The origins of this art lesson came from a pin that I found on Pinterest connecting to the blog B Art Z - Elementary Art. I have been SO excited to blog about my new and improved cup weaving lesson! So last year I attempted to do cup weaving with my some of my students.. and while I loved the results.. the process was infuriating! For some reason I thought it was a great idea to weave with plastic cups - which made sharp jagged edges when cut by children. When that didn't go smoothly I thought myself sooooo clever to switch to styrofoam cups - which ended up making spokes (warp strips) that snapped off when pulled on to much. FINALLY I figured it out - PAPER CUPS!! These work PERFECTLY!! It is easy for the kids to cut the strips themselves AND they are surprisingly very durable. **Get them in bulk here! The first thing I had my kids do was write their name on the bottom of their cup with a sharpie. Then they placed their upside-down cup onto a template I created and made a tick mark on the rim of the cup everywhere where they saw a triangle poking out - this gave them evenly spaced points to cut from. When cutting out the spokes/warp strips, it is extremely important to remember to cut out an odd number of strips so that when you are weaving your AB pattern, the pattern alternates each consecutive time around. I found that with the 9oz cups my kids were using, 9 strips turned out to be the perfect number. Once the strips were cut, students double-knotted a piece of yarn to one of the strips, then began weaving! This particular class worked for 5 days straight on this (they really are a wonderful group).. and I had a few students who even completed 3 very well done cups in this amount of time (a couple even got pulled for our county art show)! :)

Here is one of my favourite lessons: Cave Art. These were created by 6th grade students. We looked at the famous Caves of Lascaux, in France and watched a Youtube video about them. These paintings are estimated to be 17,300 years old. They consist mostly of primitive images of large animals, most of which are known from fossil evidence to have lived in the area at the time. The images include bison, bulls, horses, mammoths, etc. The caves were discovered by chance in 1941 by French teenager Marcel Ravidat, and his three friends. They found a hole in the ground while exploring a forest and Marcel climbed down into it- this tunnel led to the caves. The boys initially kept the caves a secret, but soon told their teacher about it, as they knew him to be interested in archaeology and prehistoric art. From then on, the caves became famous around the world. The original caves are now closed to the public (due to deterioration of the paintings cause by too many visitors), but the French authorities have recreated the caves nearby which are supposedly very realistic. You can visit an excellent online version here: http://www.lascaux.culture.fr/?lng=en#/fr/00.xml (You get to take a virtual tour through the caves and listen to soothing music too! lol) I hung up large cave art posters for the kids to refer to. They are called "Lascaux Cave Art Prints" which were ordered from the company Crystal Productions. It also comes with a DVD. What I find so fascinating about these caves is that you can see extinct animals such as the mammoth and animals not typical for the area today (hyenas, lions, panthers, woolly rhinoceroses, in France!) Lascaux may be one of the more famous sites for cave art in the world, but of course, there are many others including the '"Cave of Swimmers" in the Sahara Desert and the Chauvet Cave in southern France. A documentary called "Cave of Forgotten Dreams", by Werner Herzog, was recently made about these caves. There's also the Cave of Altamira in Spain. Here's an interesting video of the rock art found in the 'Cave of Swimmers' (made famous in the movie "The English Patient".) These painted caves in Egypt were 'discovered' (the local Bedouins already knew about them) by the Hungarian explorer László Almásy in October 1933. They are unusual in that they depict many human figures swimming, which shows that the Sahara Desert once had lakes and water. To recreate cave walls, we used brown butcher paper and scrunched it up a bunch of times to make it nice and textural. We also added transparent washes of brown-ish tempera paint to give it even more depth. Then, using chalk pastels, we added more texture lines (cracks, irregularities on the cave walls) using dark brown and black chalk. Blend, blend, blend. Then students made a stylized stencil of an animal(s) out of cardstock. They freehand drew these and looked at the posters for inspiration. Then stencil (use a pouncing up-and-down motion with a round brush) these onto the background paper using natural colored tempera paint. Paleolithic artists have five main colors at their disposal: yellow, red, brown, black and white. White is more rare, but it is seen at Lascaux cave. The colours used were produced from ochre (reds and yellows), manganese dioxide (violet and black) and charcoal (black). These minerals were pulverized on stone palettes and mixed with animal fat to moisten them before they were applied with the fingers, bone spatulae or brushes. (source) Here's an example of an animal stencil- just use scrap card or old file folders. (My kids use paper palettes as they don't require cleaning afterwards!) Nice variety of colours and use of overlapping.... Great sense of motion in this one!

Unless you’re a serious collector or maybe an artist yourself, you’ve probably had moments when you’re like… “what the hell is art about” or “is this art good or bad” or “is this even art or just a mustard stain.” I definitely have had those thoughts, and I hereby offer this disclaimer that I have

Here's some photos from a project any Science teachers (and Art!) out there might find interesting. We have a very creative Science tea...

Get a FREE 2 Week Bible Study for Busy Mamas! Great Artist Study Lesson Plans – Cycle 2 Art is NOT my forte. CC Tutors are supposed to attempt the art projects based on famous artist technique prior to community day, in order to iron out any wrinkles prior to turning your class loose on it. […]

