Stamping with Legos

My Lego Stamping Example

At school, I taught a stamping with Legos project.  Place your piece of paper on top of a piece of felt (to allow some squish room).  Then, get your Legos full of black rubberstamp ink and press on the paper.  We also used game pieces from the game Perfection.  I lucked out and found two of these games at a garage sale this summer.

If the ink pads became slightly dried out we used Avery Carter's Stamp Pad Inker to add more ink to the stamp pad.

After the papers were dry, we used black pens to go over some of the areas that did not turn out dark enough.  Then we used markers and colored pencils to color.

Below are some examples from my students.. grades 1-3.  Aren't they fun?  Would you like to see more of my student's artwork on this blog?

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Mixed Media Canvases with Kids

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

From time to time, I do a cross-post for both of my blogs.. My other blog is Art is Basic, where I chronicle my adventures teaching elementary art.  I thought you might enjoy seeing some of the mixed media canvases I did with an after school art class!

I thought painted canvases would be a great gift for kids to give someone in their family, so I decided to do an after school art class which I taught today.  The kids in this class were in grades K-5, so I had quite a range of skill levels.  23 kids signed up!

1st grade artwork

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

5th grader

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

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

3rd grader

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

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

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

Kindergarten-- Lots of expression!

2nd grade

3rd grade

Kindergarten

2nd grade  Great shapes!

1st grade  I love the colors in this one.

4th grade girl

The four seasons-- 5th grade boy

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A few more painted page collages..

Hmm... not much to say today. 

Here are a few more painted page collages.  I had made some from leftover painted paper scraps from my art classroom.. My students made some collages after printing papers with Gelli plates.  We also watched Jane Davies' new video for inspiration.

Here are a few of THEIR artworks.. these were made by 5th and 6th graders:

I am linking this to Art Journal Every Day and Paint Party Friday

School has started!

School has started!  I teach K-6 art at a private school (plus I do Yearbook and Student Council).. so I'm guessing I probably will not have much time to blog for awhile.

Children's art is so refreshing...

The first graders are starting with simple collaged initials and then moving on to a watercolor/texture background.

Stamping with cylindrical objects and then embellishing with markers and pens. 

Look how beautiful crayon rubbings and kid's watercolor paints can be.

I've managed to sneak in a little bit of my own art journaling in the past few weeks.

And look, I've been published!

             Scholastic Art is a magazine geared for grades 4-12.   I've subscribed to it for many years and submitted a lesson plan to them.

Here is my lesson plan and students' artwork.

That's me!

Painting with 3rd and 4th graders

Hello blogging friends!  If you don't already know this about me, I will tell you now.  When I am not painting, making collages or playing with my daughter, I teach elementary school art.  I wanted to share with you this awesome project that my third and fourth graders worked together on this week.

I was so excited to see this idea of Circle Painting!!   I first learned about it at Barbara's Thought of the Day and then at We Heart Art.  Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. for this wonderful idea.  We are making several collaborative canvases with this technique and they are going to be raffled off at our end of the year school FUNdraiser.  The kids had a blast creating these paintings.  This is the first video I have edited using Imovie!  See the video below to watch the kids painting these canvases.  I'm planning on making two more canvases with an older class to keep at school for display.