A Gesture Drawing Lesson with Second Graders

I passed out laminated pictures of head to toe figures from magazines. After demonstrating a one minute gesture drawing, (I brought in a timer) the students gave it a try. We used a black crayon for the lightly drawn gesture drawing--stressing to capture only the action of the figure--no details--a quick, almost scribble of a drawing to capture the action and to place the figure on the paper. They really did a great job understanding the gesture drawing process. We drew a timed gesture, three times, trading pictures between each. They chose the one they liked best, to draw in details with a black marker.

String Balloons for a Wedding

My son and his fiancee will not only have dry ice on their dance floor, but above, will have many string balloons with a little battery candle in each. We've had a few nights of wrapping balloons with various kinds of yarn and string. The cotton yarn seemed to work the best.

many hands...


The first batch of dried balloons, I didn't have any trouble getting the balloon to separate from the yarn. I just had to push the balloon in on all the open spaces, pierce it near the knot to slowly let out some air--made sure the balloon wasn't stuck to the yarn, then popped it! I did have some problems with the second batch--for some reason the yarn really stuck and no amount of pressing in would release it--(same wheat paste and white glue mixture)--I think it had something to do with the balloon! This seemed to happen on the balloons that were blown up the day before and had sat overnight? Or I'm wondering if it only happened with the dollar store balloons?




This is an old craft--I remember using starch--I wonder if starch would work better?

Fairy Necklace

I stayed up late again playing with my granddaughter's Shrinky Dink supplies. I created this design to use as a stencil possibly in her room, since she loves fairies, but thought I'd try it out as a necklace. I used a medium tip sharpie marker on the smooth side of the Shrinky Dink plastic and added the color with pencils on the rough side. After cooking for the few minutes and cooling, I brushed on some acrylic medium over the color pencil to seal in the color.

Dry Ice for a Wedding

My son, his fiancee and their friends, dropped in with a cooler of dry ice--experimenting with the size and shape of containers, the water temperature and such, to get the best bubbly billowy frothing steam. They'll be using the dry ice on the dance floor at their wedding.

It creates a great atmosphere--a story suddenly takes shape with whatever is on the table...

No Candy Attached

I thought the valentines my granddaughter wanted to make would be easy at first, because the initial idea was a messenger owl, with the valentine attached to its leg (great idea with a Harry Potter theme, thanks to my daughter), but---then somehow the owl got changed to a cupid. I made an experimental cupid based on my granddaughter's drawing. Things got complicated from there--she wanted the cupid to hold the heart--to stand!--and wanted it to be made out of heavy cardboard. We compromised all along--used lighter weight cardboard--made the cupid smaller--I was trying to reach a simple design that would be do-able for making twenty or more. I ended up making all the cupids!! A whole army of them!

I enjoyed making them, but here I was taking over my granddaughter's project, the whole thing was bordering on obsessive creativity--which made me think about how art can be obsessive. I thought about Do Ho Suh and his creations that involved billions of dog tags or a whole room full of little figures--made me also think about factories--how large quantities of things are made--how the machines that make those things had to be made, programed and timed by someone--which led me to think of my mother who worked in a factory doing piece work and how I remember hearing her say that she enjoyed her work, she liked to work with her hands--she was good at it...


After awhile, I just kept going--cutting--coloring--making the stands--gluing...

I helped with the Hearts, but they were my granddaughter's creations...

These have no candy attached, will they be swept aside? Thrown away or recycled the same day? Ripped, bent or crumpled in backpacks? Why, again was I making these?

Maybe we need an army of cupids...

to carry my granddaughter's poem.
Do notice, though, the cupids are from me. After all that work, Mrs. B, the art teacher (me) will be giving the cupids. The hearts are from my granddaughter.
Happy Valentines Day!

Mono Prints

This is an art lesson I did with my granddaughter's class. We made mono prints using plexiglass, black tempera paint, a big brush to spread the paint on the plexiglass, a q-tip, one color paper and one piece of newspaper.
I had 8 pieces of plexiglass, so for the class of 24, We printed in groups of 8, three times, while the teacher had the other students finishing a story they were writing to go with a previous art lesson.

We drew in lines--all kinds, overlapping--we didn't draw any objects or letters, just lines, and we did this quickly so the paint wouldn't dry. They laid down their color paper to press or rub with their hands, then pulled up their print...(the best part!)

With another dollop of paint, they repeated the process to print on their newspaper...

Second week: they cut into their newspaper mono print, following their crazy lines--deciding which way to go at every junction, making an interesting shape. I had them place it on their color print and turn the papers in all directions to find out how they wanted to glue it on.

I passed out three shiny gold papers to glue on--this gold paper takes on the shape of the glue underneath. You can peel off the paper and the gold remands where the glue has dried!
The students hadn't peeled off the papers yet in the first two photos.
They came up with some pretty creative titles to their combined prints.

Pollen in Puddles

We've had a very dry rainy season here in Morro Bay; because of that, the pollen (mostly from the pine trees), has collected. This small rain we just received, pushed large amounts of pollen around in some creative ways...


Lightening pollen...

A large headed horse/like creature with a rounded snout, looming up, pollen...

An upside down person walking with an umbrella?--you figure it out...

Van Gogh's, A Starry Night...

Etch A Sketch--check out the reddish/brown stick just under the surface--it sticks out just enough to draw a line in the pollen as the puddle moves. The wind moved the puddle back against its down hill flow a few times...

Crescent moon pollen...

Eruption pollen...

Responsible safety sidewalk pollen.

An Evening Ritual

My granddaughter directed this ritual on the beach for our anniversary. We were ready to go, kind of chilly, but I'm glad we stayed for this gift she gave us...


She found two roughly shaped heart rocks, one for each of us, placed them just so...

Then positioned us--(kneeling on the wet sand), to take this picture

Makeshift Ribbon Wands

My granddaughter expressed an interest to be in her school's variety show doing a ribbon dance. I made these clumsy ribbon wands using supplies I had on hand. The streamers are a touch too heavy, cut from some packaging material I've held onto. I didn't have any narrow cardboard tubing and I thought sticks would be too painful if and when they get too close. I cut a large tube in half down the middle and used clear packaging tape--pretty ugly. I used a lollipop stick, glued it into a hole drilled in a cork. Eyelet/ed the folded end of the streamer to turn freely around the pop stick and glued the bead on the end. I'll probably refine these--find lighter ribbons--silk would be nice--better tubing, but these were fun on the beach!