This is a project I've been wanting to teach to my students for years, I've just simply never bitten the bullet and done it. Part of me, I think, thought it might be too time-consuming for students these days, who are used to that whole 'instant gratification' thing and seem to have less and less stamina/patience for projects requiring extensive time and concentration. I am happy to report, though, for the most part (except for three students- cough, cough) my students proved me wrong :) Update: see my newest version of this project HERE. I first read about twig weaving in a book I bought back in 1997 during my art university days: Nature Crafts for Kids It's full of really cool art projects using materials from nature. Here's a photo of the lesson below- it uses extra materials such as raffia and shells. I stuck with yarn as it's what I already had available in my classroom. The first step- locating twigs- is, BY FAR, the MOST important step!! Seriously, I had kids start with the wrong type of twigs and it all went downhill from there. I asked my kids to bring in a strong twig/branch that had at least one fork in it. Alot brought in flimsy ones ones they simply ripped off a tree (from outside of the school 5 minutes before class when they were reminded by classmates that they were supposed to bring in a twig for art, lol) These are too fresh and too bendy. You don't want the twig to be bendy or flexible at all (I mean a tiny bit it ok). So of course, if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself, lol. I went out twig hunting (hard to do when there's snow covering the ground- do this in the Fall!! Look for dried up twigs on the ground. You don't want anything too big, because those are the ones that students started and then, halfway into weaving, realized that in order to finish the project, they'd have to be weaving for like 20 hours, ha ha. Then choose your yarn colours. I mostly had thin yarn- this takes a long time to weave. If I were to teach this lesson again, I would only buy the nice chunky yarn you can get these days for knitting cool chunky scarves. Again, I used what I already had in the art room. Nonetheless, the thinner yarn looks LOVELY woven, so I don't regret that. Start with the warp threads. Tie one length of yarn (I used about 2 arms lengths) to the bottom of one of the forks. We used a neutral colour like white or cream yearn for this step, as it doesn't really end up showing much in the end. Wrap it back and forth between the fork, making sure to wrap it twice around each side- this helps secure it and make it strong and stay put. Don't wrap them too far apart or too close together- try to leave about half a centimeter or a centimeter between each warp thread. Wrap your warp thread TIGHT- no loosy-goosy- otherwise it is way too hard to weave; it's too floppy with no tension. Tie off the end of the yarn to the end of the fork (it helps to have an extra person help with this step so you don't lose the tension on the warps threads.) For the weaving part, we used these plastic needles from Roylco. I am obsessed with these. I use them for so many projects. They come in packs of 32 and are cheap. Cut off about two arm's length of the first colour you're going to weave with. Tie (double knot) the end to the bottom of one fork, just like the warp thread. Then thread on the needle. Start weaving vertically up through the warp threads- over, under, over, under. The first couple of rows don't look like much- it's once you get to row three that you can start pushing the rows down nice and snug parallel to the fork and it starts to look like an actual weaving. I had to keep telling the kids this b/c they were all complaining "mine doesn't look good!" etc. etc. Once you run out of the first colour, simply tie on a second colour to the end of the first colour and continue weaving. Some students only used one colour. how to tie on a new colour If you have more than one fork in your branch, you can weave the others, like I did here with my sample. Phew- all finished! It's a satisfying process though. Of course I like to take it a step further and added painted (acrylic) stripes to my branch. I thought this was a brilliant and very cool idea, an extra way to personalize the branch, but none of my students did it :( I felt it looked very "Anthropologie"-style . I often get inspiration from their window displays- I'm obsessed with them! Ta da! I was very happy with mine! Here's the students work- I taught this to a mixed group consisting of Grades 7 - 9. They all did well with it. My younger grades saw these in the art room and immediately asked "Why can't weeee dooo thaaat??!", so I did it with my other mixed elective class consisting of Grades 4 - 6. They also did well, but some of the Grade 4's needed help with the warp as well as really getting the hang of the weaving part. But all in all, they did quite well with it and LOVED it way more than my older kids did! I found that the students who had experience with knitting (many of my students take a popular knitting class at our school) did the best with this project. They were simply more confident in using yarn, having patience, tying knots, keeping the weaving tight, etc. Boys also do really well with this type of kinesthetic, tactile project. I had one boy ask if he could take his home to work on the school bus ride home- I love that! The yarn stayed surprisingly neat considering how many students were weaving throughout the week. Wrapping the warp threads below. This is one of the BIG branches- this student gave up halfway through and never finished. So don't use this size of branch!! Some of the completed ones:  Grade 4 Grade 4 Grade 4 Grade 4 Grade 5 Grade 6 Grade 8 Grade 8 This was one of the large branches that actually got completed. This Grade 7 girl is a knitter, so she was very confident. The branch is about 4 feet long- It came out amazing!!! And she used thin yarn!! Grade 7 Grade 9 Grade 9

This was a lesson I left for my Substitute Teacher when I was away at a conference. It is an introductory Op Art lesson, hence I used it with my Grade 6's. It is fairly easy, anyone can teach it and it uses limited materials (only markers). I found the lesson here on the Incredible Art Deaprtment website and altered it a bit. To be honest, I thought this lesson would be a bit boring, as it's just so much repetitive coloring. In the end, some kids did complain a bit (the rushers- heh, heh), but not as much as I expected. I often ask my students how they are enjoying the project if it's the first time I'm teaching it and they are very honest with me (sometimes too much!) -- it is a good gauge for me whether or not I will do the lesson again. With this one, the paper was quite large, so next time I would just use regular 8x10" (A4) paper. One warning- some of the markers ran out; other kids couldn't remember which colour they used the previous class- something to keep in mind if you teach this. Trace a variety of sizes of circle (we use plastic lids). Draw slightly wavy or straight lines in one direction; rotate the paper and draw some more lines. Don't draw too many lines or it gets too complicated to colour. Mark every other 'section' with a dot- this will be where the darker colour will go. These seem to look best when two very contrasting colors are used. In-progress Ta da!

The origins of this art lesson came from a pin that I found on Pinterest connecting to the blog B Art Z - Elementary Art. I have been SO excited to blog about my new and improved cup weaving lesson! So last year I attempted to do cup weaving with my some of my students.. and while I loved the results.. the process was infuriating! For some reason I thought it was a great idea to weave with plastic cups - which made sharp jagged edges when cut by children. When that didn't go smoothly I thought myself sooooo clever to switch to styrofoam cups - which ended up making spokes (warp strips) that snapped off when pulled on to much. FINALLY I figured it out - PAPER CUPS!! These work PERFECTLY!! It is easy for the kids to cut the strips themselves AND they are surprisingly very durable. **Get them in bulk here! The first thing I had my kids do was write their name on the bottom of their cup with a sharpie. Then they placed their upside-down cup onto a template I created and made a tick mark on the rim of the cup everywhere where they saw a triangle poking out - this gave them evenly spaced points to cut from. When cutting out the spokes/warp strips, it is extremely important to remember to cut out an odd number of strips so that when you are weaving your AB pattern, the pattern alternates each consecutive time around. I found that with the 9oz cups my kids were using, 9 strips turned out to be the perfect number. Once the strips were cut, students double-knotted a piece of yarn to one of the strips, then began weaving! This particular class worked for 5 days straight on this (they really are a wonderful group).. and I had a few students who even completed 3 very well done cups in this amount of time (a couple even got pulled for our county art show)! :)

