Summer Pinterest Challenge 2019: Week 4

We have two weeks until school starts and I am not ready.  We are enjoying these nice slow days of summer (it's too hot to step outside!).  The boys are busy playing toys they normally don't have time for and doing these weekly art projects I planned way back when school was in session.  This one took us some time because I was just not in my groove.  Coming back from vacation and stepping back into reality (well, the reality of summer) was hard.  We took it slow and finally just finished it up yesterday.  Some projects are like that.  But the result of this one just makes my heart so happy.  My favorite art projects are usually those that include some paint and a paintbrush (or two), so when I planned these art projects I wanted to make sure we were not only studying artists, their styles, but also different mediums.  Watercolors tend to be my favorite because they are a super easy clean up.  This project used a little bit of watercolor to produce a certain effect, but other than that, it was paper and scissors and a lot of fun! 

This week, we are studying Matisse, who started out painting beautiful paintings that resemble those of Monet, that included landscapes and still lifes.  Later, he began to experiment with brighter, bolder colors.  His lines were sharper, more modern.  As he grew older, he found he couldn't paint anymore, so he started cutting out paper shapes and placing them on paper, using both the negative and positive space from his cut outs, as well as taking advantage of contrasting colors.  Matisse's works are so full of life and color, making him a really fun artist for kids to study! 

 We started out by painting a piece of paper with blue watercolor.  We wanted to give the blue a water-like look, so we layered a sheet of  plastic wrap over the top while it dried. 

  After it dried, we started cutting out shapes out of bright colors for our background and gluing them down on a piece of white card stock paper. 

 Then, using some dark navy blue card stock (we just used what we had in my stash), the kids cut out shapes for a stool.  Then, using the paper they water colored (now dry), they folded it in half and cut out a vase/fish bowl shape.  I won't lie, the urge to cut out snowflakes was strong at this point. . . just ask Weston!  They glued all those on their paper and then cut out some fish to put inside their vase.  After that, we just cut out shapes, using both the negative and positive spaces and filled our paper squares. 

 I really love how they turned out!  With this art project, we read the two books above (I'll link them and others below).  The bottom, Meet Matisse, is incredibly wordy.  So we skimmed through it together, gathering some facts about Matisse and looking at some of his art.  The second book, Matisse's Garden, is a fun book that combines a cute story with beautiful illustrations about Matisse cutting out shapes with prints of his actual art work woven in between. 


 Books about Matisse:
Meet Matisse
Matisse's Garden
Drawing with Scissors
Blue and Other Colors
The Iridescense of Birds

 Henri's Scissors
Matisse: The King of Color
When Pigasso Met Mootisse


 Kids Art Challenge:
Week 1:Kandinsky
Week 2:Seurat
Week 3: Picasso

This post was inspired by this post. 

Don't forget to post a picture and use the hashtag:

#ootrbsummerkidsartchallenge 

Happy Creating! 

Summer Pinterest Challenge 2019: Week 3

 We took a little break in our Kids Art Challenge to go on an adventure, but we are back, recovered, and ready to rejoin the real life again.  Before we left, we fit in our third art challenge and it was the perfect way to break up our 6 weeks of art projects.  I am so glad that, even though we were busy packing and doing 4th of July stuff, we still fit it in, because it really got my kids excited for the National Art Gallery in Washington D.C.

Picasso is a really fun artist to talk about because he had so many styles and periods. Modern Art is really fun to teach kids because its so flexible to what the child sees.  We read the books Picasso and Mootisse and this Picasso book.  (We'll talk about Matisse in week 4).  The first book is just a fictional book based on the friendship of the two artists and the second is a great resource for kids with lots of pictures of Picasso's art.  It talks about his life and the periods of his art in a way that draws the kids in and gets them enjoying art.

After reading about Picasso and studying his art work, Weston was so excited to go search for his work when we visited the National Art Gallery in Washington D.C.  He was able to tell me a specific painting was painted during Picasso's Blue Period and then he was pointing out Cubism left and right.  There was a proud mom moment where I saw him really enjoy art!  I think it's also proof that spending a little bit of time each week studying artists and their art work is so important!

