I have long had an appreciation for Louisiana cajun artist George Rodrigue (1944-2013), famous for his colorful and graphic blue dog paintings.  Here is a short video about him if you're interested.  

My 7-12 year old students in homeschool elementary classes and Afterschool Art Club created their own giant blue dog paintings, complete with unique backgrounds.  I walked them through the steps of drawing a blue dog, first in their sketchbooks, and then enlarged onto 12x18 thick paper.  We taped off the edges so we would get a crisp white frame in the end.  The kids used bingo daubers filled with India ink to create a bold outline around their dogs, then they used acrylic paints to add bright colors.  We talked about color choice to create contrast and visual interest.  What a fun project!  Check out the slideshow of their work.

I love taking my elementary students on an exploration of different media, subjects, and ideas.  These first 6 weeks have seen us blowing around blobs of paint with straws, drawing llamas, making yarn tassels, coloring foxes, embossing metal, and creating glowing night landscapes!  I often share a personal story or read a story to whet their imaginations, and we often warm up with a guided drawing in our sketchbooks.

My favorite project so far has been these fabulous foxes.  The kids used oil pastels to build up the layers of fur, then they smudged chalk pastels to make a magical background.  Instead of guiding them step by step as I sometimes do, I gave them a photograph of a fox and let them translate that into their own art.  I love each of their interpretations!

My classes always seem to enjoy foil embossing, and this year we explored a seasonal theme.  My Tuesday class made 4 small squares representing each season and mounted on a long panel.  My Wednesday classes did one large fall scene based on their idea of a perfect fall day.  Students draw their designs on paper first, then tape the paper to the back side of the foil and press the design into the foil.  I teach them several ways to create interesting texture.  

For Halloween week, we enjoyed glow parties in all the classes.  I dropped the blackout shades, turned on the black lights, and put on my glowiest costume...a "glow troll."  We used black and fluorescent paints to create these beautiful, VanGogh inspired landscapes.  Some of the kids wore costumes and we ended the class with a bowl of popcorn and candies.  Enjoy our slideshow!

I LOVE working with my teen students in homeschool intermediate art!  They run the gamut of lively to shy to serious to lighthearted, and their personalities come out in their art.  We have started the year with skill building exercises, focusing on drawing from observation with the "right side of the brain," and improving our shading techniques using ink, graphite, charcoal, and pastel.  Our first project was to decorate their sketchbook covers with "expressive hands" and then we moved into still life contour drawings and still life value (shading) pieces.  Next up are graphite dragon eyes!

In addition to our creative endeavors, we spend 10 minutes of most classes discussing an artist or painting.  So far we have discussed the work of Imanuel Leutz, Thomas Cole, and Otto Dix.  All of the art we study this year will be on exhibit at the Marine Art Museum of MN in Winona, where we will visit in May.  

​I will soon let them loose to play with color, but for now, we're in the black and white phase, and next up are "Dragon Eyes!"  Here is a slideshow of their work so far: 

Here are their sketchbook covers, based on the lesson "Expressive Hands."  The students were asked to create hands that somehow illustrated their interests and personalities.  I found the final pieces fascinating, especially when they explained the symbolism to me.  It helped me get to know them a bit more.

We did play around with some colors when we had our Halloween Week Glow Parties under black lights.  We used black and fluorescent acrylics, and taped the edges down so we would have a nice, crisp frame when the tape was removed.  So fun!  

The students did a great job on their "finish the picture" homework assignment.  I was delighted with their work!  Some of them put hours of work in at home each week to create incredible work.  

Each October, I like to offer an adult watercolor class that explores the colors and themes of autumn.  This year we painted pumpkins and loose florals after we created a fun swatch of autumn colors.  My Koi watercolor pan sets, though very affordable, never disappoint in their rich, saturated colors.  My goal is to teach students how to properly load their brushes with the right paint:water ratio, and then how to use the brushes to their full potential.  That's where the magic happens. 