This is a great lesson for teaching about the principles of rhythm and movement in art. I found the lesson on the Mrs. Art Teacher blog where she gives a detailed explanation of the project. Movement is definitely an area I rarely teach in my classes, so I was really happy to find this project as it seemed really fun for the students and so colourful as well. I taught this to a Grade 8 class and some fast finishers managed to finish it during one 90 minute class period, but I would recommend double that time to ensure good craftsmanship. I started off by showing some examples of the use of movement in Art. Artworks from the Futurism movement seem to work really well, as they show how to give the illusion of movement and speed through repetition of shapes. Discuss with students how the illusion of movement is created in these works (repetition, overlapping, diagonal lines, etc.) Rhythm is a principle of design that suggests movement or action. Rhythm is usually achieved through repetition of lines, shapes, colors, and more. It creates a visual tempo in artworks and provides a path for the viewer's eye to follow. "Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2", Marcel Duchamp, 1912 Source "Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash", Giacomo Balla, 1912 Source "Speed of a Motorcycle", Giacomo Balla, 1913 Source So start off with a sheet of black paper for the background and then choose three colours of bright coloured paper. I bought a pack (500 sheets) of multicoloured coloured printer paper from Staples- both brights and neon colours. I've also tried this with construction paper but I found the colours just too dull. Students need to flip through magazines looking for a full page figure in motion- someone walking or jumping or doing sports. I only had fashion magazines, but Mrs. Art Teacher recommends fitness or sporty mags like skateboarding/snowboarding, etc. Here's an example of a suitable figure: Do a 'bubble cut' around the figure and then paper-clip it to a stack of your chosen three colours. Then carefully cut it out. You'll need to move and reposition your paper-clips as you go. I encouraged the kids to really try and cut out the small details (hands, fingers, etc) but it might be too difficult for some. Any interior shapes need to be cut out using an x-acto knife. Save the coloured scraps of paper left from the cutting as students can swap with each other for the background shapes. Done. Then you'll have three figures in different colours. Now design the background. Choose three different coloured sheets of paper and cut out three shapes each of a variety of angular shapes (squares, triangles, rectangles, diamonds, etc.) The angular shapes contrast against the curves of the figure. Using a glue stick, glue these onto the black paper, trying to overlap the shapes in a balanced way. Then glue your figures on top, making sure to overlap and try to use a diagonal line of movement. My students had fun creating their compositions! Ta da!

This was a collaborative project I did with one of the Science teachers at my school. He was teaching his kids about food chains and wanted an art project to go along with it. He found THIS image via Pinterest as initial inspiration for the project. UPDATE: The poster was designed by art director and illustrator Dhanashri Ubhayakar for the magazine Sanctuary Asia, an Indian nature and wildlife conservation magazine. I turned the digital image into a collage project using construction paper. I used 12 x 18" construction paper. Have a background colour (in my case, turquoise). Then start with your largest animal (the top predator, I guess... the Science teacher explained this part to the kids, heh, heh) I folded my paper vertically so I only had to draw half the polar bear and it also made it symmetrical. I collaged on the eyes, nose and teeth from scraps of paper. Then make all the other animals slightly smaller... My messy workspace below.... Ok- once you have all the animals (our students were required to have 3 animals plus a plant) it's time to layer them and glue it all together. This took some fiddling and such, but I found it easiest to lay it all out and then start from gluing the smallest middle part first (the plant- I lost my mini tree) and work your way up. I used dots of white glue. It went faster than using a glue stick. Grade 7 student results!

This is a great lesson for when you have a Substitute teacher as you only need pencils, rulers and markers. There are many versions of this lesson floating around the internet~ this is how we did ours: First, I showed Grade 7 students samples of Op Art- works mainly by Hungarian artist Victor Vasarely, who is widely regarded as the father of the Op Art movement. From Wikipedia: Op Art is a style of visual art that makes use of optical illusions. Op art works are abstract, with many of the better known pieces made in only black and white. When the viewer looks at them, the impression is given of movement, hidden images, flashing and vibration, patterns, or alternatively, of swelling or warping. With students, discuss the idea of creating a 3-dimensional illusion of form and movement on a sheet of paper. Victor Vasarely, Vega-Nor, 1969 Trace some circles (2-3 and different sizes) on a sheet of thin white paper. We used the larger size of regular copy paper (11 x 17") but using 8.5 x 11" would take much less time. We use plastic lids which I hoard ;) to trace for the circles. Divide the circle down the middle, then add curved lines on either side- this helps give the illusion of form. Do the same thing the opposite way until you have a checkerboard design. Using a ruler, measure out a checkerboard design for the background. Don't make the squares too small or it will take FOREVER to colour. So this one below is all ready for colouring. Choose two colour of markers; contrasting colours seem to work best, in my opinion. Now, use your darker colour of marker and mark a small dot in every second square so you know where to use that colour. TIP: students should tape together the two colours they are using and label them with their name so they don't get confused next class as to which colour they used. I noticed this was a bit of a problem with this project, especially if students used the class set of markers. Colour, colour, colour. This is a good project for students to start at the beginning of the year, then keep it in their folder for 'I'm finished, what do I do now?" moments. It can be a bit repetitive to work on this for long periods of time, especially if you use larger paper. For the last magical step, use a piece of vine charcoal or a charcoal pencil, and outline/shade around one half of the sphere, blending it out with your finger. This helps give the illusion of the sphere 'popping' out of the background. Ta Da! Display board courtesy of my teaching assistant (Grade 9 student volunteer).

It Takes Two is the latest game from vocal indie developer Josef Fares. Like his other work, it focuses heavily on co-op gameplay. In an interview with The Verge, Fares talks about the game and his background in film.