One thing I loved about the book, Pigasso and Mootisse, was that it showed the friendship that developed between both Picasso and Matisse and then walking through the art gallery where that friendship was on display was just epic!  The kids were so excited to see Picasso's work (as well as Kandinksky, Seraut, Monet, and Van Gogh. . . all artists we are going to be covering in this challenge.

But, let's get back to the project of the week.  This week, we are talking about Picasso's style Cubism.  This project was so fun and fairly easy that we really enjoyed relaxing while painting (even though we should have been packing up our stuff!). 

  We started out by drawing a simple picture on top of water color paper.  We just used pencil. 

 Then we drew horizontal and vertical lines across the page.  We used the width of a ruler because it was easier for the kids to keep track of where the next line went.  My goal is to have the boys do their art entirely on their own.  This is their masterpiece. . . not mine (even though I enjoy doing it along side them!). 

 Then we used different colors and drew in our spaces.  The goal was to make them contrast so the actual picture cubes stand out and you can tell what the original picture was.  Ethan realized after the fact that a blue whale was hard to get to stand out using the same colors for the water.  Weston started out great, but after his sabors were done, he was done.  I still am loving the way it came out.  And who, knows, maybe it will get finished by the end of summer?  Maybe that's just me dreaming.  ha ha.  Also, just because someone will probably ask. . . no the artichoke hearts and pineapple were not used in the making of this art project!  ha ha!

 Each week, I am pretty sure I say that it's my favorite project yet, but this one really was!  And then seeing them the following week get excited about art in a museum.  Oh, this mamma heart is so happy! 

 Here are a few other books about Picasso:
Picasso and the Girl with the Pony Tail, by Laurence Anholt
100 Pablo Picassos, by Violet Lemay
Who was Pablo Picasso, by True Kelly
The Three Musicians, by Veronique Massenot

 You can find the rest of the Summer Pinterest Challenge for 2019 at these links:
Week 1: Kandinsky

Week 2: Seurat

If you are joining us, feel free to use the following hashtag:

#ootrbsummerkidsartchallenge

 I hope you are all finding time to get creative this summer in some way or another!  Thanks for stopping by!

Summer Pinterest Challenge 2019: Week 2

We are in our 4th week of summer mode and it's wonderful.  I am staying up way too late and sleeping in while my kids fend for themselves and watch some random dude playing video games and that new Pac-Man cartoon on Netflix in between all of the many of soccer games on this season.  We are all living our best lives over here. . . lazy summer vibes are strong!

We are, however, making room for fun things like art, movies, and adventure along with the occasional chore, but that isn't fun.  No one really wants to hear about chores.  You are here because you are looking for something to do with your kids that gets them doing something creative.  So, welcome to Week 2 of our Summer Pinterest Challenge, Kids Art edition.  If you haven't had a chance to read about last week's art project, you can scroll down to the bottom for the link.  It gives an over view of our approach for the this project and why we are combining it with literacy and a little artist study and not just random art projects.  I encourage you to head over to that post to read more and then come back, or just read it afterwards. 

 I remember taking an art history class in college.  It was probably one of my most favorite classes because it taught me so much more than the styles, but the history and life of the painters themselves.  Two years ago, on our summer trip to Chicago, we took the kids to one of our favorite art museums. . . the Chicago Art Institute.  This place is amazing and has so many wonderful (and famous) paintings on display.  One of them being this painting by Georges Seurat (if you've watched Ferris Bueller. . . there's a famous scene at the art institute with this painting).  Looking at paintings in a book is so much different than seeing them up close and in person.  For example, this painting, called "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" is huge.  And when you take notice of the style he used, called Pointillism, it's amazingly impressive that each tiny piece of color is a dot of paint.  So, picking Seurat for our Art Challenge was no question.  

 We had friends over last week, when we worked on our Pointillism piece and so we forced them into joining in the fun (they look so bored, don't they? ha ha).  We chose to do the Eiffel Tower because Seurat is French, but also, he has a piece where he did the Eiffel Tower with Pointillism and it's beautiful, but also a lot easier to re-create than one with people, monkeys, and landscape.

