Howling at the Moon

2010-10-29T03:23:00.000-07:00

October is such a beautiful night sky month, and lately we have had lovely weather for being out and looking up in the dark. It has been dry (at least it was up until this week), so no clouds obscure, and our nighttime temperatures have been warm enough that we don't shiver, yet cool enough to refresh. The full Hunter's Moon from last week was as pretty and clear as I have ever seen it.

{A little parenthetical historical note: When I was growing up, though I lived in the country with no light pollution - I tell ya' it was DARK at night, and still is - I never could see the "man in the moon" or make any sense out of star charts with constellations. I think my vision was already that bad. The moon was just a white disc; and I think I only saw the brightest stars and planets. Now I look up with my glasses or contacts, and I am amazed at the texture I can see.}

Shameless copycat that I am, I borrowed from two new art teacher blogs for the lesson: We Heart Art's Spooky Silouettes! lesson and Fine Lines' Ghost Eye Tree lesson. Thank you for sharing, ladies!

{Second parenthetical thought: Perhaps I should have named this blog Copycat Homeshool Art Lessons. KEISUZI, a teacher before she was a homeschool teacher, tells me all teachers are copycats, so I am in good company}

I began our lesson with a bit of classical astronomy. We talked about the fall equinox, the harvest moon, and the hunter's moon. Full hunter's moon had just gone by, so the timing was good. After reviewing tints and shades and remembering what monochromatic means, we painted our full moons with tempura on watercolor paper, and cut out dark trees from black construction paper, gluing them on so that the moon shown through the limbs.

Oooooo.....

Then it was on to Spooky Eyes, one of the cutest little projects we have ever done. When I showed my samples to Science Geek, I said "...if we have time, we'll do spooky eyes..." to which she replied, "Oh please get to Spooky Eyes."

Orange cardstock, black Sharpies, and the white punchouts from a hole puncher - easy fun!

When I read about this project originally, I misinterpreted that I was to punch holes in the orange paper and mount white paper behind to shine through. On second, or maybe third read, I realized we were just to glue on the little dots. Ha! Did I feel silly!

I cut 8.5" x 11" orange cardstock into 6" x 11". This resulted in lots of 2.5" x 11" strips. I made one into a scaredy cat bookmark, and sent the others home with the Sm'Arties for homework fun.

My future's so bright, I gotta wear shades...

2010-10-27T17:23:00.000-07:00

Inspiration for this lesson comes from these 2 posts at Fine Lines, here and here.

Tints! Shades! Mixing paint! Monochromatic still life painting! I loved the simplicity of Ms. Christie's lesson, and wanted the Sm'Arties to get in on it.

But first, a little homework from last time:

Their homework was to use one of Catherine Horvath's pictures as inspiration for another piece of artwork. Aren't these pretty?

Now, on to tints and shades! We defined "tint" and "shade" and painted color strips using only one color of tempura, plus black and white.

Then we defined "monochromatic," and using only our single colors plus black and white, painted a still life of our water cups. I painted along so I could demonstrate how simply I was putting down the paint, how streaky the color could be, finding the light source and putting in a shadow.

Love how she interpreted the "shadow" as lighter than the table. It looks more like a reflection, doesn't it?

The boys pointed out that not only was her picture monochromatic; she and her picture were monochromatic, except for that punch of her green bracelet.

One more note from our previous time. I made a cell model for Science Geeks, too! I based my design on a Find It game. (Crispy introduced this game to us - it is addictive! One of those may make it to our house this Christmas - don't tell!) Mine was made in an empty mayo jar, and contained organelles you had to search for, turning to move aside the cytoplasm (cut up drinking straws). Let's see: I can see the green nucleus and the yellow lysosome, and orange endoplasmic reticulum. The gold lightbulb and the stamp...cannot recall what they are, and am not going to pull out Earthgirl's folder to find out. Mama's perogative.

Fall colors in Perspective

2010-10-16T17:27:00.000-07:00

Perspective - again! I think these lessons on perspective will yield art projects that the Sm'Arties will be happy to claim.

Our Sm'Arties lesson this week is inspired by these very pretty acrylics by Catherine Hogarth, a contemporary artist who lives in Canada. I love her use of perspective and her vibrant colors. I first saw her works on the MoxieFabWorld blog, in a Tuesday Trigger paper craft challenge. When I saw that first picture, I gasped mentally - so pretty! I would love to have one of her pictures hanging above my fireplace - oh, wait, I don't have a fireplace.

Sm'Arties remember what "contemporary" means- at least 2 of them do. We learned about contemporary artists when we did a project inspired by the art of Bernard Hoyes last spring. I showed the Sm'Arties copies of Ms. Horvath's pictures printed from her website with her permission - Thank you!

The Sm'Arties each chose a picture to copy and went right to work with pencils first. I had a mix of simpler and more complex pictures. The Sm'Arties surprised me by ALL picking the complex pictures, assuring that art class would go over time. Good thing Art is the last class of the day. The pumpkins picture was the favorite.

No shading! We'll do shading with our
watercolor pencils!

I have several brown pens I use for scrapbooking and in my Ephesian journal. I love brown pens - instant vintage. The Sm'Arties used them to outline over their pencil lines.

Time to shade in with watercolor pencils. We used LOTS of red, orange, gold, pink, and brown, often mixed together. I encouraged them to color hard, but allowed them to go lightly if they preferred.

The last step is to wash the colors with a wet paintbrush, which makes the colors pop and allows more blending. Wetting these colors always makes an impact.

This lesson so nicely reinforces the perspective drawing we have been learning. For homework, they all took a picture or two home to do using whatever coloring media they choose. I am looking forward to seeing the results!

Getting Perspective

2010-09-30T07:50:00.000-07:00

This week's Sm'Arties class is inspired by this little handout from Practical Pages (Now THERE'S an on-the-ball homeschool Mum! I love knowing that many many miles away (or kilometers?) another homeschool family is reaching out to share the wealth of their knowledge and resources. Thank you, Nadine!).

Now that we have our pencils sharpened, this week we did a few quick drawings to demonstrate perspective. As I was drawing along, I encouraged the children to do "kindergarten-style trees" - quick, quick!