The origins of this art lesson came from a pin that I found on Pinterest connecting to the blog B Art Z - Elementary Art. I have been SO excited to blog about my new and improved cup weaving lesson! So last year I attempted to do cup weaving with my some of my students.. and while I loved the results.. the process was infuriating! For some reason I thought it was a great idea to weave with plastic cups - which made sharp jagged edges when cut by children. When that didn't go smoothly I thought myself sooooo clever to switch to styrofoam cups - which ended up making spokes (warp strips) that snapped off when pulled on to much. FINALLY I figured it out - PAPER CUPS!! These work PERFECTLY!! It is easy for the kids to cut the strips themselves AND they are surprisingly very durable. **Get them in bulk here! The first thing I had my kids do was write their name on the bottom of their cup with a sharpie. Then they placed their upside-down cup onto a template I created and made a tick mark on the rim of the cup everywhere where they saw a triangle poking out - this gave them evenly spaced points to cut from. When cutting out the spokes/warp strips, it is extremely important to remember to cut out an odd number of strips so that when you are weaving your AB pattern, the pattern alternates each consecutive time around. I found that with the 9oz cups my kids were using, 9 strips turned out to be the perfect number. Once the strips were cut, students double-knotted a piece of yarn to one of the strips, then began weaving! This particular class worked for 5 days straight on this (they really are a wonderful group).. and I had a few students who even completed 3 very well done cups in this amount of time (a couple even got pulled for our county art show)! :)

Here is a new drawing assignment for 7th grade. I was inspired by a student who said that Halloween was the celebration of candy. I thought, "Yeah, that sounds about right!" as visions of pop art candy closeups danced in my head! Students took several closeup photos of various candies in wrappers using the square mode of their camera on their iPads. They then used the crop feature in their gallery to further enhance their composition, angling the candy and zooming in even more. Students enlarged their image to a 12 by 12 black paper. Using colored pencils, students recreated the candie's signature look, especially trying to copy the fonts of the label correctly. In addition to working with colored pencil pressure to create color value variations, we also layered white colored pencil on top of or under the colors to get the look of the plastic wrapper with highlights. Students then created an interesting background effect to complete their composition. It was great to see how lifelike these turned out to be!!!

Art projects that are fun for kids and bring in big bucks for your school auction!

10,000 years ago, terrible creatures called the Tskarii attempted to destroy mankind. One of the most powerful of the Tskarii: Yamura, has now returned and he intends to continue where he left off and wipe out humanity once and for all.

The Kingfisher Quilt has been my evening companion for the last few weeks. I've had a tray set up on my coffee table with all of the "bits" to make the hexies and then once they were done, to slowly hand applique the hexie flowers onto the background diamond shapes. It's been so enjoyable to take my time and just enjoy the process. Kingfisher Quilt by Anorina Morris Kingfisher Quilt - Layout From the moment I saw the picture of the original Kingfisher quilt, created and posted on Instagram by @TalesOfCloth I just knew that I wanted to make it too. And so, I did. Almost. It's almost there. It just needs a few borders and possibly some triangle EPP shapes in one of those borders - though I'm not sure I'll add the triangles to the border. I've followed along with @StitchedInColor to get all of the cutting and sewing instructions. Rachel has some great tips on how to sew those diamonds for the pointiest points in pointyville. Some of my points turned were fantastic (check out the image below). Other points were of the "finished is better than perfect" variety. I unpicked some rows so many times that the fabric started to get a little bit frayed, so I just went with it and opted for slightly 'less-than-pointy' points. It may not be completely an EPP quilt, but it's the closest I've ever come to one. I may have mentioned once or twice that I'm the slowest EPPer in the world so I'm very pleased to have stuck this out for so long. Now dear friends, border fabrics. I'd love your suggestions. Would you stay with the low volume fabrics for your borders? Or should I go with something darker/brighter/bolder? Chester, get off the quilt!!

Here are some photos from the ever popular 'stocking sculptures' made by some Grade 7/8 classes. I first did this lessons years ago when I was a student teacher. I found the original lesson plan here on the Incredible Art Department website. I followed the lesson step-by-step and it worked brilliantly. You essentially cut the end off a wire coat hanger, have a small block of wood with two holes drilled into it, and then put the wire ends in. bend it around to get a pleasing form, then stretch a knee high nylon over-top and around the wood base. Then you need to coat/prime it (gesso, house paint, whatever) a bunch of times. Then students paint it using acrylics (don't use tempera- it ends up cracking, a least it did with me). I spray them with gloss varnish afterwards for protection and shine. It's a great lesson for introducing the concept of Abstract art. After the sculptures are finished, as an extension, I have students do a black and white charcoal drawing of their piece (see photo below). This is a very popular projects and students can get really creative with these. You can see in the orange and white sculpture above, the student cut a hole through the nylon. I didn't think it would work, but it did! These were the sculptures made during my student teaching days. We used some metallic/pearlized paint and glitter for these- they turned out super cool!

Here are some photos from the ever popular 'stocking sculptures' made by some Grade 7/8 classes. I first did this lessons years ago when I was a student teacher. I found the original lesson plan here on the Incredible Art Department website. I followed the lesson step-by-step and it worked brilliantly. You essentially cut the end off a wire coat hanger, have a small block of wood with two holes drilled into it, and then put the wire ends in. bend it around to get a pleasing form, then stretch a knee high nylon over-top and around the wood base. Then you need to coat/prime it (gesso, house paint, whatever) a bunch of times. Then students paint it using acrylics (don't use tempera- it ends up cracking, a least it did with me). I spray them with gloss varnish afterwards for protection and shine. It's a great lesson for introducing the concept of Abstract art. After the sculptures are finished, as an extension, I have students do a black and white charcoal drawing of their piece (see photo below). This is a very popular projects and students can get really creative with these. You can see in the orange and white sculpture above, the student cut a hole through the nylon. I didn't think it would work, but it did! These were the sculptures made during my student teaching days. We used some metallic/pearlized paint and glitter for these- they turned out super cool!

