It has been 8 years since I wrote a blog post about gluing recyclables onto a big piece of cardboard and inviting my art students to mix their own colors and paint the structure up on the wall. Since then, I have added this project to my book, Carboard Creations, and seen hundreds of art…
Printmaking: Create Patterns with DIY Foam Stamps
Hello printmaking friends! I’m back with another DIY stamping idea for you. I’ve been on a pattern-making kick since I started Collage Club in May. Each month, I am making a postcard to go with the theme. It’s been so fun and inspiring to get back to my pattern-making roots, and it has forced me…
8 Picture Books about Famous Artists who Believed in Themselves
Singing colors, flying colors, the colors of villages, gardens, and nature… all of the artists in these eight picture books were inspired by color. But the connection between their stories goes beyond the color palettes of their worlds. Each artist felt a calling that they couldn’t ignore, even when the people around them, whom they…
Mixed-Media Process Art Weaving Invitation
It’s been a while since I’ve written about my open-studio library events. This mixed-media process art weaving invitation that I set out for a multi-age group was more prep than I usually do, but it was worth it and as successful as I had hoped! I will admit I was a little ambiguous about how…
Homemade Upcycled Crayons
The idea for these homemade upcycled crayons came from a search I was doing for my newsletter. I was trying to find some fresh sources — blogs that I didn’t know about (which is hard to imagine since I’ve been blogging for 12 years and blogs are becoming a dying breed), but guess what? I…
Potholder Weaving with Cotton Loops
I recently discovered my old-school potholder looms when I was reorganizing all my art supplies and materials in the basement. (Well, my daughter did the organizing since she could “not live with the mess one more minute,” as spoken like a true Virgo.) The loops were old and in bad colors, like the ones that…
Rainbow Tube Knitting with TP Roll Looms
Happy 2025! My last post about printing my hopeful Kamala prints has been staring at me every time I come back here. I am going to have to create 7 new posts in order to not see it anymore on my homepage, so that’s what I will do! I still love the prints, I love…
Harris Walz Collagraph Prints
If you know me at all or follow me anywhere, you know that I have strong guiding principles which I live by. None stronger than leading with love. Radical love is my north star, not that I am perfect, but I try and frame everything and respond to everything with that lens. This makes it…
Mushroom Block Printing with Styrofoam
Recently I was inspired by the last module in our Material Matters course which is all about printmaking! My partner Shannon and I spent this past year over on The Creativity Project exploring 12 different materials and art processes for our course, saving the best for last. Well, maybe not the best (for me it’s…
Mixed-Media Exploration with Wood
Hello! It’s been a while. I have been working so much on The Creativity Project that it’s been hard to find the time to write over here on Art Bar. But I have things to share! As you know, I have been facilitating open-studio classes at our local library over the past year (I’ve written…