Their homework is to bring back 7 little drawings on a sheet of 11"x17" paper, showing these seven laws of perspective. I hope they all "see" foreshortening better than I do :) I expect this little lesson to yield fruit in the way of better drawings and paintings all year long. I wish I had learned this when I was a child.

I took one single picture, and then my camera's battery quit. Here's the picture:

This Sm'Artie's line of trees show both principles that things nearer are drawn larger and further down on the page.

Pencil in a new schoolyear

2010-09-27T19:13:00.000-07:00

I have so many plans and inspirations for this Sm'Artie year - many more than we can do!

Who wouldn't be excited to see these Sm'arties ready for art?

I want to enjoy making and exchanging Artist's Trading Cards (ATCs). I want us to paint on rocks. I want us to learn to draw a little better. I want to introduce the Sm'Arties to real oil paint from little tubes that stays wet for days. I want us to carve rubber stamps. And I want us to learn about art, artists, styles, movements.

I'm editing pictures so we can have a fresh blog header, and having fun with Picnik.com. I just love our last year's picture, but it's a new year! By the end of the week, I want a 2010-2011 picture smiling from the header.

Kathy at Art Projects for Kids starts her students with fresh pencils, and I thought we would, too! I bought a box of Ticonderoga pencils, gathered my Sharpies from their migratory summer homes, and let the Sm'Arties have at it. Did I tell you that I just love Sharpies? So do the Sm'Arties.

I offered little strips of yellow cardstock if they wanted to work out a design. (I don't like that cardstock anyway - I was glad to chop it into strips) There were tiger stripes, polka dots, some kind of marbly-looking design, just plain stripes - lots of fun; no wrong answers.

Once pencils were all decorated, they drew a still life - a little stone bird in a tall skinny cage - just a little something decorative Peg has sitting in the corner of her dining room.

It's kind of hard to take a picture of a group drawing a still life, and include the still life in the photo. What you get is mostly the space between:

During Science Geeks class, the group was divided into teams - girls vs. boys. Since our group is more heavily weighted toward masculine, JD was on the girls' team. He returned to character several times in the course of the afternoon. He is quite the ham.

It's great to be back!

While we are waiting for Sm'Arties to start again...

2010-09-13T04:32:00.000-07:00

...this has got to be the easiest birthday party craft ever!

Hairbrushes from Dollar Tree, stick-on "jewels" from the fabric crafts section of Michael's.

The results are sparkly-spectacular!

My definition of a successful birthday sleepover:

Nobody cried.

Nobody threw up.

Last Tie Dye of the Summer

2010-08-12T06:24:00.000-07:00

This has turned out to be the Summer of Tie-Dye. I've tie-dyed with Sm'Arties, family friends, Gymnastics Camp, and now one last Gymnastics Camp.

It was hot out there. Again. I wound up with wrinkled blue fingers. Again. But the children LOVED it! And so do I.

Right after our last Gym camp, when my fingers were still cramping from wringing T-shirts, Earthgirl had a friend over, and she arrived wearing a tie-dyed BANDANA made at another camp. Bandanas! Easy rinsing and wringing, and space-saving! I determined immediately that my next group tie-dye would feature bandanas. This worked out doubly well, since some of the children from Session 1 returned for Session 2. Hobby Lobby has nice, big bandanas for $1. If you have a 40%-off coupon, your first bandana costs only $.60. Woo woo!

We tie-dyed with 49 children. Wowee, if we had used all T-shirts, I'd still be rinsing and wringing now!

Tulip's Turquoise was our favorite color. Almost all the bandanas were dyed blue.

Lesson learned from my first experience using bandanas: Since they are not as squashy as T-shirts, they should be tied up really tight, or the dye seeps in and none of the lines will be really sharp and white. The ones in the picture above appear to be solid blue, but they all turned out well.

Bandanas would also be great used with the spray "tie-dye." We used this to "tie-dye" T-shirts at Earthgirls 7th birthday party, the 70s party, and it is easy.

The teens did T-shirts again. While the younger groups get only 1 dunk (it's all we can do to get the whole group finished as it is), the teens have free rein to get creative and dye all afternoon if they want to. Of course, they do their own rinsing and wringing. (Rinse and wring, rinse and wring - doesn't that phrase just sing in your head?) The teens did some purty shirts.

So now the question arises: Should I tie-dye bandanas with the Sm'Arties? Maybe in November!

Quick! Take a picture before it rains!

2010-07-23T07:16:00.000-07:00

Practice - practice - practice - practice

Earthgirl decided she wanted to draw better eyes back when she was maybe 5 years old. She drew eyes and drew eyes and drew...eyes. She studied eyes in other drawings, copied eyes from others' artwork, looked at little nuances. Last year, she sat me down to teach me to draw an eye, and we just drew ONE HUGE EYE on the page. It was the best eye I ever drew. I did not keep practicing, though, and now I'd have to start over learning to draw that eye. But my little Sm"artie can grab the sidewalk chalk and do this:

Practice makes perfect.

Encouraging Young Artists

2010-07-02T14:00:00.000-07:00

This post from Nadine over at Practical Pages is so good I feel compelled to feature it.

Crafts at Gymnastics Camp - Day 3 - Recycled Jar Lanterns

2010-06-22T17:33:00.000-07:00

These beautiful recycled glass lanterns came from an idea posted at Gingerbread snowflake.

We gathered pickle, spaghetti sauce, salsa, jelly, and other jars.

I wrapped the wire hangers ahead of time. Each hanger is strung with 2 or 3 beads.

The children painted just the sides with a mix of Mod Podge and food coloring. I mixed up only blue, green, and bluegreen. After painting, they dabbed with their brushes to give some texture. (Note: at home I painted the whole outside of the jar twice, and wired the hangers after they were completely dry)

Love the tongue-stickin' out concentration

They are cloudy while wet.

Then they dry to a clear, shiny color.

These are mostly dry.

One older girl carefully dabbed on polka dots - I like it!

