As I was gathering content for this post, I realized that in the 13+ years I have been writing this blog, I have never written a post about a collection of my favorite materials! I’ve written about liquid watercolor so many times. I’ve written endlessly about recyclables (and in my book!), and many times about…
cardboard
Process Art with Recyclables: Collaborative & Big!
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…
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…
Recycled Collage Making with Preschoolers
Last month I was invited into a local preschool’s Makerspace to do a project with their 4 and 5yr olds. I decided to use the materials they had collected for the space, which was lots and lots of recyclables, plus I brought in a few of my own goodies and we made recycled collages! Let…
Doodle Weaving
If I had to choose one art medium for the rest of my life it would be fibers. I am always drawn to them, even from an early age when I only wanted to wear corduroy pants because I could run my fingers across the grooves and make a cool sound. My focus as an…
Celebrate Earth Day! 40 Ways to Use Nature and Recylables in Art with Kids
Earth Day always sneaks up on me and sometimes I even miss it! But this year I am here to help you get organized and be prepared to celebrate Earth Day all month long, with 40 ways to use nature and recyclables in art and creative play with kids! The very best and most simple…
Cardboard Circus Tents
One of my all-time favorite art camp projects we made on the very first week of summer art camp I ever did were these Cardboard Circus Tents. The theme of the week was Join the Circus and we made clown masks, trapeze mobiles, ice cream cones, and lots of cheery bunting. These circus tents were…
Cardboard Egg Garland
In the last art camp I held in my house, before the pandemic shut everything down, I had the kids paint a bunch of cereal box cardboard. I set it out with some paint jars and expired gifts cards and had them scrape the paint all around. After it was dry, we used that cardboard…
Clare Youngs Artist Study
Last summer in art camp, I introduced my students to artist Clare Youngs who lives and works in the UK. She trained as a graphic designer and now makes beautiful “handicraft objects,” as she calls them. I’m in love with her cardboard animals so we did a little artist study and made some of our…
Cardboard Faces
Sometimes it takes me a while to write about a project, especially since this whole pandemic! I’ve been focusing on our Learning Guides and have neglected writing new posts. But today I am pulling myself together and writing about these cardboard faces we made last Spring in our weeklong Recycled Materials Camp! I was so…
