Weavy Loops Winners

Happy Saturday everyone.  The winners of the Weavy Loops kits by random draw are:

Bobbie N Dana Whiddon and
Nancy Dap

If you could send me your mailing addresses I will get those sent out to you right away.

thatartistwoman@shaw.ca

Thanks everyone for entering and I hope you will include weaving in your art adventures.

Gail

Giveaway Winner

Hope everyone is having a great weekend. Just popped in to announce the winner of "Stencil Craft" by Margaret Peot.


The winner is Beth Arnott.  Congrats Beth and thanks everyone for entering.

There will be another giveaway next week and more art projects....I'm on a roll.

See you then.


Gail

Mini Gardens with Students

As promised here are a few tips on how I create my fairy or mini  gardens both at home and at school.



Here is latest mini garden I created with my son for a teacher gift in June.

Here are some mini gardens I did with Grade 4 in May.

There are a few differences mostly due to the cost of supplies.

The nice thing about these gardens are you can replant them.  So students can relocate them to a larger area when they take them home.  The houses are also reusable so you can make a new mini garden every year.  That's what we do at our house.




MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- pot of some sort, at school we used 12" plastic pots (around $1.00 a piece).  For gifts or for your own use you can purchase a larger one.  I like to use a ceramic pot that is shallow with room for the garden to grow.
- soil
- rocks, and or gravel
- moss, optional
- small plants, basket stuffers work well, plants with small flowers are nice like lobelia and alyssum 
- wood house (I'll explain more shortly)
- acrylic paint
- outdoor sealer

PROCEDURE:

The house is what makes the garden.

I have used unpainted ceramic houses that you purchase at Christmas time and then paint.  I turn the snow into moss and the wreath on the door into a summer wreath.  You can check out this post for more info on that.

Buying multiple class sets of ceramic houses doesn't work so well at school.

First off they are breakable.

They are also full of detail requiring a lot of time and patience. Not too mention the cost.  Just a little too expensive for a class project.


A few years ago I moved to these wooden houses.

This one is a little tall, (a 2 storey house) at school they are shorter about 4" tall.

I use a cedar timber.  One that would be used for fence making. (no pressure treated wood)

They tend to come in 8' lengths.  I can get a full class set out of 1 timber.  Cost wise it is about $23 or so.

Cut your 4" blocks and then cut the ends off to form the roof. I have a great carpenter (my father-in-law).

Another alternative is to use this kind of house.

This is a poetry project I use but the house is made from a 2"x4".  You alternate an angled cut with a straight cut and you get 2 houses.  The roof on this one is cardboard but you can use a piece of cedar shingle.

You can paint them separately and then nail the roof in place. These are much cheaper as a 2"x4" in an 8ft length costs about $3.00.

At school this is a 2 session project. 1 to paint the house and 1 to plant the garden.



With the cedar timber house I get students to paint the house colour first.

We then paint the roof black

and add the shingles. A nice grey colour makes a good shingle.

Hopefully the house is now dry.

It's time for the windows.  The secret to good windows is small brushes.  A small flat brush is easiest.  You use the straight edge of the brush to paint the straight edges of the window.

You may need to dry a side with a hair dryer before you can work on the next one.  An art teacher always needs more hair dryers and electrical outlets!!

Add a door, use the end of your paintbrush to dab on the doorknob.  You can add window panes.  To steady your hand make sure it rests on the house as you are painting those panes.

You can add some shrubs with a sponge or scrubby brush (old brush).

When dry add a coat of outdoor sealer.

A nice address sign adds a special touch.  Paint a flat rock white.  When dry you can use sharpie or paint (you need a tiny brush) to add the numbers.


Give it a coat of outside sealer as well.

Now it's time to plant.  Add some rocks to the bottom of your pot.

Plant your plants leaving a spot for your house.  At school kids were only able to use 3 plants due to space.

You can add some moss to fill in the spaces if you wish.

Another nice touch is a fence made from cut twigs.

You can add gravel for a path.  Place your house and sign rock and you are done.


Students didn't have a lot of room but quite a few still made a path with pebbles.

You can make this an indoor garden with small house plants. I plan on doing this so I can make that Fall garden (it's Canada and we are frosty in the Fall) and then switch it out to a Winter/Christmas scene.

The winners of the Fairy Garden books are:

Marcie Woods and Sangeeta Duorah.

Thanks everyone for entering.

I have another book giveaway next week and a great new project.
Have a good weekend!

Gail

Giveaway Winners

The 3 winners of the adult colouring books are:

Carolynn , who left a comment on this blog
I love the Dad clay portraits. Kids do amazing things with great teaching! Keep up the great work!
Carolynn if you could email your mailing address to me at:
thatartistwoman@shaw.ca
Laura Hay Hamilton, who left a comment on Facebook
and Jenny Peck who sent me an email.

Thank everyone for entering, there will be a new giveaway next week.

Gail

Giveaway Winner

Sorry I'm a bit late with the draw.  It was a crazy weekend.


The winner of the "Daily Zen Doodles" book by Meera Lee Patel is Ann-Marie Burgdorf.