Each student has her own flair with the paints, even though I demonstrate "my way" of painting.  I LOVE encouraging individuality within a framework.  I try to model laughing at yourself and reframing "mistakes." And I enjoy simply spending time with women who make creative expression a priority.  

Enjoy the slideshow...

When I choose an art project for my students, I think about what new vocabulary and drawing skills they could learn, what new media they could try, and how they can connect to the subject.  Sometimes I pull themes from literature or science.  This "Llamas in Perspective" lesson, adapted from a Deep Space Sparkle lesson, had it all!  

First we talked about the life and talents of the llama, particularly the Peruvian llama...how they are pack animals who help humans, how they spit when they are agitated and sit down stubbornly when they are overburdened.  I told the kids I use llama poop on my plants because it's a great "unscented" fertilizer! 

We practiced a llama drawing in their sketchbooks.  I love that many of the students said they drew them all week long at home.  We then talked about drawing and painting tricks that fool the eye into perceiving depth as we drew our scene together, step by step, and went over the lines with Sharpie.  Students were free to add their own little details, decorations, and paint colors to individualize their work.  We used tempera cakes, which are similar to watercolors, on heavy duty Bristol paper.  

Finally, we "embellished" our mounted picture with handmade tassels.  I told them that tassel-making is a "handicraft" that the Peruvians would do to decorate their llamas.  The lesson took two 90-minute class periods.  Check out the slideshows below.

TUESDAY CLASS

WEDNESDAY CLASSES

Afterschool Art Club is something new I've added to the schedule this year, and it's been a blast!  Twelve lively students gather on Thursday afternoons to create wonderful art, and for our first project, we created optical illusion "agamagraphs."  Pioneered by the artist Yaacov Agam,  this kinetic style art changes as the viewer moves.  Two of Agam's pieces can be found in the Mayo Clinic art collection.  I'm a big fan!

This project took 3 weeks of 75 minute classes to complete.  Each student created a starburst name picture on and an optical illusion "wormie" picture, which they colored with sharpie and watercolor on 140 lb. watercolor paper. Then we cut both into 1 inch slices and mounted them alternately to an accordion folded page.  The final effect is so cool!  If you stand to the left, you see one image and when you move to the right it morphs to the other image.  Check out the slideshow below!  

I feel so very fortunate to have over 70  homeschooled students come to my studio each week, in 5 different classes, to create art and build friendships.  These kids are respectful, eager learners who are endlessly creative and thoughtful.  And as a 20+ year homeschooling veteran of 3 kids who have blossomed into creative, high quality humans, I can say, "I GET homeschoolers."  

In the first 2 weeks of art classes, we have played with paint, practiced drawing skills, analyzed Leutz's "Washington Crosses the Delaware," played games, and created sketchbook covers.  Here are some slideshows of our time together so far.  I'll post photos from the intermediate class when we complete our sketchbook covers.  

Day 5:  Thailand

We enjoyed a video about a family who traveled to Thailand and then read a book called The Umbrella Queen and painted with liquid watercolors on paper lanterns.  We cooked up some veggie stir fry and rice noodles.  We topped it off with watermelon slushies.  The kids enjoyed shopping at the studio store, too!  
Recipe:  https://damndelicious.net/2014/05/24/watermelon-slush/  (I skipped the sugar)

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One of the highlights of my summer was enjoying a break from art camps to run a 5-day drama camp.  This week we performed an original mini-musical called "Unleashed," along with playing lots of drama games and learning some important stage skills.  One of my favorite moments was playing the "compliment web game" on the last day, where we expressed what we appreciated and admired about each other.  

Of course, there were many other fun moments, like playing the game "Family Portrait."  Check out the cute slideshow.

Here are photos of our characters....

Click HERE to watch the performance on YouTube.  We had a little glitch with the lights at the beginning, but after that it was smooth sailing!  Thanks to everyone who participated and stopped in to watch the performance!  Hope to see you all back again soon!

