In the Art Room: Marker Hacks in the Art Room!

Hey, y'all! Today I'm sharing my very favorite marker hacks! In this post, I'll be sharing my favorite lessons involving these hacks but be sure and listen to the podcast episode where I share even more details. Be sure to click on the link and visit the posts I'm sharing...these are free lessons and many of them include a video as well as free handouts for you and your students! Here's the podcast episode:

James Rizzi meets Van Gogh Cities! This project was a huge hit with my third and fourth grade students. What I loved is that my students had a chance to explore painting but without the mess! I did this project near the end of the year when we were completely out of watercolor paint. Did you know that you can use markers as watercolor paint?! All you do is color and add water! I loved the technique so much I did it for the next lesson too.

 Chris Uphues Hearts! This lesson began as a sub plan and quickly became a kid and teacher favorite! I know many of you have done this one in your art rooms and it makes me so happy. Again, we outlined the hearts in marker and then used paint to "wake up" the marker and turn it into paint. 

 Marker Prints! In the podcast episode I mention printing with markers and it being a little tricky when you dampen the paper. I had totally forgotten about the photo I shared above...last year we used baby wipes instead of a sponge and water and it proved to be great at getting the paper just damp enough to pull a print. You can hear more about this in the episode and definitely check out more in the link!

 I mean, how fun is that?!

 Color Diffusing Coffee Filters! I think many of us know about this hack BUT...did you know...that after your students are done coloring their filter they should LEAVE THEM ON A STYROFOAM PLATE when you spray with water and allow to dry. Why? So that the marvelous marker color stays on the filter and doesn't drain out and get on the surface below. Hear more about that in the podcast episode. 

 We attached these using paperclips and hung them in the windows of our school for Dot Day!

 Self Portraits in Kimonos! Here is another use for those coffee filters! This lesson was a kid favorite and look how precious they are! More details in the link. 

 Children's Day! These color diffusing fish came from our sponsor, Roylco. I love using color diffusing papers with markers and these were a huge hit! 

 We used permanent markers for details we wished to remain and waterbased markers for ones we wanted to spread. We also used watercolor paint for more pops of color. Notice how the fish is on a plastic bag...this is how the fish dried as well so that the color would remain on the fish!

 Again, we hung these in our large bank of windows and they looked so beautiful. 

 To attach one to the other, I used paperclips. I also used paper clips to attach the fish to the ceiling tiles. 

 Making Marker Juice! What to do with all of those dried out markers?! Make Marker Juice! Now in the podcast, I share an easy way (as seen above) and the hard, better results, way. We used these paints to create a background for our "Ain't Gonna Paint No More" self portraits. 

My kindergarteners had a big time making these!

 Foil-Covered Printing Plates! What to do with printing plates once printmaking is complete? Cover them with foil and make a new work of art! I don't talk about permanent markers in the podcast but I did want to share the projects we've done with them here. Permanent markers are great for many reasons but one is when coloring over foil. They make the most beautiful shimmery effect. 

 Dot Day Sparkle! Check out this beauty! These were made with Styrofoam plates, foil and permanent marker. 

 Foil Relief! When weaving one year, my students were stressed about the amount of waste yarn we were throwing away. We decided to keep it and then create with it! Check out the blog post for details.  

Speaking of not wasting a thing, we also do something similar with our printing plates! Follow this link for more. 

I hope you learned a fun and new marker hack today! 

My Favorite Lovey-Dovey Lessons (Just in Time for Valentine's!)

Welcome back! It's been a minute (okay, several) since I last blogged and while I missed you all dearly, you guys: I needed a break! In all truth and honesty...a couple things have been going around here on the homefront that have kept me away. First of all, I'm just not feeling it this year. There, I have said it. I've actually said it quite a bit here. And I know this is normal, a season in the art teacherin' life, it's still frustrating. I'm not hopping out of bed with excitement about the day ahead. Sure I can fake it but...I know that it's not my normal, you know? I do think a large project I'm working on has been a contributing factor. I've worked on big projects while teaching before ('member this book?) But this new thing it's, well, bigger and unlike anything I've tried. So other things are starting to slide. Blogging and being completely present and excited in the art room. 