Congratulations Ann-Marie and thanks everyone for entering.


Gail

Nature File Folder Book: Part 1

Last year I needed to come up with a project for a Grade5/6 split.

Tying it into the science curriculum we made these file folder books. (trees and forests, wetlands).





After getting a few questions recently on how to make it I thought I would post it.  It's a great Autumn project.


The dragonfly is a clothespin that holds the book closed.

This is the back when open.


These are great to display as they stand up.

These are the first 2 inner pages…..I'm sure the tree looks familiar.

The next 2 inner pages.  I love these file folder books.  The pockets give you lots of room to stuff with handouts, index cards with info, study flash cards, etc.



When I make these in a residency we do all the book construction and art work. We usually do the book mark and then I hand over a bunch of blank cards, tabs, and tags to the teacher so he or she can customize what info the students will put into the book.

My sample is missing this extra info but I think you get the idea.

I'm going to split it into 2 posts as there are a lot of steps.





MATERIALS NEEDED:

- blank file folder book, I've posted the directions on how to make these a few times, check out this post  for the 'how to'
- acrylic or tempera paint 
- white acrylic paint or gesso
- thin cardboard like a cereal or cracker box
- dragonfly template, use the small one
- dragonfly names
- glitter glue
- pony beads
- clothespins
- tacky glue
- drywall filler/medium
- small round object (2" diameter)
- black pencil crayon, white crayon or pencil crayon
- squirrel template
- a few leaves from outside
- scrap of felt and black sticky foam, optional
- alphabet stamps, ink pad


PROCEDURE:
When I do these books at school we work on different parts throughout a session, maximizing our time. But it's easier for me to explain each component from start to finish.

Dragonfly Clothespin:

The dragonfly template is from another project. Use the small one. This is a picture of the larger one, same technique though.

Trace around the template on to the thin cardboard and cut out.

Paint a layer of white acrylic or gesso on the cardboard.




While it's drying work on another part of the book.

Paint in the body of the dragonfly. We used craft acrylic paint.




Paint the clothespin at the same time.

I printed off some sheets that had all the names of all the different types of dragonflies.  There are some great ones!

The kids selected a few (I asked for  at least 4) and glued them on the wings.

Trim if needed.

You can add a little diluted paint to give them a wash if you want.

Add a coat of glitter glue to the wings for that sparkle.

Glue on 2 beads for eyes.

Glue onto clothespin.

Open up your file folder book and paint the back. We used acrylic paint.  The 2 middle panels will have the squirrel so they both need to be the same colour.

The kids could pick what colours they wanted except for the from cover.  In order to get it too work we needed it yellow.




Front Cover:

Trace out a goose shape on some thin cardboard, mine is about 4".


I had templates for the kids to use but also encouraged them to create their own.

Cover one side with a thin coat of drywall medium.

Pounce your finger where the wings would be to make some feather texture.

Let dry.

Using watery disk tempera paint the upper 2/3rds of the from cover orangey red.

You need a round flat object about 2" in diameter.  I'm using a little plastic container I use for salad dressing in my lunch.

Cover top with a kleenex.

While the tempera is still wet press this down into the paint.  You are lifting away the paint, getting a nice circle to be your sun.

Add some watery green disk tempera to the ground on the cover.

Using a touch of black acrylic paint in the neck and head leaving that white patch in the cheek.

With some watery brown acrylic paint in the feathers.  You want to leave the belly white.


Add a tiny goggly eye.


If you want to seal the goose you can a little mod podge once the paint dries.

With a black pencil crayon add some grass to the cover.


Glue the goose into position.

Use the black pencil crayon to make the legs.





Middle Section of Back:

So this is based on an earlier project.  I just adapted it for the book.

Collect some leaves from outside.

Paint the back of the leaf with some fall colours and print.  I get the kids to practice first by making the bookmark.  When ready they make the tail for the squirrel by making a curved stack.



Let dry.

My squirrel template is here.

Trace onto brown paper.  I encourage the kids to make their own squirrel shape but have the template as a back up.

Cut out.

Using a white crayon and black marker (could be a pencil crayon) add some details to your squirrel.

For the eye we punched some black sticky foam.

Cut an ear out of felt and glue on.

Cut tail out of stamped paper.  Glue squirrel onto back of file folder book.

We added a list of the type of squirrels, painted with some watery tempera.

We also stamped a big S from my multitude of alphabet stamps and added the text "is for squirrel".

We'll finish the rest tomorrow.



So I offered this extra book of mine up for giveaway and I had 266 entries!

Wow, thanks everyone for all the comments and support. I wish you all could win. :)

The winner by random draw is Beverly Pastore.  Congratulations Beverly!


Here is the link to this book on Amazon if you need further info and you never know it could be in the local library.

Take care everyone and I'll be back…..

Gail

Giveaway Winner

The winner of "The Successful Artist's Career Guide" by Margaret Peot is Beth Lowry.

Congratulations Beth.

Thanks everyone for entering and have a great weekend.


Gail