Crafts at Gymnastics Camp - Day 2 - Tie Dye

2010-06-21T17:59:00.000-07:00

How have I become the Tie Dye Queen? I did not set out to be the one who always has wrinkled purple fingers ...

Day 2 each child brought in a white shirt, and we tie-dyed. We used rubber bands and marbles, tied straight horizontal lines, sunbursts, and circles. (Note for the future: Some of the under-6 crowd have no idea how to stretch a rubber band around something. Now I remember - my daughter could not do ponytails herself until she was about 7 years old. If not for the 3 teenage helpers with this group, we would have taken all day.)

The dying table. When I tie-dyed with 7 children, we did some multi-color shirts. With almost 30, we dunked each shirt in 1 color only. I've used Rit, Dylon, and Tulip fabric dyes. I think we like Tulip best. The colors are bright and seem to fade less. Their Turquoise was a favorite.

It was also water day. That's good planning.

This is the shirt that nearly ran us out of marbles. We had to rinse, wring, and undo several shirts so that Groups 3 and 4 could put their shirts together. (See my red face? We had some record June temps last week. It was hot, hot hot! )

We put the shirts under the solar clothes dryer.

I have tie-dyed twice this year with smaller groups. It is a lot of work to do this with big groups. The rinsing and wringing seem unending! My fingers are still cramping. I think, "No way! Not again!" And then parents start telling me how this was their child's favorite craft, and I know I'll do it again.

Crafts at Gymnastics Camp - Day 1 - Refrigerator Magnets

2010-06-19T17:29:00.000-07:00

Last week I "did crafts" 3 days at Gymnastics Camp. Almost 30 girls and boys, age 4-17 ran, played, jumped, danced, flipped, and did a few crafts.

It's fun to create refrigerator magnets made with flat-back glass marbles (I bought these at JoAnn's floral section), scrapbook paper, Mod Podge, and magnets.

I've seen these several places, including E-How and DailyDwelling.

They are so simple and quick, and the designs are only limited to what you can find on a piece of paper. I cut some designs from my scrapbook stash, and printed out a few stylized gymnastics clip art pictures.

The children chose paper squares, brushed the backs of the glass marbles with Mod Podge, and smushed the marbles onto the face of the paper. When you first paint on the Mod Podge, it appears cloudy, but soon it dries crystal clear.

While the initial coat dried, the children ran off to play one game of 4-Square. Then back they came to trim edges and "glue" on magnets using Mod Podge as the glue. All done! Pick them up on your way home!

A few hints and observations:

- Since we were marking these on the back before they were totally dry, we had some bleed-through of Sharpie pen on some magnets

- Buy the heavy-duty magnets - they are so much stronger. KEEP THE MAGNETS SEPARATED DURING THE DRYING PHASE! These magnets are strong enough to pull together, and you come back to find a magnet has slid right off one marble onto its neighbor.

- 5-year-olds need a lot of help trimming

- When I did this at home, I took the time to seal the back with Mod Podge also, but didn't while working in 30-minute classes.

More Gymnastics Camp crafts soon!

Summer Art, and Have You Seen Lydia?

2010-06-12T11:13:00.000-07:00

Sm'Arties are taking summer break, but arts and crafts are still happening around here, and I plan to post a few projects over the summer just for fun.

When Earthgirl gets together with friends, they often draw and paint. But we also sometimes do art projects similar to the ones we do in Sm'Arties class.

One of her 8 bffs was over yesterday. The girls got on Art Projects for Kids, and picked out this project to do.

The had fun tracing and Sharpie-ing. (Don't you think "Sharpie-ing" should be a word?)

You can see in the pictures that the girls have decorated their arms and faces. You cannot see the vines and flwers running down their legs, but believe me, they were there. We use watercolor pencils for drawing on skin. I used to have some facepaint sticks, but what a mess! Now we just dampen the tip of a watercolor pencil and start drawing. Of course, this is very temporary paint, but that's a good thing!

When Earthgirl turned 7, we held a "Fairy Party." A friend and I decorated 12 little fairy faces. If only we had known about watercolor pencils then.

Can you believe this is the same little friend? They are all growing up so fast!

The girls wanted to paint my arm, too. I had no objection. I sat in a rocking chair with my book and let them at it! My arm had an eye, two hearts, some Dalmation spots, and a flower. When they were done, I took a look at myself and realized that I didn't look like I had facepaint decor on my arm - I looked like I was tatooed!

Summer Break for the Sm'Arties

2010-05-14T19:25:00.000-07:00

School's out!

Real Tie Dye

2010-05-10T07:15:00.000-07:00

Before - plain white T-shirt...

During: Rubberband "ties" to make a pattern...

"I regret that I have but one life to give for my homeschool mini-co-op."

During: First bunny ears of the day...

During: Woo...careful with the red stuff...

After: Ta-Da!!!!

OK, here are pictures of everybody else:

Our 2 girls brought tank tops. One is tied for horizontal stripes; the other has marbles tied up to make white circles in the finished product.

We think this one looked like a mermaid. It swam around a bit.

Some get dunked all the way; others are clothespinned to the side so only the sunbursts get color.

"Rinse, wring, repeat."

- song of the rinse squad.

That Science Geek wields a mean sprayer.

Waiting for the big reveal.

Ta da!!!!!

More bunny ears, and a side sunburst.

Best "I remember the 70's" shirt.

Takes a while to get all those rubber bands out.

Almost all our shirts are 2-color. This summer when I do tie dye with Gymnastics camp, all shirts will be one color only - takes too much time and work to do 2-color with a bigger group.

Double bunny ears!

Tie dye - it's not just for T-shirts. This was a very light denim skirt. Now it is turquoise and green.

After being wrung out twenty 'leven times, will it ever be short enough again?

Is there no escape from bunny ears?

Birthday Boy

Finally free from bunny ears!

I can't resist - Here is Keisuzi teaching her last IEW class of the school year.

I think we're all relaxing a little.

Being the birthday boy does not exempt one from bunny ears.

Mini-Co-op Justice League!

One More on Impressionism

2010-05-04T17:18:00.000-07:00

It has been a whirlwind tour of just a few works from a few impressionists. Last week we looked through a magnifying glass at Georges Seurat paintings. He and others painted using a style labeled as pointellism, applying tiny dots of pure color to their canvases.

