3rd Place!!

I just want to thank all of my readers who voted for my blog this week! I was so excited to find out that my blog was awarded 3rd place from The Art Of Education!! It is wonderful to be among such an amazing community of art educators and bloggers out there who know the importance of art education and take the time to share their ideas with the world!!

So CHEERS to you, my read awesome readers!!! I love hearing from you through email and enjoy each one of your sweet comments! Thank you again for taking the time to vote and be sure to check out all the AMAZING art educator blogs over at The Art of Education 

Vote for SmART Class!! :-)

Great news! My blog has been selected as one of the finalists to win 
"Art Ed Blog of the Year!” from The Art of Education. I’ve already discovered a lot of great new Art Ed Blogs through the nomination page. 

Here's the thing though... I need your help to win! Voting is open this whole week from today through Friday the 7th. Winners will be annouced February 7th!!!  Could I ask you to take 30 seconds, follow this link, and vote for my blog to win?! All you have to do is click on the name of my blog 
SmART Class in the poll, and click vote! It's that easy. We've got the best fans out there, so I'm confident that if you all take just a second to vote, we’ll be promoted to one of the Top 10 Art Ed Blogs of  2013   Vote Here!!!

http://www.theartofed.com/2014/02/03/finalists-announced-and-voting-open-2013-art-ed-blog-of-the-year/

Art Speaks

Roller Coaster Paper Sculpture

These paper roller coasters are SO fun to make. All you need is strips of construction paper. The steps for the little car are below.

Animated Gif tutorial (Update)

Update: I have had so many emails about the GIF this week. I have had SO MUCH FUN making animated gifs this week!  Many of you are not familiar or do not have access to photoshop. If you find a great animation App let me know and I will add the links to my next blog post. Also, if you are a blogger, and would like for me to animate a photo of an artwork for you to use on your blog, (depending on how many I get :-) send me a photo of an artwork and I will convert it to an animated gif as my GIFt for you. I am only going to offer this for a few days. Send me a link to your blog too and I will feature your blog with the gif on my blog! 

This is the tutorial I followed to create the animated gifs using photoshop CS4. I would love to know if you have an APP that does something similar. I used the "liquify" tool under "filter" to make the peacock's feathers move. distort your photo with that tool to make something wiggle. I also used the custom shape tool to make the hearts. When making something move I would select it and cut and paste it somewhere, then use the clone tool to fill in the background from where I cut. I played around with it for a while and it's really fun! The possibilities are endless as far as photo manipulation to create different types of animation in photoshop.

Animated Art

Simple Clay Rose Hearts

So, if you read my blog, it is no surprise that I am going to do a project with hearts for Valentine's Day. If you look on the labels on the right side of my blog you can find other "hearts
 blog posts! We also did a clay rose project for Mother's Day last year you check out under "roses" on the label bar to your right! It is definitely my favorite shape! I have been playing around with some ideas and today I figured out a very easy way to make a rose to adorn a heart shaped slab. I have posted clay roses before but this technique is much EASIER for making tiny roses. My daughter who just turned 4 made this today! 

Begin with a coil and pinch the top of the coil from one end to the next. When you pinch the top of the coil, let the clay squeeze out and form a little ripple at the top. 

Slip, score, and use a little extra slip to attach the rose since you cannot press the top or you'll squish it! We used a paintbrush to apply the slip

 You can use a letter stamp to write a sweet note in the middle or personalize it

My daughter was addicted to making roses, and ended up spending 2 1/2 hours making roses and clay hearts!

 She used some old jewelry to stamp the wings, and some stamps for texture in the middle. I added holes at the top for ribbon.
I can't wait to get out all my red and pink and white glazes for these!!

2014 Year of The Horse

When we return to school, Tuesday, students will be learning about the Chinese New Year January 31st 2014. The horse is this year's symbol on the Chinese Zodiac! 

Here are some steps to draw a horse. Students will then use other elements like the Chinese symbol for horse, lanterns, cherry blossoms, etc. to create their own original artwork based on 2014 Chinese New Year! I cannot wait to see their unique creations next week! Here is a link with a lesson and great video for the Traditional Chinese New Year Lion Dancers

 http://www.elementaryartfun.blogspot.com/search/label/chinese%20new%20year%20lions

sketch the circles VERY lightly because they will need to be erased later

the circles create a realistic structure for the body of the horse. 

erase the circles