    We used an empty egg carton and some q-tips for this art challenge.  I modeled it with some paper on the fridge. And they followed along.  We talked a lot about how making dots is an up-down process and not a slide the paint across the paper to achieve a straight line.  My favorite is how easy it is for them to fix areas that they messed up and how beautiful they all turned out. 

 I was going to have them cover the entire thing with dots, but they were loosing interest after about 45 minutes and so they decided to do some fireworks and honestly, I love it! 

 I can't even begin to tell you just how much I love how these turned out!  The conversations that happened while they were sitting down creating are one of my favorite things.  They all worked so hard and did such a great job. . .  

 that popsicles were a must!  (and we eat them outside because it was gorgeous!).

I hope you will join us on this art challenge this summer!  Feel free to post to instagram and use #OOTRBsummerkidsartchallenge

Also, check out last week's first challenge here. 

This post was inspired by the pin from this blog post. 

Happy Creating! 

Summer treats {Free Printable}

 It feels funny typing this post because we've had some incredible temperatures this week.  It has been in the 80's this week and it's the last week of June.  We are NOT complaining!  This break from triple digit. . . suck the life out of you. . . dry heat is quite wonderful!  Unfortunately, tomorrow it will go back to the normal yucky heat of summer.  We have thoroughly enjoyed this week!  

We live in a unique neighborhood in some ways because our mail gets delivered to a slot by our front door.  But also, we don't have one specific delivery person.  In any given week, I could see 4 or 5 different people delivering my mail. They all seem to be the same, and maybe they rotate, but it's definitely not the same as other neighborhoods where you have one in particular that you get to know as "your mail person."  Our mail people, walk from house to house in our neighborhood, even in the middle of summer and triple digit heat.  They are serious rockstars! 

But because it's so hot, these brave souls need some hydration and maybe a treat.  So, we've continued what we do in at Christmas time  and added an ice chest full of cold drinks and a few snacks just to make their day.  They don't always take them, but when they do, I am sure that something cold is a nice treat to their day. 

These treats don't really cost a whole bunch.  I just grab a couple of water bottles, some coke and sprite minis and some sparkling water from our stash and throw in a couple of cheese it bags or stuff from our snack baskets.  It's a little work to dump the ice each evening and fill a few cups of ice each morning, but it's worth it bring a little bit of refreshment to our mail people on a hot day! 

I made a fun printable to kind of add some cheer. . . and catch their eye a little more than the post-it note I was using.  I linked this post to the printable, just keep scrolling down.  I printed it out on cardstock and laminated it to make sure it survives the summer and hopefully the next!  

I hope you all are enjoying your summer and keeping cool! 

Free Printable here

Summer Pinterest Challenge 2019: Week 1

I love Pinterest.  So many ideas creative ideas in one spot that it can be a little overwhelming when you don't know what you're looking for.  On the other hand, when you have a general idea of what your looking for, it's a great resource!  Every summer, I choose a theme within the realm of Pinterest and spend one day a week conquering it.  Last year was Stem projects and the year before was just random Pinterest activities.  As the kids are growing older and getting farther along with school, I have noticed that art is the one thing that doesn't get taught as much as it should.  Allowing kids to be creative and explore the world of art . . . the lines, the colors, the artists, helps children of all ages express themselves, create confidence, and expands their education beyond the math and language.  I could go into more details on why it's so important, but that's just boring. 

This summer, we are really chasing quiet and savoring summer.  The time we are spending dedicated to art just might be the icing on the cake!  This summer, we are conquering 6 artists by reading about them in a beautifully illustrated picture books and then trying out the styles of each artist by creating our own masterpiece.  I am really excited! 

Our first book and art project is based on the art of Vasily Kandinsky.  Kandinsky is known for taking a risk and starting what is known as the modern art movement.  As a child, he was given a paint box and the heard sounds and music as he painted. He probably had a condition called synesthesia, where different senses trigger other senses.  Because he lived before much research had been done on this condition.  Regardless, his art shows the movement and color of the music he heard as he maneuvered the paint across his canvas. 