We created our own pointellism-inspired works on 4" x 6" index cards. Believe me, all those tiny dots take a while. I read that Seurat took 3 years to complete his famous A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.

Our projects were much less ambitious. We "painted" an apple using markers. We made sure the apple included some yellow, green, and purple to show variation in color as well as highlights and shadows. Like many great masterpieces, they look best at a distance.

I forgot my camera, so took no pictures as we worked. Here is a quick look at my original apple picture, along with Earthgirl's in-class version, which turned out better than my in-class version. In her backgound, she used Crayola's True-to-Life markers, which gave her a punch of 3 shades at once.

If you stand across the room, you will see what I mean about the pictures looking best at a distance.

More Impressionism

2010-04-27T06:07:00.000-07:00

Last week, which was the "next week" of my previous post, we surveyed a few more Impressionist artists. (In keeping with my own personal blog rules, I do not apologize for not getting the actual post out last week.)

We took a quick look at work by Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassat, Edgar Degas, Paul Gaugin and Vincent Van Gogh. I continue to be surprised at how closely many of these artists worked together. The often shared studio space and models (as Gaugin and Van Gogh, who sometimes had a hard time getting along as roommates in Van Gogh's yellow house), set up easels next to each other to paint the same scenes en plein air, and painted each other's portraits (take a look here, here, here, here, here, here and here). Hmmmm...can you tell that I am fascinated by the fact that they painted each others' portraits?

We created our own Starry Nights. Here is my whiteboard sketch to help the children with shapes and placements.

I have spent all year trying to get the children to use long smooth strokes when drawing and painting. Now I am trying to get them to use choppy little strokes and no blending. We used oil pastels on regular paper for this project.

Finishing: I did a quick watercolor wash to darken the pictures a bit. I did the wash for them since we were using regular paper, and the watercolor bleeds through so quickly.

Still to come: Pointellism!

Impressionism

2010-04-14T09:53:00.000-07:00

I love Homeschool Freebie of the Day. They have given us enough free downloadable resources, links, videos, radio shows, etc, etc, etc., to crash my computer. A few weeks ago, their free resource of the day was a link introducing me to Practical Pages by offering Nadine's Famous Impressionists Artists Pages. She is one prolifically creative and generous homeschool mom. I'll be exploring her 'back issues' for awhile. Earthgirl is coloring her paper dolls from Ancient Rome today.

The Impressionists resource looked pretty good to me, so I suggested to my fellow mini-co-op moms, "I'm thinking about doing Impressionists in April," to which they replied, "Oooo...Impressionists." (Aside to the mini-co-op moms: Shall we never invent a better name than "Mini-co-op"? I got nuthin'.)

We will be hitting the Impressionists for 3 weeks, building lapbooks using PP's minibooks, and doing a little impressionism of our own. Yesterday I introduced the history of the Impressionists as a bold modern group of painters frustrated by the judgments of the Salon in Paris. The children learned about painting en plein air (outdoors in whatever light was available), and how radical the concept was of painting contemporary subjects rather than models dressed up in Greek and Roman garb. I showed them pictures in library books, focusing on Monet, Sisely, and Cezanne.

[I learned that none of the Mini-co-op moms know French to help me with pronunciation. Most of what I know of pronunciation of French words comes from "The Aristocats," "Veggie Tales," and "Madeline." Mas oui! Naturalment!]

We painted our own version of Monet's Impression: Sunrise, the painting that gave name to the movement. The term, "Impressionism," borrowed from the painting title, was meant as a slur by the newspaper that covered their first art show.

Though these photos show what looks like a controlled, quiet class, I always feel like we are wild and crazy when we are painting. I always end up wearing more paint than the children. And this is just 7 children - how do art teachers with a whole classroom keep up with all those students? I'm surprised to see the picture below looks pretty normal. In reality it was a puddle of paint! Ack!

I love the way I can give exactly the same instructions to the all seven children, yet the pictures all differ.

Pretty impressionistic for a second grader, don't you think? Next week, more impressionism!

Generous Artists and Art Teachers

2010-04-10T04:00:00.000-07:00

Anyone who takes even a quick look at this chronicle of our Homeschool art adventures will realize that I am a big fan of the generous artists and art teachers who share their work, their techniques, their lesson plans, and their students' work on websites. It would be so much more difficult to do what I do without accessing their creativity.

Sure, I can find books at the library, but this morning during a bout of insomnia, 3:30 a.m. found me gathering information online for our next few lessons. My library, wonderful though it is, was not open at 3:30, they don't allow me to sit inside with my mug of coffee, and I probably would hesitate to venture there in my pajamas.

On my sidebar, I have a few of those sites listed. I could add many more - I have some maybe a dozen more listed in my favorites under "HOMESCHOOL:Art." But I don't want the sidebar to go on and on, flowing all the way down off the screen and onto the floor.

This morning I am adding a new site to my sidebar. Kids Artists is new to me. This art teacher blogs in 2 languages. I am enjoying these lessons from the Netherlands. Go check it out!

Can These Crayons Be Saved?

2010-03-24T07:38:00.000-07:00

All those broken crayons...We can remake them! Peel off the paper...

Break the crayons further, arrange them just so....

I found this gear-shape silicone candy/cupcake pan on clearance. I'll reserve it for non-edible projects.

335 degrees, 5-8 minutes. Are they all melty? Let them cool for quite awhile.

While they are cooling....April Fool's glasses!!!

Time to check the crayons!

Crayon gears! (OK, it is probably supposed to be flowers, but we have a bunch a Sm'Art boys, and they may not get into flower crayons. Marketing is important.)

Bonus: you can angle the crayon gear to do 2 lines at once.

Lots of others have melted crayons before me. Here are a few who've talked about it: Crispy, cool layered crayons, Scribble cookies.

Chameleons ARE Cool!

2010-03-16T09:38:00.000-07:00

Inspiration for this lesson comes from Deep Space Nine's Chameleon lesson.

