Well it has certainly been awhile since I have posted! Ever since the school year started, things have been incredibly busy.
I have made a few new paintings and a lot of new ceramic pieces . . .
I also achieved one of my long time goals to participate in an artist’s market! I have always enjoyed going to art festivals and for the past few years I have been scheming about how to participate in one. A couple of weekends ago, I finally did and it was AWESOME!!
I was a part of the Indie Craft Experience Made market. If you are from Atlanta you may have heard of this amazing group that hosts pop-up artists markets all over the city. This one was at the Hudgens Center for the Arts. I worked really hard on my booth setup and ended up having an excellent day meeting art-lovers and sharing my work. I can’t wait for the next opportunity to sell my artwork!
I believe it is so important for art educators to practice creativity in non-school environments. You have probably heard that old saying “those who can’t teach” but I think that the best teaching comes from authentic, hands-on experience. It can be hard to make time to create especially after a long day of managing a classroom but it is truly meaningful development professionally and personally!
So while I have been gallivanting around as an artist I have of course gotten into the full swing of things with my art students! This bulletin board was created and inspired by our school mission statement.
After the first couple of weeks of easy-going-getting-to-know-ya type activities, we jumped right in to some great projects! Kindergarten is currently working on fingerprint flower pots (I’ll be posting a blog about this process soon.)
First graders are also learning about mixing primary colors and are using tissue papers to create a background for tissue paper portraits:
Second graders are creating a lovely landscape with a foreground, middleground, and background.
Third graders learned all about Georgia O’keeffe and painted beautiful flowers:
Fourth graders are creating a warm/cool self portrait and they are turning out AMAZING!!!! (Blog post about this one coming soon too!)
5th graders are drawing and painting a succulent still life. They are so whimsical and fun and there will also be a blog post about these soon as well.
I am loving my new school and have been completely enchanted and charmed by my incredible students. I am so thankful to be a part of the Northwood community! As we are wrapping up projects, be on the lookout for blog posts of some fun new things in the works 🙂
❤ Ms. K
March 26, 2019 at 11:26 pm
Hello! I love the rock/crystal art that you did with the black background and white outline. Would you be able to give me some pointers on how you did this??
March 26, 2019 at 11:29 pm
Thank you so much!
I started off with some watercolor paper and looked at pictures of crystals online to draw them. After drawing the crystal shapes with pencil, I used a ball stylus tool and some masking fluid to trace over all of the lines. Once the masking fluid was dry, I painted over everything with watercolors. I tried to use similar colors for each crystal like dark green and light green or pink, purple, and blue. While the paint was still wet, I sprinkled it with some salt which creates a really nice texture.
Once the paint was dry, I carefully peeled back the masking fluid to reveal white lines. Then I cut out each crystal.
I had a bunch of small canvases that I painted with black acrylic paint. I used watered down white acrylic paint to splatter paint stars on top of the black. Once the canvasses were dry, I glued the cut out crystal to each canvas. I then added a little more white to the edge of each crystal to make them look like they are glowing.
I hope this helps. I am sorry I don’t have any pictures of the step-by-step process, I did not do this project with children, as it is a little too advanced and complicated for my students. Let me know if you have any other questions. 🙂