Teaching watercolors to young, curious, enthusiastic minds is among my favorite things in the world!  This week at camp, the kids learned all kinds of watercolor techniques as they explored their new supplies.  New vocabulary like glazing, scumbling, masking, salting, lifting, and mopping were taught and tried out.  The girls painted in the studio and outside in nature, and they completed many pieces by the end of the week, including transparent lotus flowers, a landscape & seascape, a bohemian owl, and more!  Here is a slideshow of the week...

Grace took 10 little girls under her wing this week to teach them cake and cookie decorating skills, fill them with sugar, and send them home!  Sorry if they were a little wired, moms & dads, but we hope you enjoyed their delightful handiwork!

The themes included Galaxy Day, Succulent Day, Animal Day, and a final layered cake with a melted ice cream cone theme.  Everyone learned new skills such as making multi-colored frosting, cake balls, rainbow filling, and homemade cream cheese frosting and ganache,  cake leveling, and experimenting with tips and royal frosting.  

The finished the week with a cake boss-type contest.  My neighbor came over as a judge to choose the winning cake, and Ella received a Flapdoodles gift card for her 1st place creation.  All the girls did a great job on their 2 layer cakes.

They all had a sugary blast and made lots of gorgeous creations.  Here's the slideshow to prove it!  

This is my 3rd summer of offering Crazy Art Camps, and all year long I am on the look-out for art projects that are going to WOW my campers!  I think this year's projects were a hit.  I had 16 talented, enthusiastic kids, ages 7-12, ready to try anything!

Projects 1, 2, & 3:  When the kids arrived, they stained and beaded wooden name tags, which my husband and I designed and etched on our Glowforge.  They also colored two big Crazy Art banners.  Then we went into the studio and viewed a slideshow of the work of artist Peter Anton, who makes giant, hyper-realistic food art.  We made pinch pot cupcakes with coiled frosting out of air-dry clay, then painted them a few days later and boxed them in adorable bakery cupcake boxes.  I have a policy that I won't do for the kids what they can do for themselves, so I let them figure out on their own without instructions how to fold the origami-style boxes.  Some of the kids loved the challenge and figured it out quickly and others had to persevere and get a little assistance from their neighbors.  It's definitely a spacial skill.  

​The kids also enjoyed some outside play time in my WonderYard each day!  Here is a slideshow of our first few projects...

Projects 4 & 5: We watched a slideshow of the Pop Art prints of Andy Warhol and then proceeded to make our own using gelli plates, texture items, and acrylic paints to pull our mono prints.  The kids printed on black & white photos of themselves that I had snapped on Day 1, then put them all together on black paper to make them POP!

​We also learned about artist Georgia O'Keefe, who is known for her giant, close-up flowers.  The kids sketched their own designs, outlined them with India ink-filled bingo daubers, then painted them with acrylics.  They even sawed a piece of trim with a miter saw to use as a stylish hanger.  Here is the slideshow...

Projects 6-7:  Friday was the BIG DAY!  We blacked-out the studio, turned on the blacklights, and painted with fluorescent paints.  There were lots of oohs and ahhh!  The kids loved how my wall mural and their Crazy Art poster glowed under the blacklight.  We designed and painted mad scientists in a cartoon style, with chalked bubbles in the background, and then I let them draw their own design and fill it in with glowing ice cream salt that I dyed with fluorescent paint.  They also had a chance to paint their faces and made fluorescent balloon hats.  Such a sensory experience for the kids!  We invited families into the studio for a Glow Show at the end.  Here is the slideshow...

Ingrid's home was set up with various lovely spots for us to sit and visit and lift our pinkies as we sipped our sweet, hot tea and nibbled the delicacies.  You don't have to visit art museums to see art and beauty.  You can experience them in tradition, in tastes and smells and the sounds of laughter, and in the faces of lovely women gathered with grateful hearts.  