We started Sm'Arties lesson this week in a reading circle. Chameleons are Cool, by Martin Jenkins, has colorful, happy illustrations by Sue Shields. I read this to the Sm'Arties, pointing out the pictures. Lest they think the colors in the pictures were exaggerated, I showed them Chameleon, Chameleon, by Joy Cowley with photographs by Nic Bishop.

We drew the chameleons in pencil first. I gave the children templates of the chameleon body to help with the step of sizing him big enough on the page, and to give us equal starting points. Then we added the head features, including the characteristic down-turned mouth, the curling tail, feet, and ridges. Limbs to hang onto completed our pictures, which, in spite of starting the same, were unique.

We left the moms inside tracing our pictures with Sharpies (this also speeds things up). Outside in the beautiful central Florida sunshine, we painted on little squares of paper to demonstrate wet-on-wet, wet-on-dry, salt sprinkle, and alcohol spray techniques. Then we tried to catch papers as they blew away.

It was time to paint chameleons. On the advice of the wonderful art teachers who post such beautiful lessons, I bought some watercolor tubes - I love them! This is much easier than trying to liquefy the cakes of watercolor.

Another windy gust! Catch everything!

We used wet-on-wet technique for the stripes, and wet-on-dry for the little stripes on the eyes. The children got to order the special effects: "I'll have alcohol spray and red paint splatters," or, ""I want alcohol sprinkle and salt sprinkle."

I took Ms. Patty's advice advice to keep the background simple, and just had the children add smeary backgrounds.

Here are some really cool chameleons.

Hoyes- inspired Windows

2010-03-09T15:35:00.000-08:00

Art Projects for Kids inspired me again, with this colorful lesson based on Bernard Hoyes' art.

A couple of weeks of practical skills lessons have been fun, but we were ready to get back to our art supplies.

Introducing the children to the work of various artists has been great fun. We have been delighted when we encounter work of some of these artists elsewhere. Just one week after our lesson imitated the work of Piet Mondrian, KEISUZI and sons were AMAZED when the Jeopardy question was, "Who is Piet Mondrian?" and just a week or two after we imitated Kadinsky, Science Geek and sons spied a Kadinsky print in Target. ( I understand the boys spied it, and yelped, "Kadinsky! Kadinsky!") I love homeschooling...

This week we "met" Bernard Hoyes. I passed around sample print-outs of Mr. Hoyes' work, and we defined "contemporary," since he is a contemporary artist. (I think it took a bit of sinking-in for some of the Sm'Arties to realize that Mr. Hoyes is alive today, and probably painting somewhere.) I love his bright colors and flowy lines.

Though we were doing the APFK lesson, I wanted to provide space for both a man and a woman in our project. (This turned out to be providential, as the IEW lesson for today used "The Princess and the Pea," and our boys were already feeling a bit put-upon.) We have not used our big paper for awhile, so out it came. {My stash of 11"x17" paper came from a store closing. I snagged 2 reams of paper from their office for $3. At my house, you can always ask, "Can I have a piece of paper?" I am a paper stasher. I ALWAYS have LOTS of paper.}

I drew the windows ahead of time just to speed up the process. As it was, all was completed in about 70 minutes.

It really is hard for them to draw with hands, head, and lower dress/pants touching the edges of the windows. Once the figures were penciled in, we all traced over them with Sharpies. I though we'd need Moms' help with the Sharpies, but no! Sm'Arties love to use K-Sue's Sharpies! A few bricks added to the walls suggests a whole brick building. Nice trick, huh?

Lots of oil pastels, crayons, and my one set of Crayola Slick Stix came out. Guess what they ALL wanted to use? The Slick Stix! We love the silky slide, the bold colors. ( Don't tell anyone, but I plan to use my Michael's weekly coupons whenever I can to build up a stash of Slick Stix for birthday gifts. With each gift come a warning: These are not washable! Be careful!)

Their homework is to draw 2 or more drawings in their Sm'Arties homework books (also created from my big paper), with the big figures touching at least 2 sides of the paper. I can hardly wait to see what they create.

Buttoned Up

2010-03-08T18:58:00.000-08:00

Last week Science Geek had our children out doing cool science, measuring windspeed and direction. These 2 pictures have nothing to do with art, but I thought our girls were cute.

During Sm'Arties, we went more in the crafts-and-skills direction. We learned a very valuable lesson - how to thread a needle. We threaded big plastic yarn needles first.

Having mastered the art of threading a needle, we threaded up a steel needle so we could sew a big button on a piece of flannel. I bought large-eye needles for the children, but I think they will be useful for me as I progress into presbyopia.

Whoops! Speaking of presbyopia, there are my really strong reading glasses, the ones I use threading a needle.

Good job!

Then I told a little story about one of our boys growing up to become a very cool best man at a wedding. The groom comes to him distraught because a button has fallen of his shirt. The very cool best man says, "Give me the shirt, give me the button; I'll take care of it." In one version, the very cool best man said, "Dude...give me the shirt, give me the button."

Coincidentally, it just so happened that 7 buttons had fallen off my husband's shirts, just that morning. Amazing isn't it? And just a week after he sent me down the well? Sm'Arties to the rescue!

I am pleased to report that my husband can, once more, button his cuffs. And all the Sm'Arties can sew on a button.

A Man's Touch

2010-02-18T11:26:00.000-08:00

This Monday was President's Day, and the Sm'Arties had a guest art teacher. This guest teacher, with his background in Scouting and Tree Surgery, was the perfect one to teach the Sm'Arties how to tie a few knots. He's trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent - He's my husband!

He taught the Sm'Arties to tie six Boy Scout knots. Each person had a section of rope.

We tied square knots, double half-hitches, bow lines, sheet bends, clove hitches, and taut-line hitches.

He's got style

And then I fell into the well. (It's a pretty shallow well.) I shouted, "Help! I need some Sm'Arties to come save me!!!"

Sm'Arties to the resuce! They tied a rope to the swing set, but it didn't reach.

So they attached the ropes end to end.

I am saved! Hurray for the Sm'Arties!

Fabric Art Homework

2010-02-16T04:35:00.000-08:00

I love what the children did with our orange paper-reptile-fabric assignment!