BUT Y'ALL DIDN'T COME HERE FOR ALL THIS, did you? Sorry, not sorry. We all need to overshare sometimes and you just happened to be a good listener. Thank you

Now, let's talk about projects that are perfect for this time of year: Valentines Day-ish lessons! Be sure and click on all the following links as MANY of them have videos for you to share in your art room with your students. Here we go:

Romero Britto-Inspired First Grade Hearts this lesson was a huge hit with my students and involved line and pattern review as well as some fun color exploration with tissue paper and paint sticks!

 Heart Prints with Kindergarten was such a fun way to share printmaking with kindergarten in a way where each student was successful! 

Foil Relief Heart from Kindergarten Printing Plate this was a fun way to do a cool project with our leftover printing plates. Kindergarten then painted the background in a rainbow review.

Robert Indiana Love Prints by First and Second Grade my kids love printmaking. We explored making a ton of prints on styrofoam plates before adding the paper letters on top.

Chris Uphues-Inspired Project for All Grades You'll definitely want to check this lesson out, it's perfect for a sub, comes with a video and free handouts!

James Goldcrown Hearts for All Another easy lesson and a quick one too...and one that introduces a contemporary artist. Win-win-WIN!

First Grade Woven Hearts with Stitched Edge We just finished up weaving in my art room and we just might be doing this next. 

This Our School Has Heart mural is a blog post with so many ideas! One for each grade level, be sure and check it out!

Valentine Animals for All my kids loved this project and I'm sure yours will too. All the videos and details here!

A Contemporary Artist Review! This one was one I did with my older students and it was a blast. We learned about four contemporary artists who use hearts in their work. Video included!

But wait, there's more! So many more Valentine's lesson ideas here. Hope you enjoy!

DIY: Spoonflower Student Artwork Dress!

I've had it on my mind to print my students artwork on fabric for a very long time. I've done just about every variation of kid-created fabric for dress-makin' such as having them color IKEA coloring sheet fabric which I then stitched into a dress (more details on that dress here): 

Or the time I found the fabric of picture frames! I had my students draw their self portraits on the fabric before creating that into a dress. Both of these dresses were created with Graffiti fabric markers. They've seen plenty of washing and, while the colors have faded a bit, they still look pretty vibrant. And the kids absolutely love them. More details on that dress here. 

But the idea of creating fabric from student work is one that I've been toying with every since hearing about Spoonflower. In the past, I've ordered fabric from Spoonflower and made a couple of dresses with designs created by artists. 

You can check out the details of this dress and fabric here. 

And details of this dress can be found here. Having ordered fabric from Spoonflower before, I knew I liked it. The fabric I ordered has a good thick quality which is great for the kind of full dresses that I like to create. So, this past spring, just before I hung some artwork up for our art show, I laid a bunch of it out on the floor and took a couple of snaps with my camera. After the art show, I uploaded the photos to the Spoonflower website and was shocked how stinkin' easy it was to rearrange the works of art to create the desired pattern. 

 In case the artwork on this dress looks a little familiar to you, it's from one of the more popular lessons on my blog: The Chris Uphues Lesson for All! Here's a peak of just a few of the works of art based on that lesson:

Take a look at the work of art above and then the print quality below. Pretty amazing, right?!

 This weekend I decided to cut into this Chris-Uphues inspired, kid-created fabric and create a dress using one of my favorite vintage patterns. Now, I did use a circle skirt pattern for the bottom...so only the bodice was used for this dress. 

Here's a little peak at some of the other fabrics I had made with Spoonflower. I cannot wait to make them into dresses too. 

 Usually I'm all about the big belt but when I tried my big belt on with this dress, it seemed to take away from the print. So I went with a hot pink ribbon for the belt instead. 