 One of his most famous paintings is his concentric circles and I found a printable via Pinterest for concentric hearts.  It was the perfect art project to follow our book on Kandinsky.  Basically, you just print out the template onto cardstock and have your child paint with watercolors (or any medium, really!) starting just inside the line working their way in.  We chose medium tipped brushes (we like the Kids Made Modern brushes or the IKEA brushes) and had them use whatever colors they wanted, cleaning their brush in the water on the table and wiping it with a paper towel. 

 I am loving how these turned out!  I think I am going to trim the extra space off the edges and mat it to some colored cardstock and stick them in our kids gallery frames. 

You can find the printable for these concentric hearts here.

I hope you will join us on this art challenge this summer!  Feel free to post to instagram and use #OOTRBsummerkidsartchallenge

Our Art Closet

 My favorite time of the year is when all the back to school supplies go on sale.  Crayons, markers, colored pencils, and art paper for way cheaper than the rest of the year. . . yes, please!  It's been 10 years since I stopped teaching, but I still find myself stocking up our own supplies.  For the longest time, I kept them stored in our office, where I could pull them out as we needed them.  As the kids got older, I realized that they needed to have access to the art supplies in an organized way that I had to figure out a way to make that work in our home. 

Next to our front door is a small closet.  Because we live in California, our need for storing winter coats and jackets isn't really needed. .  . I don't even think we own winter coats!  Plus, everything that was being stored in there, we didn't really need. I threw a lot of stuff away and moved some things into new homes to give me a clean closet.  This closet already had some shelves built in, so that made it perfect for creating an art closet that would make the art supplies accessible to my kids when they needed them.

I had picked up a roll of clearance peel and stick wallpaper from Target and used that to add some color and personality to a drab closet.  It worked out great so that when the door is open, it doesn't look all that bad.  I love the stripes!  Before I started putting stuff inside, we took a few minutes to take some pictures. . . man, I love these boys!  Also, they are so little in these pictures! 

From there, I bought some containers with lids to put things.  I used my handy dandy label maker to label the boxes, so we knew what was in each one at a glance.  I also bought a 3 drawer caddy thing to hold drawing paper, construction paper, and lined paper (for homework).  The stuff at the top of the closet was extra stuff or stuff that I didn't necessarily want them to be able to grab anytime they wanted (sequins, glitter, beads, extra glue). 

We have boxes for:
crayons
markers
colored pencils
stickers
glue
spirograph
stamps
foam pieces
perler beads
paint brushes
paints

We also have places for coloring books, travel binders, puzzles, and drawing books.  The large construction paper and larger coloring books are able to be in the floor.  

Sometimes things get a little crazy and things don't always get back to there correct spot, but for the most part, this has worked so well at keeping things organized and allowing the kids to have access to all the supplies in one spot.  Things have definitely stayed more organized since everything has a home, it's easy access for the kids so they are not always asking me to get them something, and it creates an environment that fully inspires my kids to create.  

Do you have a way inspires your kids to be creative in your house?  I'd love to hear about it!  Please leave a comment or message me on Facebook or Instagram. . . I'd love to hear from you! 

The Connection Time post that almost didn't happen

I am sitting here with my favorite latte at my second Starbucks (same latte) for the morning. The wifi wasn't working at the first Starbucks. . . which kind of put a damper on things. My plan was to go sit, drink coffee and get some writing done while my kids enjoy their last few hours of the 2018-2019 school year.  So, I am sitting here at the second Starbucks, coffee flowing through my veins and writing. I won't lie, I was frustrated and getting a little cranky because my plans weren't going as smoothly as I had hoped.