Camo makes a great addition to the little fabric stash I gave them.

Look at the layering!

Good job, Sm'Arties!

Lizards are Still Leapin'

2010-02-11T12:17:00.000-08:00

I've looked forward to working with fabric with our Sm'Arties. This week we did it! I printed out some lizard clipart so we could cut out 2 fabric lizards. Peg and I cut out all the brownish lizards - that fabric was slippery, and cutting around the little wiggly reptiles just takes time.

I showed the children my finished piece, and encouraged them to feel of the texture. Since one fabric had a suede-y nap, the piece is fairly textural. The green lizard got his little beady eyes rubbed off.

Then I gave each child a rectangle of fabric and talked about how working with fabric differs from working with paper. We tried pulling the fabric north-south, then east-west, then diagonally. They could feel how this non-stretchy fabric still stretches on the bias (diagonal). When you lay it on paper and move it around, it can stretch and become distorted. We also talked about how wet glue will seep right through the fabric more than it does on the paper we usually use, and I looked daggers at them. As a result, we had to push them to use more glue :)

I showed the children how to pin the their patterns onto the fabric, a little manual skill I thought might come in handy someday. Then they cut out the green lizards, with lots of help from moms due to the lack of really good-cutting scissors (result of sending an email out at 10:00 Sunday night for a Monday morning class.)

Then we arranged the little lizards on orange cardstock, one head facing up and one head facing down, and glued them down using regular gel glue and paintbrushes. They were cute just like that, but we were not finished.

Each lizard got a little stripe of another fabric to glue down his backbone, and 2 little gold beads for eyes. The beads were on a bead strand, and each child got a 2-bead piece, which we did not cut apart - they were already spaced just fine for this project. (Note - I did not want to use googly eyes. I think the little beads looked more artsy).

We scribbled around the lizards so they would stand out from the picture. The students had a hard time just scribbling - they wanted to outline neatly! I introduced the children to Crayola Slick Sticks. The Sm'Arties loved them as much as I do. They feel like something between a soft oil pastel and a marker, and color beautifully. (I saw one review of these that compared them to lipstick in texture and coloring. I agree. Then the reviewer said how much she disliked them and gave them only 2 stars, saying that her 2-year-old loved them but she - Mom - hated them. A 2-year-old? Come on! The Sm'Arties, 2nd-5th graders, give them a big thumbs-up.)

We also added a few hightlights to the lizard bodies, and drew a border. All the borders were a little different.

The 12-pack of Slick sticks includes white, gold, and silver crayons. They really make nice highlights on fabric.

We love how they turned out!

Each child has a little bag of fabric scraps, including a few beads, and a homework assignment - to bring me back one or more pieces of reptile artwork. Earthgirl is working on hers this afternoon. I can hardly wait to see how they all turn out.

Inspired to Doodle

2010-02-04T18:16:00.000-08:00

During Sm'Arties class time, we often sit on the floor with our 1-cent spiral notebooks (Staples Back-to-School sale), and do some directed-type drawing. It's fun to see how the different children approach my little directions. I love this floor time. One scribbles away happily, says, "I'm done," and shows me a boisterous, messy drawing. One ignores my instruction, in his own drawing world, then turns around and shows me some variation on my idea. One gets very concerned if his drawing does not EXACTLY match mine. (He has lightened up considerably over the last few weeks, and hasn't erased a hole in his paper since before Christmas)

I want the children to know they can take a few directions and play with their pens and pencils. I want them to enjoy PRACTICING their drawing skills. I'm practicing, too.

This week we did a fun little doodling game. Sitting in a circle, we each started an animal doodle (I think I said, "Draw some eyes"), and then, after a minute or two, I had them pass their notebook to the left and continue drawing. It was a barrel of fun, at least at the start. Now I know what rules we'll use if (probably when) we do this again. Rules like, "no just scribbling on the page," and "no writing 'girls rule'") so that we can all enjoy the whole process.

Take a look at these doodles. I like the happy music, too.

Art? Science? YES!

2010-01-27T06:10:00.000-08:00

Last week, Science Geek taught our children about Classification, focusing on the Animal Kingdom. This week, we made lapbooks , taking up Science and Art time. Ooooo...I love cutting up little pieces of colorful paper...

This is our first experience lapbooking as a group, and we are more-or-less novices at it, so we used mostly pre-made printables. Most of our minibooks came from this free Animal Classification lapbook. Here are a few more lapbooking resources, also here, and shapebooks. Since I had helped with prepping, I was also involved with explaining the how-to's.

Doing art and science together threw some of the boys off-kilter. I heard a Science Geek Son asking, "Mom, why is she talking? This is Science."
Then another boy answered him, "No, it's not. It's Art."
"No, it's Science."
"No, it's Science and Art."
"You can't have Science and Art."
"Yes, you can."
"No, you can't."

It took all 4 Moms to get across the idea that we were doing Science and Art at the same time. I think maybe next week I will bring some samples of medical illustration to show how you can do Science and Art at the same time. Or maybe, for those Star Wars fans (i.e., all the boys), I should just launch into a history lesson on Industrial Light and Magic. Wait - is that doing Art and History together?

Leapin' Lizards!!!...

2010-01-20T12:23:00.000-08:00

...the Sm'Arties are back!...

...and they are drawing and coloring Reptiles!!

Let's warm up by drawing a snake.

Now for something harder:

Can we draw like Mark Kistler?

I think so!

Lunging Lizard!

Get out your black construction paper, your pencils and oil pastels,

...decide what part of the snake is on top...

...use lots of bright colors...

...and patterns of circles, dots, and lines...

This project inspired by Art Projects for Kids' Aboriginal Snake.

Earthgirl's Almost Annual Homeschool Girls Christmas Craft Party

2009-12-20T10:21:00.000-08:00

Note: This is not a Sm'Arties class post, but another arts and crafts endeavor.

A visit from possibly the most laid-back poodle ever.