 Not wanting to waste even a scrap of this precious fabric, I decided to create a couple bow to be featured at the base of the shoulder straps. 

I'm so excited to wear this dress to school and share it with my students. Big thanks to Spoonflower for working with me on this fabric-making adventure and to Chris Uphues for his constant inspiration. 

2019 Art Show: 2-D Work!

 Serving up the final installment of our 2019 art show for y'all today! This here is the 2D portion of our art show where every work of art that every kiddo has created all year long is on display! You can check out our Glow Gallery Tour and our Pirate Gallery Tour here! 

In this blog post, I thought I would share a link to each and every one of these lessons you see! This will give you an idea of what projects I teach (2D, that is) throughout the year. If you are interested in details on this art show: how it's hung, who does the hangin', how it's taken down and sent home, then you might want to watch this tour I created to answer those questions for you:

Please feel free to leave any questions about what you see here or on my YouTube channel and I'll be sure to answer them.

 Let's take a tour of theses projects! We'll start with kindergarten. My kindergarteners always have the biggest amount of artwork because their lessons are shorter. I started the beginning of the year with my lessons on line. Those projects did not make it to the art show as they were sent home at the start of the school year. From there, we did the rainbow lesson and Mouse Paint project. 

 One of the more popular lessons for kindergarten on my blog is this one. This lesson is always followed by my Chicka Chicka Boom Boom project which you can find here.  

 Our snowmen were a lot of fun to create this year too. We learned all about the cold colors and painting spiral lines. 

 A new lesson I came up with this year were the heart prints. We were able to get many prints created and used our two favorites for our work of art. 

With our printing plates, we created these beauties! Super fun and stunning!

 The kindergarten gallery is almost always my favorite! 

 Although first grade sure does take a close second. Let's talk about their projects. One of my favorites this year were our Mad Scientists! 

 A classic that we've done many years in a row are our Royal Self-Portraits. I love that we have two selfies in this art show: one as royalty and one as kid-genius. Perfect for my kids!

We also did those heart weavings that you see with the stitched edge. With the heart we cut out from our construction paper for the weaving, we created these Romero Britto inspired pieces. You can see a variation of that lesson here. 

All of the artwork and the kids who created them make me this happy. 

The big penguins you see were created from this lesson here. 

 Let's move on down to second grade! These kids had many works of art both in the Glow and Pirate Gallery that their wall seems a little empty. Don't let that fool you: we are always crankin' out some art!

 Our Super Hero Selfies can be found here while our Chris Uphues Hearts are here. 

 This printmaking lesson is one of our favorites. We seem to improve up on it each year! 

 And this lesson is from my String and Stitch Lab for Kids book! Check it out! 

It's a pretty colorful hallway!

Speaking of, let's move on down to third grade! You'll notice these kids also did the Chris Uphues lesson...in fact, all of my students did as it was a sub plan. 

One lesson of mine that was especially popular was the landscape project! I had run out of paper (omg, an art teacher without PAPER, hello!) and had a lot of cardboard pizza rounds...so we improvised! 

The kids also created those amazing Sandra Silberzweig-inspired self portraits!

 My students did two kinds of weaving, tree weaving and circle weaving. Two kid favorites. These are also featured in my new book! 

 One lesson that I'll be sharing soon is this one! If you can't wait, then check out this blog post as this lesson is a variation. 

 

 This is another lesson that I'm excited to share with you soon! 

 This third grade display brings me so much happiness!

 My fourth graders spent the start of their school year making pillows! We made pizza, donut and emoji pillows, all of which are in my sewing book. 

 One of my favorite lessons this year was our Snow Globe project!

 While planning our snow globes, we made tiny paintings that we later used for our marble still life lesson. 

 Our Fauve-style self portraits were a lot of fun to create too. 

I hope you enjoyed this art show tour! Be sure and check out the other posts to see all the other works of art these artists created.