Creative Kids

When you're looking to draw figures in motion in art, the obvious place to go is the "stick figure" to start.  In fact, many artists have used their own version of the basic stick man in their art for years.  Keith Haring wanted his "bubble figures" to be universal -- they could be every man or woman.  In fourth grade we make collages inspired by Haring's figures.  Students draw and cut out the figures, putting them on a background with props and "action lines."  The students love to create them jumping on trampolines, riding horses, playing sports, and dancing to music.  It's not always easy to just draw a figure into an imaginary pose, though, so we have a couple of tricks up our sleeves to practice poses.  The first is "gesture drawing!"  Gesture drawing is doing a quick sketch of a person who is posing for you.  At school I invite students up into the front of the room to pose for me, and then I draw them as a stick figure o

Do you know what so many of my students LOVE to draw over and over again?  Animals they love.  For many it is their pets (our pet count increased by 6 last week but more on that later...) .  For some it is a pet maybe they wish they had.  Just over two years ago, my family took in our cat Fritz as a foster cat, and he wound up staying with us for good.  Our boys love him more than anything and he has turned into the subject of many of their comic books: Aidan uses "Fritzie" as a character in many of his drawings. When we went to the Columbus Museum of Art this winter we also found some pet-type animals on display -- James Thurber often depicted a dog in his newspaper and book drawings, and in the interactive kids area, we were invited to create with Post-It notes, so of course we left a cat behind.  When I was in high school our dog was the subject of several of my art projects. He was a cock-a-poo, which is just a medium sized, very furry white dog.  I

If the dinosaurs came back. ... ...what would happen?!? Where would they go first? How would the people there react? Would they be helpful or harmful? All of these are fun questions we've explored when reading Bernard Most's "If the Dinosaurs Came Back" with kindergarten and first graders. What do you think??  What would happen?? Click HERE for the read aloud of "If the Dinosaurs Came Back" by Bernard Most Using black and white art tools, create a scene that shows WHERE the dinosaurs are going to be (city, school, neighborhood, beach, mountains) Draw your dinosaurs on a separate piece of paper.  You could use construction paper or white paper and color them in.  If you need some ideas, click here , but I bet you can create your own too! "Bubble cut" your dinosaurs (cut close to the lines, but not on them) Glue your dinosaurs onto your drawing.  You can play with moving them around to find "just the right spot

Today the Stoycheff boys and I jumped into the world of online art making programs.   When our district art teacher team was asked to compile a list of suggested activities for students to do at home, I mainly added to  the pencil and paper lists.  My colleagues, though, had some great online activity recommendations.  Today we tried two, and added a new one of our own! Link to the Tate Paint Website!! Tate Paint has a lot of fun tools and is you classic computer paint program for kids.  Both of the kids dove right in and used the colors and tools to create their own colorful masterpieces!!  Bonus -- you can share your work on the online kid gallery!  You can also download what they made.  I shared Eli's with his art teacher. Eli's Tate Paint -- "The Super Duper Volcano" Next, we tried out Toy Theater's Art for Kids games: This one had a lot more variety for kids to choose from.  Probably better for some of our younger stude

I happen to enjoy taking photos of beautiful places for fun.  The funny thing is that my phone is so full of photos I haven't actually kept as many of them as I had thought, and my digital camera is pretty outdated.  Still I love doing it... Rock stacks at twilight by Lake Erie in Lakeside, OH Fall leaves on the trail in the Great Smoky Mountains Reflections of trees in the water near a stream in the Smokies Earlier this year I was asked to take on an "artist date" for one of my Masters classes.  I had to spend several hours doing something artistic.  My husband likes to cook so we teamed up...he was going to cook and I was going to draw the food.  Only half way through I picked up my camera instead.  You see, I LOVE taking photos that make everyday things look unusual.  When you frame your picture a certain way on purpose to make it look more interesting or artistic, that's COMPOSITION.  So I love taking photos with unusual composition: