What is Clay? An Introduction to Clay and Ceramics for Elementary Age Children

Every year, I give the same spiel to my classes about clay and ceramics: what clay is made from, how it is fired, what glaze is, the difference between hand built versus wheel thrown and more. It's exhausting! So this year, I put it into a video, added some visuals and used it today. It worked great, even my kindergarten understood what I was yammering about. It's a little long and it's definitely not perfect but...you are more than welcome to use it in your art teacherin' world. Here you go:

Stay tuned for a lot of clay videos coming your way! 

DIY Earrings: Embroidered Color Wheel Earrings for the Beginner!

I just stitched up another pair of embroidered earrings, y'all! This time the theme was color wheel. I used a different stitch in each of the triangles and shared the process in this video! I hope you'll stitch along with me:

This has been a lot of fun for me...while I love embroidery, I don't love long projects. These are short and simple. Not only that but these earrings are so lightweight! In the past, I've made earrings of other things and they've always weighted a ton. These I don't even think about once I have them on! 

More plans for more earrings are in the works! I'll keep creating the videos...if anything, it might introduce you to some new stitches! Have fun!

21 Art Lessons with the Theme of Love!

Who's ready to kick off this new year with a whole lotta love, color and bright, fun lessons? BUT who's also not done any real thinkin' about said lessons?! If you said ME to both of those questions than I gotta tell ya, YOU AND ME BOTH. Luckily, I've done a whole lotta love lessons over the years and put all 21 of 'em right here in this blog post. If you follow the links to these, you'll find videos for most and lesson details for ll of them. Have fun creating!

Learn how to draw each of these cuties in these how to draw videos, found here! 

Kindergarten tried their hand at printing with this project and had such a blast! 

These relief hearts by kindergarten were a hit and definitely a lesson I hope to repeat soon! 

Of course, you can't celebrate all things love and Valentines-y without sharing the work of Chris Uphues with your students! We've done a couple lessons inspired by him. This one is a collage and printing project. 

This lesson has always been a hit on my blog with other art teachers and my students. In fact, I created this lesson as a sub plan so it's been a hit with my subs too! You can find all the details and video here.

My students created this HUGE collaborative mural inspired buy Britto. Lesson video here!

First grade created these huge Britto-inspired hearts with bingo daubers, bleeding tissue paper and paint sticks. Lesson details here. 

Ready to tackle printmaking with your students? Here's a lesson I've done a couple of years now with my second graders: Robert Indiana-inspired LOVE prints! 

I created these hearts with wings with foil, Celluclay and plaster strips! They are super simple to make. More here. 

Inspired by those hearts, I created a lesson for my second graders to make these! 

A couple of years ago, I did a professional development with the faculty and staff at my school. We created these My Heart Has Wings sculptures. Details here. 

Here was a fun lesson where we were able to use our messy mats as apart of our masterpiece! Not only that but this project provided two heart-tastic pieces for the price of one. These...

And these!

If you are looking to have your students create a large collaborative piece, you can see what each grade level worked on to make this piece here. 

Looking for a quick lesson that introduces students to three contemporary artists who used love and hearts as their theme? Check out this blog post with a video lesson! 

James Rizzi is always a fun artist to share with your students. We loved creating these love birds!

Here's another lesson we do just about every year in first grade: these woven and stitched hearts! All the lesson details can be found here. I created a variation of this lesson recently where students weave together strips of paper in their skin tones. You can find it here. 

These candy hearts were created by my fourth graders and we used plaster strips to create them. It was so fun to see these all come together and display them in a large candy heart box! Lesson details here. 

Early finishers of the candy hearts lesson moved onto this project when they were finished! 

Wow, did the third graders have a blast with this one! We made plaster chocolates that looked good enough to eat! All the lesson details here. 

Need a quick lesson with a contemporary artist inspiration? Try this JGoldcrown lesson on for size!

Art Teacherin' 101: The Anatomy of a Paintbrush!

I know that somewhere, out there, there's an art teacher putting off their art supply order because they just don't know where to start. I mean, just look at the paintbrush section, for example! There you'll find page after page of paintbrushes ranging in a variety of sizes and shapes. Where to start?! In this wee little five minute video, I'll share with you how to decide what to buy from the bristles all the way down to what the handle is made from. I hope it helps! 

Happy painting!

DIY Earrings! Learn to Embroidery and Make Pompom Earrings!

For the longest, I never wore earrings. My ears have been pierced since I was a kid but...my poor little earlobes have always been high maintenance. If the metal of the post isn't just right, my ears itch and throb. If the earring is even just the slightest bit heavy, my ears start complaining and driving my left eye to twitch. It was all too much! But a couple of years ago, that changed when I spotted a pair of earrings that just sent me spiraling outta control. These days, all I can say is: I like big earrings...and I cannot lie.

But with big earrings, comes big wait. And, y'all, I just cannot. I tried making my own earrings out of wooden beads and polymer clay but, man, they were so heavy! Not too long ago, on a road trip, I stitched up a couple of rainbow earrings and they were perfect! Not heavy at all, nice and big like I like 'em and, best of all, I can walk around and say "THANKS! I MADE THEM!" to anyone who asks (and even if they don't). 

Since, I've gotten some questions on social media just how I made them and if I'd make a tutorial. So! Here you are! I've created two earring tutorials just for you...one on these rainbows and the other on pompoms. More to come as I'm currently on an earring makin' bender, so stay tuned. Until then, gather up your supplies and get to stitchin'! 

And get to pompomin'! Have fun!