How do you choose what to paint or draw when there are so many choices in front of you? Whether your subject is a landscape, still life, or portrait, arranging your composition can be challenging when your options feel limitless. A viewfinder can help you select your best option. A viewfinder is a simple tool you can make yourself with strips of cardboard or popsicle … [Read more...]
Patriotic Noisemaker Tacos
Take your summer craft projects to the next level when you include the Elements of Art (line, shape, form, space, texture, value, color) and the Principles of Design (contrast, rhythm, proportion, balance, unity, emphasis, movement, and variety). Look for ways you can weave some of this art vocabulary into every project you teach, like I've done with the project below. Be … [Read more...]
Water Bottle Fish
What can you do with a plastic water bottle besides just recycle it?? Here’s one idea…. make something fishy!! Celebrate civic engagement through art making! In honor of their 30th anniversary, the Children’s Museum of Art in NYC is issuing a new creative challenge each month. Are you ready to get creative? The #CMACIVICKIDS challenge for April is the "Plastic Bottle … [Read more...]
Paper Chain of Kindness
One of the most important things we can teach our kids is kindness. Kindness can be shown by small, spontaneous gestures that are thoughtful, helpful, and caring - done without expectation of anything in return. Acts of kindness are simple to do, yet it's easy to miss the opportunities to show kindness that are all around us, if we're not looking for them. Kids … [Read more...]
Mix ‘n Match Faces
Each month brings a new challenge with the Children’s Museum of the Arts (CMA) CIVIC KIDS campaign! Their theme for November is “Equity”…. perfect for election month, don’t you think?! equity noun 1 the equity of society: fairness, justness, impartiality, egalitarianism; objectivity, balance, open-mindedness." The challenge is open to kids everywhere… you don’t need to … [Read more...]