I think I could paint rainbow popsicles all day!  The wet on wet technique combined with glazing the shadows was fun to practice and teach to my upbeat students.  The only complaint of the night was my failure to provide ice cream at the end of the class!  Check out the slideshow below for students at work.

In the last few years, I have made a point to pack my travel journal and watercolors on our trips, and this practice has helped me hone in on how best to teach my travel journaling classes.  I have fine-tuned a process that works well for me and thought I'd take a moment to share it.  Here are my steps...

1.  I want to be fully present in the moments with my family, so I don't typically paint en plein air, though it is really fun when I get the opportunity.  I take photos with paintings in mind and then find time later to paint in my sketchbook using my reference photos.  I'm an early riser, so often I will paint before anyone else has rolled out of bed.

2.  I sketch my drawing into the journal, thinking about what to include, what to edit out, how to layout the page if I want to include a label or a whole paragraph, and where I want the edges.  Sometimes I paint to the edge of the paper, sometimes I tape off the edges for a crisp frame or loosely draw in a frame, and sometimes I keep them loose.  

3.  I then decide if I'm going to outline everything in a micron pen for a more illustrator style or if I'm going to just paint.  

4.  When the sketch is satisfactory, I start painting.  Getting the sketch right, with all the proportions and angles, is important so it doesn't look weird at the end.  It's easier to erase pencil than watercolor!  Watercolor is done in layers, so having a hair dryer or craft heat gun is handy to speed up the drying process between layers.

5.  The final step is to add the writing.  I often just label and date the page, but many people treat it more as a journal, including weather, people, and descriptions.  

Here is my most recent sketchbook of a quick trip to Colorado for a family reunion.  I included the reference photos so you can see how I edited colors and removed people/objects that I didn't want to include.  I was able to complete a page a day, which made me very happy! 

My 16-year-old daughter, Grace, led 8 lovely girls on a sweet adventure of learning how to use decorator tips, frost a cake with a crumb coat, get a rainbow effect in the cake layers, work with royal frosting, and more!  She even arranged a little Cake Boss-style contest for the "Top Ice Cream Cake,"  for which our neighbor came to judge.  A Flapdoodles gift card was awarded to Kelsey Dickie, and all the girls enjoyed some Flapdoodles ice cream at the end!

Day 1:  Galaxy-themed cupcakes and cookies, with triple color bagged frosting on the cupcakes and swirled royal frosting on the cookies
Day 2:  Animal-themed cupcakes
Day 3:  Succulent-themed cupcakes
Day 4:  Cake prep with cake leveling, rainbow frosting filling,  and crumb coat and flower cookies
Day 5:  Dropped Ice-cream cone cake with chocolate ganache drips, rainbow filling, decorative border, and cake ball with a sugar cone on top
For those of you in the camp, here are links to her frosting recipes:

Cream cheese frosting for the cupcakes
Buttercream frosting for the cake
For the royal frosting on the cookies, she used a royal icing powder mix from Walmart

​Here are photo highlights from the week!

My campers were wonderfully enthusiastic and adventurous as we "traveled" around the world, learning about 5 countries, listening to the music of each culture, making a piece of art inspired by the country, and trying foreign foods.  I loved every minute!  

Day 1:  Argentina

When campers arrived, they painted and beaded wooden name tags that my husband made on our Glowforge, then they colored in a giant welcome banner.  We learned information about Argentina, made clay llama sculptures, and wove tiny blankets for them with a straw loom and yarn.  Later in the week we painted the llamas.  For food, we made homemade alfajores cookies by rolling out the dough and filling them with dulce la leche.  Yum!  
Recipe:  https://www.chowhound.com/recipes/alfajores-28373

Day 2: Russia

We talked about the vast country of Russia and then read a story called Babushka's Doll by Patricia Polocco.  The campers painted wooden matryoshka nesting dolls and then we made blini, a thin pancake, which we filled with strawberries and whip cream!  
Recipe:  https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/215962/blini-russian-pancakes/