Mitten ornament-painted wood, with cloth "patch" (we love Mod Podge), Sharpie "stitches"

Reindeer ornament, waiting for the backs to dry. We finished them with red and gold, glitter spray, and sealer. (The summer I was 15, Mama and I took a decorative/Tole painting class. The instructor advised us to make the backs of projects "finished," too. It really makes a difference, especially on ornaments, which are liable to spin around with their backside showing.)

Making lunch - pigs in blankets

Painting plaster ornaments (sprayed with glitter, sealer).

Yarn angels

Christmas Freeze Dance

-dancing to Celtic Women-

General silliness and fun

Here's What's Cookin'!

2009-12-09T05:16:00.000-08:00

Mini-Co-op Christmas Party!

We had a short IEW lesson. I continue to be impressed with the IEW curriculum, and with Keisuzi's gentle teaching style. (If we finish our 3 paragraphs this week, Earthgirl and I will be done with IEW until January.)

Science Geek and the children did a yeast experiment. She said it would make a good Science Fair demonstration. Hmmm-we might just do that.

Then it was time for Culinary Art, and some hands-on yeast fun!

We made pizza dough using my favorite Easiest Ever Pizza Dough. I have put this dough together using every combination of whole wheat, half-whole wheat (I cannot figure out how to say that quickly, half whole-wheat and half regular, that is to say not whole-wheat), 7-grain, toss in oatmeal, all-white, bread flour - whatever I throw at it always seems to work. It makes up a fluffy, thick crust. I usually add a teaspoon or 2 of vital wheat gluten, otherwise, I just go with it. It's great just made up as cheesy bread, with extra garlic and Italian seasoning added in or sprinkled on top.

I have made pizza with 2 or 3 children at a time, but this was 7 children, and a lot of flour, so we worked in batches of 3-4 children at a time. Of course, when I dipped out a little pile of flour for each, they immediately started playing in it, drawing pictures. But no flour fights broke out. Yay! Every child got to either measure or stir. Then they had 30 minutes to watch a movie or play while the dough rose. We taped the Pixar Shorts when they were broadcast on ABC Family a few days ago - perfect! Whatever show is on, it will be over in just a minute, so we can call the children back when we need them.

I cut off a little section for each to knead. They loved kneading the dough. I had to stop them - "Yours is OK. You're done. No more kneading. I SAID NO MORE KNEADING."

Next they rolled out their own pizzas. Rolling takes more finesse than I had known before. Maybe that explains why I don't do well at cookie cutter cookies. No finesse.

I just realized that in all these pictures nobody is smiling. We were serious about our food! In spite of appearances, we laughed often.

(Back when I was single, about 27 years ago, I picked up that brown Rubbermaid mixing bowl at K-Mart so I could make brownies. It is still my go-to bowl. Pretty good investment, huh?)

I mixed up a batch of white pizza for our moms' pie (doesn't it sound Chicago-ish when I call it a pie? "Dear, whatdya want on your pie?") I use this recipe - thanks Crispy! Of course, I don't measure; I just toss it together, and having no fresh basil and not wanting to bother with fresh garlic, I sprinkled in Italian seasoning, and garlic salt. A couple of children who prefer cheese to sauce got a white pizza, too. Earthgirl's was white, lots of cheese, with one single pepperoni.

Not having 7 little pizza pans, I lined up the little pies on 2 big baking sheets and one cookie sheet. This, of course, meant baking in 2 batches, too. We moms got a round pizza.

One might think that cookie-decorating would be Art, but Monday, cookie-decorating was P.E.!

Peg premade the cookies, mixed up some confectionary sugar icing, and let the children loose with the sprinkles! (I'm still sweeping up sprinkles. Of course, part of that is a result of Daddy dropping a sprinkle-laden cookie upside down.)

Finger-lickin' good!

We will be on break for a few weeks, but I look forward to occasional posts when something is too good not to share.

An artsy giveaway

2009-11-23T07:46:00.000-08:00

A new website to me, Katydid and Kid, is having a cool art products giveaway from a Stubby Pencil Studio, a company that is also new to me. Come join me and maybe one of us will win! I'd love to put these goodies in my Sm'Arties bag.

Stencils and Leaves

2009-11-17T11:35:00.000-08:00

I was inspired by this project from Artsonia. I liked how the project was on a skinny piece of paper. (Note to self: Later we must use even skinnier paper, landscape direction to make comics.) The Artsonia students sponge-painted in the stencils with tempura, but after two weeks of sending out ART SHIRT ALERTS, I just wanted to get back to using oil pastels or colored pencils or something.

Sketch a half-leaf on folded cardstock, and cut it out and unfold to reveal a stencil. The idea of cutting a hole in the paper was hard to grasp, and I did not anticipate what would happen. Though I showed them exactly what I was doing and how the stencil looked when complete, several students added a stem that reached to the bottom of the little piece of paper, resulting in a re-do or a tape fix. No, no, DRAW the stem in later - the stencil needs no stem.

Figure out how the leaves will "fall" down the page. (We did this project on posterboard. I recommend using some other paper for this type project.) Then we colored them in LIGHTLY PLEASE with fall colors. I found that if you color with the yellow last, and kind of harder over the top of the other colors, it blends all the colors nicely. If you color hard to begin with using the other colors, then coloring with the yellow pulls the other colors off the page, resulting in frustrated young artists.

Now go back and outline and vein with black Add a drop shadow. (I forgot to tell the Sm'Arties to use a drop shadow. Maybe the moms will see this post and show their Sm'arties) Accent the leaves with white. Wow! Doesn't that look cool? Earthgirl went back and added the drop shadow under each leaf so I could take before and after pictures.

Before adding drop shadow

After adding drop shadow

Now add swirls to represent the wind - black, white accents, then a little glitter glue accent, too. Can you really see the wind? No, but you see the effects of the wind. Quote John 3:8. For extra credit, quote it in King James version: " The wind bloweth where it listeth..." ) I forgot this part, too. No extra credit for Miss Sm'Artiepants.

The girls found a tree frog on the window screen.

He wants to be a Sm'Artie, too.

School's out!!!!!

Falling Leaves

2009-11-12T08:19:00.000-08:00

Last weekend the leaves were beautiful in Athens, GA. I brought home red maple, turkey oak, and ginkgo leaves for an autumn art project.