People Too make fantastic whimsical art on sheet music. Busy little scenes are brought to life on each page… I love how the notes become structural aspects of the design. See more (and larger…

A couple of weeks ago, one of my fibre arts guild confrères gave me a lovely upholstery sample featuring an Indian elephant. At first I thought I'd make a conventional, geometrical quilt block with it. Then I decided that, because I am probably one of the worst, most imprecise quilters in the world (just ask my sister), the sample would be perfect for a crazy-quilt block. Crazy quilting is less a type of quilting—quilting being the pattern of stitching that binds the layers together—than a type of patchwork. Crazy quilts rarely have an internal layer of batting, and are perhaps more conventionally considered a type of textile art. Framed crazy-quilt block by Janet Stauffacher. Source: http://www.vintagevogue.com/html/crazy_quilting.html In crazy quilting, various pieces of fabric are combined in a pattern that has less to do with a preset design, and more to do with creating something that is visually pleasing. Once the base fabrics are arranged and attached—either by hand, or with a sewing machine—the individual patches and seams are heavily embellished with embroidery, braid, buttons, beads, ribbon and anything else that takes the designer's fancy. This is what gives crazy quilting its charm. Crazy quilting is thought to have been inspired in the United States by the Japanese Exhibit at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition. Intrigued by the asymmetrical Japanese art in the exhibit, women began experimenting with fabric placement in their quilts, and crazy quilting was born. During the 1880s, crazy quilting became something of a, well, craze. Women's publications featured articles both for and against. Shops offered packages of random fabrics, and even pre-embellished pieces, for sale. For the first decade or so, crazy quilting usually featured fine fabrics such as silk, velvet and lace, and the quilts were heavily embellished. As time passed, women began making crazy quilts using everyday fabrics, and little or no embellishment was added. The benefit of crazy quilting for thrifty women was that it allowed them to use odd-shaped scraps of fabric left over from various sewing projects. Today, crazy quilting has entered the realm of fine craft, and is often the subject of museum and gallery exhibitions. In addition, early crazy quilts have become highly collectible, and there are numerous books and websites devoted to both collecting and creating crazy quilts. Crazy quilt from 1892–1893. Source: http://www.crazyquilts.ca/CQGallery.html I've been thinking about making a crazy quilt for years, and have all kinds of scraps of fabrics such as silk, velvet, satin and lace waiting to be used. Because I'm so terrible at regular quilting, I suppose I've been a bit daunted by the idea of quilting anything, but since I have a bit of extra time today, I thought I'd give it a try. For today's elephant, I'm using the sample given to me by Frances as my inspiration and starting point. The sample measures 24 x 17.5 cm (approx. 9.5 x 7 inches), with the main interest obviously being the elephant. But I also like the partial frame around the elephant, so I'm going to try to incorporate it somehow. I decided to sew the fabrics together on a sewing machine, as I expected the embellishment to take a great deal of time. I wasn't planning on a huge block, as I only have a day to work on this, but I thought that about 30 x 30 cm (12 x 12 inches) would be a good size. I dragged out my boxes of velvet and silk scraps, and started choosing colours that I thought worked well with the original sample. These are more or less what I chose, although I reserved the right to change my mind. To start, I pinned on a strip of red dupioni silk, then stitched it, folded it right way out, and ironed it. Next, I did the same with a strip of lime green silk. After this, I just kept adding pieces of silk and velvet, until the elephant was surrounded. Once the elephant was surrounded, it was time to finish the block. Since I wanted it to be 30 cm (12 inches) square when completed, I made it 33 cm (13 inches) square. This would leave me a seam allowance all the way around, in case I should ever decide to actually sew it to something. To end up with a square, and to make sure the elephant was dead centre, I measured 16.5 cm (6.5 inches) from the centre to each side, and to the top and bottom. I needed to add fabric, so I pieced the edges together until I had more than enough. I then cut a muslin square measuring 33 x 33 cm (13 x 13 inches), and sewed it to the back of my pieced quilt block, making sure to centre it over the elephant. I then trimmed all the edges. It was now ready for trims and whatever other embellishments took my fancy. I pulled out a bunch of ribbon, passementerie, sparkly things like sequins and beads, exotic embroidery threads, lace, and whatever else seemed to go with the patchwork block. I wasn't sure what I would end up using out of all this, but it was a place to start. To begin the embellishment phase, I added a scrap of tasselled trim. Next, I added some jaquard ribbon to one of the seams. After this, I added ribbon to a few other seams, although I reserved some joins for embroidered embellishing. Pretty much anything goes when it comes to crazy quilting, so I added whatever appealed to me—from whatever I actually had on hand. Next, because crazy quilting usually has embroidery on it, I began by embroidering a couple of seams. I'm woefully out of practice when it comes to embroidery, so it's not as extravagant or as neat as it could be. I embroidered a few more seams, added a flower, added some beads, and then ran out of time. I like the final result well enough, although it doesn't feel anywhere near finished yet. However, this took me most of the day, so finishing it will have to wait for another time. If you had a lot of time, this would be a great way to use up scraps of fabric, bits of trim and so forth. But it's definitely more time-consuming than I expected it to be. And I think it would look a lot better in combination with other blocks to offset some of the, well, craziness. Elephant Lore of the Day It is generally accepted that elephants are among the most intelligent creatures on Earth—and apparently they sometimes have a sense of humour to match. One of my favourite stories tells of a bull elephant named Charles, who was trying to push over a large tree in a Kenya reserve. A group of conservationists watched Charles for awhile, laughing at his frustration. Perhaps realizing that he was the source of their amusement, Charles suddenly stopped what he was doing, walked over to the conservationists and knocked down a smaller tree, sending it crashing onto their landrover. Charles then tossed its head and walked off into the bush. To Support Elephant Welfare World Wildlife Fund World Society for the Protection of Animals Elephant sanctuaries (this Wikipedia list allows you to click through to information on a number of sanctuaries around the world) Performing Animal Welfare Society Zoocheck Bring the Elephant Home African Wildlife Foundation Elephants Without Borders Save the Elephants

In the 1970s, she pinned dirty nappies to a gallery wall. Today, Mary Kelly spins war memorials from mountains of tumble-dryer lint. At her home in Bel Air, the feminist pioneer reveals 40 years of shock tactics

This was a super fun Halloween art project I did with my Grade 4-6 mixed elective class- the famous "Witches Legs" you see all over Pin...