Day 3:  Italy

After watching a video about Italy, one of the students dressed up like Leonardo da Vinci and "painted" the Mona Lisa.  We read the story Strega Nona by Tommie de Paola.  We spread wet plaster on burlap to make our own frescoes.  When they dried, we drew fruit still lifes with chalk pastels.  We also made margherita pizza with sauce, mozzarella, parmesan, and basil.  Yummy!  
Recipe:  https://www.thekitchn.com/easy-recipe-classic-margherita-pizza-recipes-from-the-kitchn-174103  (we used refrigerator bistro pizza dough and jarred pizza sauce instead of homemade)

Day 4:  Egypt

After watching a video about a tourist in Egypt, we made funny Pharaoh selfies with our names written in hieroglyphs.  We cooked up some Egyptian Basbousa Semolina cake that was very interesting, like sweet, dense cornbread with syrup on top.  
Recipe: 
​https:/cleobuttera.com/middle-eastern/best-ever-pastry-shop-style-basbousa/

Day 5:  Thailand

We enjoyed a video about a family who traveled to Thailand, and got some special information from MaiLa, one of the campers whose grandparents are from Thailand.  We read a book called The Umbrella Queen and painted with liquid watercolors on paper lanterns.  We cooked up some veggie stir fry and rice noodles with the option of sweet/sour sauce or Thai peanut sauce.  We topped it off with Pocky candy sticks and watermelon slushies.  The kids enjoyed shopping at the studio store, too!  
Recipe: https://damndelicious.net/2014/05/24/watermelon-slush/  (I skipped the sugar)

I had a fabulous group of artsy, enthusiastic campers for my first week of 2019 summer camps.  Here is a recap of all of our fun projects and learning.
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Projects 1, 2, & 3:  When the kids arrived, they stained and beaded wooden name tags, which my husband and I designed and etched on our Glowforge.  They also colored in a big Crazy Art banner.  When those were complete, we went into the studio and viewed a slideshow of the work of artist Paul Anton, who makes giant, hyper-realistic food art.  We made pinch pot cupcakes with coiled frosting out of air-dry clay, then painted them a few days later and boxed them in adorable bakery cupcake boxes.  They were a hit!  Bonus:  my daughter, Grace, made fancy cupcakes for us all to enjoy at the end of the first day!  

Project 4:  We watched a slideshow of the Pop Art prints of Andy Warhol and then proceeded to make our own using gelli plates, texture items, and acrylic paints to pull our mono prints.  The kids printed on black & white photos of themselves that I had snapped on Day 1, then put them all together on black paper to make them POP!  

Project 5:  After looking at the beautiful close-up floral art of Georgia O'Keefe, we drew and painted these wonderful extra-large paintings of flowers.  I taped down the edges to produce a nice white frame.  For the outlines, I introduced the kids to India ink in bingo daubers.  They work beautifully!  Then we practiced mixing the acrylic paint right on the paper to get lovely blends of colors.  They added tiny insects and a butterfly magnet to finish the piece.  A couple of the kids ventured in their own direction when I mentioned that Georgia O'Keefe also liked to paint animal skulls!  

Projects 6-7:  Friday was the BIG DAY!  We blacked-out the studio, turned on the blacklights, and painted with fluorescent paints.  There were lots of oohs and ahhh!  The kids loved how my mural glowed under the blacklight.  We designed and painted mad scientists in a cartoon style, with chalked bubbles in the background, and then we designed ice cream cones on foam core and filled them in with glowing ice cream salt that I dyed with fluorescent paint.  I forgot to get pictures of these!  Such a sensory experience for the kids!  Of course, the paint ended up on their faces (and mine!)  We invited the parents down for a Glow Show at the end.  

Here are a few more pictures of the other ways kids had fun at camp, including petting the studio cat, Ginger, and playing on the rope swing, zip line, and slack line in my backyard.  Thanks for a great week to my beautiful, talented new friends!