It's been a while since I've posted a Connection Time post (February, if you are interested).  I've gone back and forth wondering if they are worth it, but I keep coming back to yes.  We can't always get out and have coffee in person, so we listen to podcasts and scroll our social media feeds to make us feel like we are connecting, but in reality, we are just watching on the sidelines.  This is a chance for you (the reader) and me (the writer) to sit down and have coffee and connect.  It takes a huge amount of bravery to leave a comment down below, but that's where the connection starts, when we share or agree with someone.  My goal with this little blog with readers that I have never even met, is to connect and maybe encourage you to live life with creativity and passion.

It's been a busy few weeks.  The end of the school year always is hectic in sort of a fun and exciting way.  We had a wax museum, multiple awards assemblies, field days, water days, talent show, class parties and softball games that filled our schedule to the brim.  It's been so busy, that even the kids are longing for the quiet, more restful days that summer brings.  I remember when the kids were younger, I was eager to fill our days with as much order and routine and activities as I could, but the last few years we have moved towards a more restful approach to summer.  We are going to spend time reading, playing games, watching tv, playing with legos and crafting.  We will allow boredom to come and spur creativity.  Minecraft will be played and tv will be watched.  There will be days where we will stay in our comfies and days where we will hit the movies or swim.  This year, we will once again have a summer Pinterest challenge. This year, we will be spending some time each week studying artists, and the techniques behind the artists.  Each week, I will post about those projects so, you can join in the fun.

Time for the official "Connection Time" prompts.  I love these because they are the same every month.  Sometimes I have a lot to say about one thing, but not about another.  But, each month they are different.  I hope that you take the time to comment on one or two of the things, or even answer some yourself.

Outside my window the sun is shining and their is a little bit of a breeze, which is a welcome addition after yesterday's triple digit day.

I am thinking of Summer Vacation.  It's so close!

From the kitchen I made some delicious Rhubarb muffins that Ethan thinks are the best things ever! I hope to share the recipe with you tomorrow, because they were really tasty!  Plus, I think that sometimes rhubarb gets forgtotten about as a summer fruit, but it's really wonderful.  It brings a lot of memories of summers at my grandparents going through their summer garden.

I am wearing some distressed jeans, Birkenstocks, and a new shirt I picked up last week.  

I am creating nothing right now.  As soon as my house is clean, I feel like I can start creating.  I have triangles cut out for a quilt for Jon and paper pumpkin boxes that need to be made into cards.  I'm even pondering the possibility of teaching the boys how to use my sewing machine.

I am going to the beach tomorrow and I am ready to get my toes in the sand and breath the salty sea air.  It is calling me!

I am reading Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on water, and Loving the Bible again and it's so good! Rachel Held Evans wrote it and I've been waiting for the Kindle version at the library for months. She was a beautiful story teller!


I just picked up a stack of books at our local Lifeway store since they are all super cheap because they are closing their storefronts (sad face), I am hoping to get to read a lot over the next few months!  I am going to try to sneak some fiction in, too!

Around the House it's a disaster!  But, I am okay with that.  Our shower is being installed along with tile! I can't wait to share it with you.  We've also been so busy that things haven't been done and then throw a day where the water was shut off and then last night the power was out. . . things just didn't get done.  I am hoping tonight I can get some stuff caught up!

One of my favorite things is slowing down!  But, I am starting the She Reads Truth Summer Study next week and I am so excited!  I get to sneak away once a week and gather with some pretty cool ladies and talk about scripture and I just can't wait!   If you are local, you can still join me!  If you aren't you should go to here to find out more!

A few plans for summer are to relax, travel, create, and hang out with my boys.  They are getting so big and equally just as busy.  I can't wait to just sit on the couch and read with them!
 
What I am listening to Everflow, by Austin Stone Worship, and Newsboys Hallelujah for the Cross along with the Disney Hits playlist on Apple Music. I have a feeling that once VBS starts next week, the kids will want to listen to the Power Up music, too.

Now, it's your turn!  Grab your coffee and let's connect! You don't have to do them all! I can't wait to hear from you! You can even private message me if you don't want to make it public.  

Outside my window
I am thinking
From the kitchen
I am wearing
I am creating
I am going
I am reading
I am hoping
I am hearing
Around the House
One of my favorite things
A few plans for the week
What I am listening to  

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