This was a super fun collaborative project I did with the Grade 7 Social Studies teacher at my school. He's a very creative teacher and is always looking for ways to incorporate art projects into his lessons. His students were studying the Vikings and their early exploration in Canada (the famous L'Anse aux Meadows site, dated circa 1000 AD, located in the Province of Newfoundland) L'Anse aux Meadows is the only confirmed Norse site in North America outside Greenland. It represents the farthest-known extent of European exploration and settlement of the New World before the voyages of Christopher Columbus almost 500 years later. I was super stoked to teach a Vikings themed art lesson partly because I'm obsessed with the TV show "Vikings" on the History channel. It's a Canadian/Irish production and is beautifully filmed and brilliantly acted. The lead Viking, Ragnar, is amazing! I showed the kids photos of ancient Viking longships. We learned their features and characteristics. Then, on thick white paper, students started by drawing out their ship in pencil. Then they outlined it all with Sharpies. . They had the option of using pencil crayons or watercolours to colour in the ship. Then, I demoed how to mix and use watercolours in a wet-on-wet technique for the sky and sea. I encouraged them to have the sea a rough blue/grey colour as it's supposed to be the Atlantic ocean. I loved how they all turned out. Of course I HAD to include Ragnar in my display, lol! I love walking past him everyday!! (and the artwork too, of course ;)

This is a super cute lesson I taught in collaboration with the Grade 3 teacher at my school. It's based on the book "What if You Had Animal Teeth" by Sandra Markle. The students read the book with their classroom teacher and then researched different types of animal teeth. Then drew a final sketch of the teeth they would use in their art project. For the lesson, I referred to the lesson posted HERE on the blog "First Grade Wow". Nancy includes a Google doc link to some handy templates which worked great for this particular project. I started off by having the kids pick a matching skin tone sheet of construction paper. I order this 'multicultural' construction paper from PACON- it's great. Then students cut out the template for the head and traced it onto the construction paper. Then they do the same thing for the open mouth and the tongue. Glue everything together with a glue stick. They cut strips of paper for their hair; this was probably the trickiest step for everyone. Then they drew on a face (eyes and nose essentially) and traced over it in black marker. On white paper, they drew their chosen teeth and then cut them out and glued them onto the open mouth. In their Grade 3 class, they had to do a little write-up about their teeth- some facts and whatnot. I mounted these onto construction paper and glued them to their self-portrait. I think they came out so fun and have such personalities!! Great white shark teeth were, by far, the most popular! Beaver Great white shark Narwal- their horn is actually a tooth!

These Jen Aranyi inspired landscapes have been floating around various art blogs and I was excited to try them! I looked at Cassie Stephen's excellent post for inspiration HERE. Jen's Instagram has videos of her painting and drawing process so I showed these to my Grade 4 - 6 class for inspiration. I pre-traced large circles onto heavy white paper. Students started by sketching out their mountains and shading them using hatching lines. They outlined this using ultra fine tip Sharpies. Then they drew evergreen trees along the bottom. Once everything was outlined, they painted the sky using watercolours. Some Grade 4 - 6 results:

Whip up this quick craft in about a minute to bring a little sparkle to your next party with these darling glittery starry night luminaries!

Here's an absolutely stunning faux stained glass project my junior high students recently finished. These are made from black construction paper and tissue paper. They took about a month or so to finish, due to the intricate nature of all the steps. To start off, I showed students a slideshow about the stained glass in Western Europe during the Middle Ages. I showed them a video of how stained glass is made (the technique hasn't really changed in hundreds of years!). So then students started planning their own design. It could be any subject matter. I demonstrated how to make one using thick black construction paper. The key thing is you don't want the lead lines too this. I told them a minimum of 1 cm thickness, but many made them thinner! This resulted in lots of torn bits that they had to tape together on the back. So here are the basic supplies- mini cutting boards, x-acto knives and parchment paper. Make sure you use good quality and nice pure black construction paper. Tru-ray is the best brand in my experience. Anything less than that doesn't not cut cleanly and is too flimsy. To make it symmetrical, some student folded their paper in half vertically. They drew their design in white pencil crayon. Shading in what needs to be cut out really helps. Include a border as well, to hold the whole thing together. A finished cut piece. Then cut a sheet of parchment paper slightly larger and trace the black paper outline onto it and cut that out. This will be what you glue the tissue paper too. There are two ways to attach the coloured tissue paper. I call the first way kaleidoscope. Using watered-down glue, just collage various ripped colours of tissue onto the parchment paper And voila. Let the tissue paper dry and then glue the black paper on top carefully using white glue. The second method is if students want a specific colour for each section. You basically cut tissue slightly larger than each space and glue stick it on the back. This technique takes a bit longer. Here's some more progress photos: back view I hung these in a long hallway with lots of windows and they looked stunning with the light shining through!

These charming 'portraits with shadows' were made by Gr.3 students. I found the idea at the elementary art blog: " An Art Room Fille...

This is an old photograph that I've attempted to restore. The pretty little girl is my maternal grandmother, and the picture was taken by an unknown photographer around 1904. My grandmother had jet black hair (her hair had very little gray when she died in her eighties) and dark eyes and the longest black eyelashes I've ever seen. She was part Cherokee and an interesting and capable woman who read everything she could get her hands on, grew a tremendous variety of plants that she traded for with flower-enthusiasts from all over the country, and collected herbs from the woods for folk remedies. She was also one of the hardest working people I have ever known--both my grandmothers were amazing women who were extraordinarily self-sufficient. This picture must have been taken when Ruby was about four years old. Itinerant photographers traveled to farms and took pictures such as this one (probably shot outside in front of a jury-rigged backdrop) in the early part of the twentieth century. The photograph was terribly faded, spotty, and most detail has been lost after having been stored in less-than-optimal conditions for over one hundred years, but I did my best to restore it.