Did you know that "gingko" and "ginkgo" are both considered acceptable English spellings? I didn't either.

Tracing leaves on manila drawing paper (like lightweight construction paper).

The children worked with overlapping some leaves.

After tracing, they would line the leaves and draw veins using my brown scrapbooking pens. It was difficult to draw spidery veins instead of straight lines. Next time I would explain that better.

Coloring with chalk pastels in streaks.It's hard to not color it completely!

Smudging with fingers to blend colors.

All the pictures are bordered, also with smudged chalk pastels.

All done! I spray with fixative so the chalk won't all rub off on the way home.

Ginkgo leaves

Maple leaves

Operation Christmas Child Part 2

2009-11-09T20:05:00.000-08:00

Having completed artistic lids last week, we painted boxes this week - solid colors only! (The lids last week took more effort than I had anticipated, so we went for simple and, well, finished.

Art Shirt Alert!

Color choices limited to red, green, or blue really speeds up the decision-making. Notice the moms in the background actually had time to relax this time! Can't see them?

There they are!

Ready to stuff and send out to children who need them.

Operation Christmas Child

2009-11-04T07:06:00.000-08:00

Our Mini-Co-op (still trying to come up with a cool name that does not make us wonder if we should use 1 dash or 2) - anyway, our Mini-Coop (?) is getting ready for Operation Christmas Child. Our larger Homeschool group's Good Works Club is gathering shoeboxes filled with gifte to be distributed locally, and my church is gathering shoeboxes with toiletries and gifts to distribute through Samaritan's Purse .

Instead of wrapping boxes, we are painting boxes - Kadinsky and Mondrian-style.

Love the use of the abandoned toddler toy.

Painting these boxes was more mom-intensive then I had thought. I sent out an "ART SHIRT ALERT," but didn't think moms would need an art shirt, too. Careful, Peg!

I have a whole stack of Sm'Artie rulers to use in art class - Go ahead! Get Sharpie marker all over them!

I had preprimed with Gesso and painted the boxes white. The children penciled in some boudaries, then went to town with acrylic paint.

This week we just painted the lids. Next week we paint the body of the box a solid color.

Kadinsky-inspired masterpiece.

Fall Festival

2009-11-01T11:57:00.000-08:00

Who is that Movie Star with Earthgirl?

It's a Sm'Artie in disguise!(her couture dress was much more impressive than the photo communitcates.)

Science Geek comes as.....HERSELF! -with Union soldier JD.

Loved the frog. Gotta get me some of those glasses!

What happens when an Indian Maiden surprises a soldier?

They are a couple of hams.

What is he about to say?

Art Show Inspiration

2009-10-27T04:38:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we went to a local Fine Arts Show. Many real live full-time artists exhibited beautiful works. At this show, a large children's area is set up with exhibits from school-age children, hands-on art to do right there, and entertainment. Middle and High School works are judged; Elementary students receive a ribbon as participant.

Earthgirl had a few entries for the art show. No, she didn't do the Mona Lisa - that was done by another talented local homeschooler. Earthgirl did the other 3 works in this picture. See those batik leaves?

I saw some familiar art - I think some of these school art teachers go to some of my sources for ideas, too.

Oooo...We must draw trees like this. I cannot say for sure if this is a talking tree or if the hole in the tree just looks like a mouth. I think it talks.

This cat is way cool. I think the Sm'Arties will draw a cat like this. Maybe we can come up with a dog, too.

I think this giraffe is beautiful and copyable. I did not pay attention to the medium, but looks like oil pastels. The leaves are so bright and happy! See how he is looking down at us while munching his lunch?

Batik

2009-10-23T19:40:00.000-07:00

On a beautiful autumn day, we must go outside for school!

Last year, when Earthgirl and I discovered Art Projects for Kids, the first project we did was Batik Crayon Pumpkins. We also made Batik Leaves, Batik Gourds, and maybe a few more that slip my mind.

So I brought Batik to Sm'Arties. Now the Sm'Arties know what batik is, what a resist is, and that you can dye fabric using natural dyes like tea. (When it falls on your shirt, you call it a stain; when you toss it all over the shirt, it's dye.)

Paper, permanent black markers, crayons, and some sort of paint or dye is all we needed. We drew pumpkins, colored them,

Drawing the pumpkins provides some practice in using perspective.

...then crumpled up our perfectly good drawings - several times!

Crumpling - the boys were surprisingly careful - I had to encourage them to really crumple.

Then we brushed on diluted brown or blue acrylic paint, while 3 moms stood by armed with paper towels to blot up the excess before the drawings turned into soppy messes.

Drying time is short on a breezy day. The chains are holding down drawings, newspaper, and tablecloths.

I gave the children colored paper mats to give their pictures a finished look.

Earthgirl's final product

We are not finished with batik. I have a project in planning stages for November - real batik, with fabric! I can hardly wait.

Homework,

2009-10-19T13:17:00.000-07:00

Kadinsky-inspired homework!

Kadinsky-inspired

2009-10-13T09:50:00.000-07:00

This project brought to you by copycatting real art teacher Kathy over at Art Projects for Kids. Another project using this same artwork as inspiration for the younger set can be found at Deep Space Sparkle.

Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky was an early abstract artist (he could paint realistically, too). Kadinsky was one of the artists targeted by the Nazis for his Degenerate Art. Our project for this class was inspired by this Kadinsky painting. I showed the children how a colorful fabric design used as chair upholstery mimicked this painting.

We used oil pastels on dark construction paper. Each child chose black or brown construction paper, and I directed them to fold the paper in half lengthwise (hotdog fold), and then in thirds, then flatten out the paper. Then they simply filled each rectangle with concentric circles of color with oil pastels. They chose the colors. Some colored randomly; others chose to make warm or cool color circles.

Keisuzi even got involved with her own picture.

Each week I want to teach the children something about the art we are doing - artist, history, technique...something. After our Mondrian-inspired art, Keisuzi and her son were surprised to hear that the question was, "Who was Mondrian?" on an episode of Jeopardy.