Just Journaling- day 2

For the second day of class we....

Made Robert Indiana inspired four letter words

I got the idea for this lesson on @tesswyatt 's Instagram and had to try it! How cute is her's!?

Next up we made ink & water color still life paintings.
This lesson was from the book Kids Art Lab, which has 52 fantastic lesson ideas.

I'm pretty much in love with how these turned out!! So proud!

Summer Classes Begin with: Just Journaling day 1

First class of the summer was called Just Journaling, which was simply that and lemme tell you it was JAMMED PACKED with so many things I've wanted to do. So I did....as best as I could with a 2 year old and a 3 month old during all the preparation! I won't be writing as much about the journaling classes since we did 2-4 projects per day but I still wanted to share the pics.

First up was bicycles I'd seen circulating around Pinterest. If I knew the original artist, I'd give them credit. 

Next up was a Klee Cats lesson from Deep Space Sparkle. Simple & fun!

Lastly for the first day it was famous silhouettes. 

Summer Preparation

In most areas of my life I am pretty good at winging it.

Teaching and grocery shopping.....not so much.

I had been plotting, planning and pinning all year long but our second son was due in March, so I wanted to see what kind of baby he'd be before I set ANYTHING in stone. After enduring 2 years (and counting) of my first son's horrible sleeping habits, God knew we needed a chilled out kid. By May, it was pretty evident this kid was laid back and would be able to handle a few hours away from mom/milk source for a few hours.

Our newest sweetheart, Griffin ❤

Here is just a sampling of the all prep work that goes into summer classes.

The books:
Not gunna lie. I could spend thousands on teaching idea books. I love Pinterest but there is something about flipping through, dog earring, circling, feeling those pages, that a screen will never do for me. 

period. 

Since I didn't have to buy near as many supplies as I did last summer, I splurged and bought several idea books. Here is a few of my favorites!

A great resource for books you should check out is paperbackswap which is an online book club that is free and super easy to use. I've traded easily over 50 books the last 3 years. All you are out is postage which the last time I checked it was around $3 with USPS to ship a book.
And who doesn't love getting fun mail?

I sure do! 

Heck of a lot better than getting bills!

The notes:
I have a basic class idea note ongoing in my phone at all times but when I want to get a "lesson plan down" I scribble, jot, cross out, draw arrows, over and over and over.....

Then the inner elementary school teacher comes out in me and types it all up with small sample pictures and supply list for each day. Thankfully my days of turning lesson plans in to a principal has halted for the time being :)


The pins:

Digital hoarding is what my good friend Natalie calls it lol


The supplies:
Michael's runs a great sale on their canvas packs a couple times a year in their stores and I load up my little car when they do. Most of the other supplies I get through Blick, which as a mom with two little kids it is pretty nice just having all those goodies delivered instead of hunting all over the city for them or waiting on sales.

The shirts:
After having shirts made through vistaprint last year and not being pleased with the quality, I swore I'd stay local. I found a design I liked but it needed modifying to make it more artsy. After giving my sketch to one of my good friend's husband that works for Graphics Services Inc. in Fort Smith he came up with a design and had them ready for me in no time!

The helper:
Don't know if helper is the right word....but he sure is handsome!

Cecil Kane commission

My friend, Natalie, finds me challenges from time to time. This one in particular was a bit daunting.

She wanted her fur baby....

Painted in this style....

Oh my! 

She found this lion on Pinterest and I tracked it back to Karen Tarlton on etsy. 

After sketching him out and realizing he has to be part gremlin, I busted out the pallet knife I'd never used and began piling in the paint.

And here he is! 

Mimicking the Masters- Jackson Pollock

Oh no she didn't.

Oh yes I did! 

Decided to attempt Jackson Pollock in the dead of winter with an energetic bunch!

Am I crazy?

More than likely yes.

To do this I made six stations.

Station #1 they painted the corner of a board and did straight lines where ever they felt like.

Station #2 was a marble roll. They painted 2 marbles and let them roll around like a pin ball machine all over their canvas which was placed in a shoe box. Unfortunately there is no picture of this....sigh.

Stations #3 & #4 were a combined effort. One got to use a medicine dropper to sling or drip really watered down paint while the other got to use a stick to sling or drip paint. These are both methods that Pollock used except instead of a medicine dropper he used a turkey baster. One of the many things he stole from his kitchen to sling paint.

Station #5 was guarded by me at all times. Kids got to paint a hand mixer no it will not be taking up residence in my kitchen it is specifically for art purposes only. Their canvas was laid in the bottom of a large box and when they were ready they plugged in the mixer, held it down in the box, closed the lids as much as possible and called Fire in the hole! To which they would turn on the mixer and sling paint.

Station #6 which sadly there is no picture of..... I took a cardboard shoe box that had preciously held boots and put rubberbands around the top and bottom with the lid open of course. This made a guitar like instrument. The kids put their canvas in the box under the rubber bands, painted the rubber bands, closed the lid slightly and used their fingers or a stick to pull the rubber bands and let them sling the paint on the canvas.

After doing one round of the stations they let their paintings sit by the heater for a bit while we tried to watch a short documentary which can be viewed here about Pollock until technology failed me and my computer refused to unfreeze. Story of my life.

After a snack and stalling while our paintings dried a bit we did one more round in the stations and called these masterpieces complete!

Mimicking the Masters- Van Gogh Starry night

Starry Night is on my bucket list to see in person. Gosh I just love Van Gogh. I got to see an exhibit of all his sketches while I was in NYC many years ago and it just made me want to see his paintings even more. 

This was a lesson I had been wanting to attempt for quite sometime and like the Warhol lesson couldn't find a tutorial I would call thrilled with so this is the first lesson I ever completely winged (if that is a word) because I had the general idea of the steps we'd take but I wanted to it be spontaneous and see what worked. 

I typically don't let kids dive straight into painting when they come but I knew this one would take all of our two hours so I had everything laid out ready to go. 

We started with a dry brush doing circles for the stars & moon. Then going around them in light blue followed by darker blues. Next adding our swirls. I stressed not to glob on the paint but to be spread it around so it looks messy and dries more quickly. 

This is what they looked like with most of the underpainting complete.

Then we started doing lots and lots and LOTS of dashes! I gave the girls freedom to mix their colors to create new shades of blues and yellows and mix they did! It was at this point I knew they were going to turn out amazing!

As the layers and layers of dashes piled on it made their paintings so interesting, check out this moon!!!

Once parents arrived we were all dashed out but I was beyond thrilled with their results!

SO proud of how the girls did, this will definetly be a repeated lesson!