Residential schools were church-run schools where approximately 150,000 Métis, Inuit and First Nations children were sent between the 1860s and the 1990s. The schools harmed Indigenous children by removing them from their families, forcing them to speak English or French instead of their ancestral languages, disconnecting them from their culture and traditions and forcing them to adopt Christianity in order to assimilate into Canadian society. Many of the children were abused. The government has since acknowledged that this approach was wrong, cruel and ineffective, and offered an official apology to the Indigenous people of Canada in 2008. Orange Shirt Day was started in 2013 by residential school survivor Phyllis Webstad, who went to a residential school in Williams Lake, British Columbia. The day is named after an experience she had on her first day of school when she was just six years old. She arrived wearing a new orange shirt that her grandmother had bought her, but school staff stripped it from her. To Phyllis, the colour orange has always reminded her of her experiences at residential school and, as she has said, “how my feelings didn’t matter, how no one cared and I felt like I was worth nothing. All of us little children were crying and no one cared.” The event takes place on Sept. 30 every year because it’s the day that many Indigenous children were forced to leave their homes. The message that Phyllis wants to pass along on Orange Shirt Day — and every day — is that every child matters. Orange Shirt Day was started by Phyllis to educate people about residential schools and fight racism and bullying. Many schools across Canada now recognize Orange Shirt Day. All students and staff wear an orange shirt. This year, every homeroom in our school received a large t-shirt cut out of orange poster board. My class (Grade 6) went with the idea of "Students at school should feel...." They brainstormed different words. I printed out a template of feather shapes. I used the template found HERE from the Wedding Chicks website. Then tinted them a natural colour using liquid watercolours. Students wrote their words on the feathers and cut them out. I then glued them all over the t-shirt. Please visit https://www.orangeshirtday.org/ for more ideas on how to get involved in this day.

These charming 'portraits with shadows' were made by Gr.3 students. I found the idea at the elementary art blog: "An Art Room Filled with Fauves". The supplies you'll need are: white drawing paper strips (1-2") of colored paper black paper (for the shadow) colored paper (for the background) glue stick, scissors, pencils colored pencils or markers So start off with the kids drawing a full figure person- you could make it a self-portrait lesson, or kids might research a famous historical person (to link with Social Studies), whatever. I gave the kids free reign to choose whomever they liked. Draw this lightly in pencil, then colour with media of your choice; we used colored pencils. Carefully cut out the figure. Place upside-down onto black paper and slowly trace with a light colored pencil. This will be the shadow- cut out. Decide where is the best placement for the shadow- I found it works slightly above or below to either the left or the right hand side. For the border, I pre-cut a bunch of construction paper using a paper cutter- it went really fast. These were about 1 inch thick or so. Kids will cut these into squares and glue them around their background paper to create a simple border. Ta da!

This was a super fun Halloween art project I did with my Grade 4-6 mixed elective class- the famous "Witches Legs" you see all over Pin...

This was the second project I did with my Grade 7's during our "Art of Japan" unit. They designed their own kimono using a version of a bookmark template found here on the Crayola website. Kimonos are the beautiful traditional floor length robes worn mostly by Japanese women on special occasions. They are very expensive (often exceeding $10,000!) and beautifully patterned. I showed students examples of kimonos and then had them sketch ideas for a pattern in their sketchbooks. Image Source Image Source Each student got a blank template (which I modified from the one on the Crayoyla site) showing a very basic kimono with the robe, body and Obi (the sash). There were lots of Obi-Wan Kenobi jokes during this demo...lol I drew my own simple template and then photocopied it onto regular paper. When I do this project again, I would copy it onto cardstock, as the regular paper was too thin, really. I mean, it worked, but cardstock would be better (more sturdy). Draw your design/pattern in pencil then colour in with colored pencils or markers or watercolours. Students could do any type of pattern they wanted- not only traditional. Here's a camouflage pattern below, for example. Draw a little face. Colouring with markers..... Then cut all the pieces out... The Crayola sheet shows how to fold it all together- I also walked around and helped the kids individually fold it. It's quite simple. Here they are lined up and chilling out against the whiteboard. If you have a laminator, I would laminate them to make perfect bookmarks (and to make them sturdier). Ta da! On display with their 'Cherry Blossom' paintings.

I thought I'd try cutting some flowery initials and this is my first attempt (in progress). The idea is that they could be made into notelets or just put in a simple frame.

After a few years of having this project on my 'to teach' list, I finally got around to trying paper plate weaving with my Grade 4-6 mixed class. I saw the original idea HERE on the amazing website of Cassie Stephens. I followed her direction exactly and the weavings turned out really well. I HIGHLY recommend only using Chinet brand plates as Cassie states. I tried it with a thinner paper plate and it did not hold up well. So stick with Chinet or the sturdiest brand you can find. Students started off by painting their plates using tempera. They could use any colours/patterns they wanted to. They had a lot of fun with this step and thought it was pretty cool painting on plates. They didn't fit in my drying rack so we left them on the floor to dry overnight. I collected yarn like a madwoman from garage sales and thrift stores. Then a colleague, who I was sharing yarn with, colour coded all the yarn into different plastic bags- sweet! I laid all these out onto a couple of tables so my kids could see the variety of colours and textures available. Following the directions on Cassie's blog, students wrapped their warp (I demonstrated two times, then we did it together) and then they started weaving using the same warp string. My kids have done paper weaving before and most caught on pretty quickly. Once they have had enough of one colour, they tie on a new colour and keep weaving. The kids LOVED this project and they all turned out really nice :)

