From our family to yours!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Give Thanks

1 Thessalonians 5:18
give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
1 Thessalonians 5:17-19

Jam’n Giraffe’s and Rock’n Neon Tigers

First and second grade have been making the cutest neon giraffe’s. Here are a few finished ones. Some of them used sparkly felt and some neon paper for the headphones. The ipod is paper and we used yarn for the cord. The students learned about color mixing and blending. We studied the color wheel to see which colors we could blend next to each other. They did a fabulous job!

For some reason neon colors don’t translate in photos. They are much much brighter in person!

I had my first class finish the tigers today and they look so awesome.We did the drawing and outlining last week. The photos don’t do them justice! I LOVE neon paint! It’s pretty popular with the kids too!!

One Point Perspective! and zebra progress!

A few weeks ago, we finished these one point perspective watercolor paintings. The kids did an awesome job. We started with a simple horizon line with an “X” from corner to corner passing through the vanishing point. We looked at different architecture and examined the structure of a tree and the pattern of its branches. Some are cities, some are rural, and all are so very different, I wish I could post them all!





Some kids made a river instead of a street and we looked at pictures of Venice!




We have been busy doing our color wheel zebras and the kids LOVE it! They love mixing the colors and finding new color combinations. We talked about the relationships, analogous, complementary,primary, and secondary colors.

Zebra’s, Tigers, and Giraffes OH My!!

We have started a number of new projects this week! They are coming along well and I cannot WAIT to post results! These are the fifth grade color wheel zebras. We are studying the analogous “friend” colors!

We are drawing with pencil, and then…

painting with liquid watercolors!

Third and fourth are making Hip Hop animals with neon paint and splatter paint! They have chosen different animals to draw and paint a think black outline, that they will fill in with neon paint and add details like sunglasses, necklaces, tiaras, etc.


I just thought the inverse looked soo cool!!

2nd grade is making giraffes with headphones and they will add song lyrics around the background! This is my original sketch…their drawings look soooooo cute so far!!

Kinder pumpkins, spider webs, and the lil’est punkin!

Ok for some reason, I have never made jack-o-lanterns with my art classes. Don’t get me wrong, we make LOTS of pumpkins, but never painted them with faces because of the whole Halloween deal, but we did it this year. They were big, beautiful, sparkly, shiny, and probably their favorite project all year! If you’ve noticed from the past few posts, I am sort of going through a phase with the tempera varnish. It just makes the artwork shine! I LOVE it!

can you find my example? The kids drew the pumpkin with a black crayon, and painted the first day. Then outlined with black oil pastels, added leaves, cut out, and glued on the purple paper the next class… AND of COURSE, the varnish which only took five minutes with BIG brushes. They dried quickly and were able to take them home after the second class period.



Don’t you just love that kid that does it completely different, doesn’t follow directions, but it still looks fabulous and is one of your favorites because of it’s out of the box design…that is my little friend who made the pumpkin below…it looks like a wrinkly, glitter covered,version of the nightmare before christmas dude! LOVE it!




second and third grade made crayon resist spider webs with tiny yarn puff spiders! So much fun!

Friday was our Fall Festival, in which every year I get the privilege to paint like 400 faces for three hours straight, don’t even think about a water break because the 50 people in line who have been waiting for over an hour will break into panic filled fits of rage…it’s intense!
Anyways, I got to sneak a few pictures in my classroom of one of my student’s little ten day old punkin brother, Juan Pablo, before the festival! The cutest lil punkin around!! I just love all my students and their families!

could you just eat him or what!! Happy Halloween Everyone!