Cherry Blossom Paintings

SO happy with these amazing cherry blossom paintings from 1st grade! We used the paint blowing techniques I learned at this summer's Tennessee Arts Academy workshop to form the branches. Check out our twitter for some videos of these branch-makers in action! 

After we added the branches, we used tissue paper and glue for the cherry blossom petals. Finally, we added some kanji of common words and ideas.

Video Here!

Guild Gators Go to Japan!

...maybe not really. BUT we do have a lot of awesome artifacts from Japan in our art room for our Japanese art unit! Thanks so much to Mrs. Bray, our wonderful PE teacher for donating some of her items from her time teaching in Japan. Here's a few pictures from around the art room!

Tennessee Arts Academy

So happy I got to go to TAA this year! Lot's of great guest speakers and projects, but I didn't get as many pictures as I would like. So here's a little bit of what we did:

Paint blowing techniques. I used mine to create this awesome sea dragon!

Origami bookmarks that go on the corner of books. Adorable! ^_^

Bubble drawings by tracing circles and using oil pastels.

Accordion fold bookmaking.

And my favorite, paper marbling by floating chalk dust on water. I like this way better than the paper marbling I've done before!

Excited for next year! Lots of ideas for this year. ^_^

Art Scouts!

I was one of the lucky few who got to attend the BEST art education PD session of the summer: ART SCOUTS! (really ladies, you could host a session every week of the summer and have it filled every week!) Our amazing instructors were Cassie Stephens, Jennifer Alvarado, Laura Lohman, and Ginger Pacer. Check out their websites if you haven't before! 

So this workshop was 2 days and very intensive. We created many projects using both supplies that I have readily available in my classroom and things that I had not used before.

You've heard me rave about marker prints before,  and in this lesson we used the technique in combination with Gelli prints and painted paper to create this collage. Of course, you could adapt this into any image, but it is so striking as a beautiful bouquet!

Jennifer's sun prints were super easy, beautiful, and a great STEAM lesson. We used watered down fabric paint on muslin then covered some areas with foam shapes and even bits of nature. After leaving them in the sun (all day because we forgot them :/) we took off the pieces to reveal the artworks! And of course I did not take a picture of my finished product. >_<

I experimented with circle weaving on plates with our Van Gogh Sunflowers earlier this year. And while it was successful, it was definitely helpful to have Cassie show us in person, and it turned out way better than any of the ones I had done before!

These are sandpaper prints and I will be doing these at my STEAM camp later this summer! Essentially, you make any design on fine grit sandpaper using crayons. Then you turn it over on a piece of paper and use and iron to heat the sandpaper. It leaves the wax behind for an awesome print! Wonderful lesson to discuss catalysts and the states of matter. 

And my favorite project, my arrow. We mad them when we arrived as a symbol to keep going forward. It will hang in my classroom and all of the kids will be super jealous of my awesome arrow. ^_^

Now some bad news, my phone bugged out and I lost all of my pictures from the second day. :( But there are plenty of pictures from the clay and painted paper sessions on the Art Scouts Instagram, so you won't miss out.

L-R: Laura Lohman, Cassie Stephens, Beth Moore, Ginger Pacer, Jennifer Alvarado

Thanks so much for a great couple of days! Can't wait for next year!

Dinosaur Week at Camp STEM

Just sharing a few favorite art projects from Dinosaur Week at Camp STEM. 

We made paper mache dino eggs! Love the colors and patterns they used!

Origami dinos were WAY harder than we anticipated, but these guys are hard workers. 

We plaster-casted and painted our own volcanoes that we later set off with baking soda and vinegar.

Using sponges, we cut dino footprints to make footprint fossil artworks.

2 more camp weeks to go this summer!