This was a super fun project my Grades 4- 6 mixed elective class did at the end of this school year. They LOVED this project- some even made 2 or 3. I pretty much followed the excellent instructions posted HERE on the "We Heart Art" blog. She found the idea on the Fine Lines blog. I was worried we would have to use that chunky yarn (of which I had none) but regular yarn worked well. I collect empty cereal boxes from my students all year long and stockpile them for projects such as these. Students drew some type of abstract pattern on the card. I encouraged them to use shapes as opposed to open lines as we would be colouring these in. Of course some did non-abstract images and some used some open lines and they all worked out regardless :) Once the lines were drawn, students passed over the lines using regular white glue. Then they put pieces of yarn on top. We let these dry overnight. It's important to use heavy duty aluminium foil for this next step. It's just sturdier and thicker. Students cut a piece off the roll that was about an inch larger than their cardboard. Then they covered the back of the tin foil liberally with a glue stick. They need to use ALOT and do it carefully in one direction so the foil doesn't bunch up and rip. Other blogs used spray glue for this step but I didn't have any- the glue stick worked pretty well. Then put the foil over-top and, starting from the center, gently rub over the design using a small square of felt. It really works for buffing the foil over the yarn. Take your time with this step- the more you carefully rub around the yarn, the better the final artwork will work. Some students tended to rush this step. Once it's all glued down, I show students how to neatly wrap the foil onto the back- a technique I used during my book-making phase ;) Then the fun part: colouring the whole image with coloured Sharpies! Don't colour the raised yarn part. Here are Grades 4 - 6 results: This students did 2: one using cool colours and one using warm colours

Fork weaving is a genius quick craft for kids. Perfect for providing a gentle structure to the witching hour before dinner, or for bringing to a restaurant!

This was a collaborative project I did with one of the Science teachers at my school. He was teaching his kids about food chains and wanted an art project to go along with it. He found THIS image via Pinterest as initial inspiration for the project. UPDATE: The poster was designed by art director and illustrator Dhanashri Ubhayakar for the magazine Sanctuary Asia, an Indian nature and wildlife conservation magazine. I turned the digital image into a collage project using construction paper. I used 12 x 18" construction paper. Have a background colour (in my case, turquoise). Then start with your largest animal (the top predator, I guess... the Science teacher explained this part to the kids, heh, heh) I folded my paper vertically so I only had to draw half the polar bear and it also made it symmetrical. I collaged on the eyes, nose and teeth from scraps of paper. Then make all the other animals slightly smaller... My messy workspace below.... Ok- once you have all the animals (our students were required to have 3 animals plus a plant) it's time to layer them and glue it all together. This took some fiddling and such, but I found it easiest to lay it all out and then start from gluing the smallest middle part first (the plant- I lost my mini tree) and work your way up. I used dots of white glue. It went faster than using a glue stick. Grade 7 student results!

Honestly it only cost me about $60 including wood and hardware to build this Easel. I scaled it to be tall, like many of the Painter's easels I have been lookin…

This past weekend I spent a bit of time figuring out how to make some adorable origami faces. After several failed attempts, I shortened the directions... and voila! I love how they turned out! Sculptural and modern, they are so fun to make and uber cool to display! Paper Sculptures- Making Origami Faces with Kids! This post contains affiliate links. Thank you for your support! Now I definitely CANNOT take credit for the idea or the steps. I found this Easy Origami book from the library. Definitely check that book out because the designs and ideas are stunning! Today I'm posting the directions here because I found the steps to this origami craft pretty confusing. (I'm an origami newbie.) So I shortened the original steps, clarified other confusing steps, and added some cute extra details! To make this craft, you'll need: Origami Paper Scissors Glue Stick and/or Tape Markers Pencil Let's watch an origami video tutorial! Here's a video showing how I made these faces. The directions are a lot clearer than my photographed steps below. So I'd recommend watching it first (Oh, and apologies for my quiet voice. I shoot outside and my neighbor was out barbecuing. So I felt a bit shy recording myself!) Directions to Fold Origami Faces from Pink Stripey Socks on Vimeo. How to Fold Origami Faces Fold your paper in half diagonally. Fold it in half again. Open up your paper. (The folds will help guide our folding later!) Now we're going to figure out how to fold our left corner about 1/4 of the way on the left side. To do that, I first folded my left corner to the middle and then gently pressed down to mark where the 1/2 way mark was. Then, I folded my left corner to the 1/2 way mark. (Cool!) To make a similar fold on the other side, I folded the paper in half. Then, I folded the corner right over. Now I have a fold about 1/4 of the way on the right side too. Open it up and admire your folds. Now fold the paper in half. Now we're going to make the corner of the left white triangle meet the the middle fold about 1/3 of the way down. (I marked both of those spots with my fingers.) Then, fold down! Repeat this process with the other side, making an identical, matching fold! Fold your right triangle up to meet the top of your face. Fold the left side similarly. Make sure that the two corners of your triangle touch the middle folded line. Here comes the tricky part. (You may want to watch the movie.) We're going to make the nose. To do that, we have to first fold some guiding lines to help the paper bend the right way. The guiding lines are basically just us folding our paper around the eye folds onto the other side. Ready? Ok. Flip your face over. Then, fold the left side of your paper back, following the line of the folds from the other side. Make sure to end your crease at the middle line. Lift up the left side and and repeat this same process with the other side. When you open it up, you should have two folds like this that stop at the middle line. Now we're going to fold two more lines. Lift up your origami face and press down, tracing the top fold from the other side. Open your face back up. Repeat the same process with your right side. When you open it up, you'll have folds like this. (See? They are folds in the exact places as your eyes from the back side.) Push down the top flap and you've created some cheeks. Push your nose side to side to help with the next step. Put your finger into the "nostrils" Then push down on the triangle to create a nose shape. (This will take some finessing!) Fold the bottom corner up to create a lip! Now fold the two corners back to create lips. Then, use markers, scissors, and other sheets of origami paper to decorate your faces! And if you liked this modern origami craft, definitely check out my other origami and paper folding crafts! Here are some of my faves! Folding Popsicle Stick Fan Origami Black Cat Colorful Kirigami Flowers Gorgeous Tissue Paper Flowers Calder Paper Sculptures Let's keep in Contact! You can always find fun ideas on my Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter accounts! (Or subscribe to my email mailing list by filling out the pink bar at the top of your screen.) Happy making, friends!