Monster Mediums - Crayons

I have been trying for many years to get my students to use the word medium correctly.  I have tried this in elementary and in middle school. In both settings students continue to ask, "What do you mean when you say medium?" So this year in my room I'm going to have 'monster mediums' on the wall. These monster mediums will highlight each medium that is used in the classroom. I will have each artwork labeled as if it was in a museum. This way students will not only learn what the word media means but I'm hoping they will be able to understand how to read the label in a museum better.

My plan is to introduce each Monster to my students throughout the first couple weeks of school.  I plan to show them that image of each monster at the beginning of class and we will discuss the medium that the monster is made out of. I'm hoping this will form a routine for my students as they enter my classroom and possibly a fun and exciting game for them.

The next several posts will be me introducing the monster.  Let's get started with my first introduction.

This is Kray.  Kray is always worried about something. The top three things Kray worries about is what he will eat for lunch, who he will play with on the playground, and what book he will pick for bedtime. Kray is 8 1/2 years old.  He's really good in P.E. class and his favorite thing to do at home is Knit sweaters. He has eight older brothers and one younger sister. He shares a room with all of his brothers, and his sister gets her own room. Kray likes sharing a room because he feels safe with this brothers in the room.  

Bit-O-Bio, A Bit of a Biography

I'm so excited to introduce my newest adventure.  I'm calling it Bit-O-Bio.  This is going to be my new 'Moster Medium' or '#ProcessPigs'... This year I'm concentrating on Biographies of Artist.  What do I mean by all that... Let me share. 

Several years ago I gave a presentation at the AOE (The Art of Education) online conference on Monster Mediums in my classroom.  Feel free to view it below but basically, I wanted my students to know that the word medium means "materials used in an artwork".  I would introduce them to a 'monster' hanging on the wall every week. Then the kids would guess the medium of the monster and because this was our daily warm up, every student was able to use the word medium in their normal vocabulary by the end of the year. 

I did the same thing with Process this last year.  Check out any of the many videos of #ProcessPigs that I created. Students K-5 were able to talk about the 'process' of their own artwork in a sophisticated way by the end of this year because it was part of our daily 'cool down' in art class. 

This next year I'm tackling Art History... As you might have caught in the video above, this was part of my long-term goal.  If you have been watching my Instagram account, you know that I'm working on these paintings of Artist.  They are my own style and I'm loving ever minute!  I plan to create a video for each artist.  These videos are going to be 2 to 4 minutes long giving some highlights of the artist life.  I will be hanging the artist image in my classroom and each week as the students come in, I will have the video play at the start of class. As a wrap-up at the end of class, I will quiz students about what they have learned.  

I have just completed my first Bit-O-Bio, A Bit of a Biography.  Of course, I had to do it on Bob Ross... anyone who knows me, knows I love this dude!  In the past, I have been asked if I would sell my Monster Mediums or #ProcessPigs... I would love to, but I would have to quit teaching to make the beautiful works of art.  This time, I have made my images and videos digital so I can share them with anyone else who would like to implement a little more art history into their classroom.  I will be adding new artist throughout the summer.  I am selling them on TpT (Teachers pay Teachers).  This is what you will get if you buy a Bit-O-Bio.

I have made a video introducing the artist. This is a short 2-4 minute video with kid-friendly language. It highlights some 'kid-interesting' facts. I draw the story in the recording so it kind of shows drawing process as well.  

I took a picture of the key images and formulated some review questions.  My plan is to show the image to my kiddos so that they have a visual prompt as well as a verbal question. I will give these as students are lining up, or maybe for a brain break.  I plan to also have these posted outside my room for teachers to use as they line up to come into the classroom. 

The images are what have been feeding my creativity this summer. I love the fact that I have been able to think about these great Artist, research them, and create a simple explanation to share with my students.  The process of these paintings has been so much fun because I'm learning how to use photoshop yet I am still being true to my hand skills with watercolor and drawing.  I also feel that I'm being true to my 'style' of drawing.  I compare these artworks to ones I did even in high school and I see lots of similarities. 

So, check it out!  I hope you can use them, and if not, I'm having a blast getting ready for my student this fall! 

Write a Monster Story

We have had such a good time learning about the Monsters in Mrs. Hahn's room and their Mediums!  To see all about the Monster Medium project, click here. This monster is our last.  His name is D.J. Mix.  Most of the time we try to guess the medium in class... but today I'm going to tell you what it is... It's MIXED MEDIA.  Mixed media is when you use lots of mediums to make one work of art.  The only problem is, I don't have a story to go with D.J. Mix... That were you (Hassan Elementary Students) come in.

Fill out the following Google form to write a story about D.J. Mix.  We will be picking stories to share with the rest of the class. I can't wait to see how creative you can be!

#K12ArtChallenge, Week 2

Did you see Week 1?!?!  Some of us at the #k12ArtChat were discussing how the numbers aren't huge... we have a small group of people in the challenge this time around, but the Quality is AMAZING!!  The processes you put out there last week ROCKED my world!

OK, enough with the exclamation points.  Let's get down to business. This week I would challenge you to explore a Medium.  Choose one that you love, or want to try.  Do a little research online and discover new ways of using the medium... or show us the skills you have already.  Practice your art.  

I choose to do watercolor.  I love so many mediums it was hard to find one that I really wanted to go with, but this was really fun.  For me these cards take days... I could hardly wait for the paint to dry to move forward with the cards... In fact, one night I dreamt in ATC's.  Don't tell anyone, I don't want people thinking I'm obsessed.

Even though this week is all about mediums, I'm going to share the process of a couple of the cards I made.

The first card above is tree was a wet on wet method letting bubble wrap sit on the paper while it dried.  I removed some color with water to make the moon.  The tree and ground was applied with water and then watercolor pencil shavings off from sand paper.  Ta- da... Card one!

Card two, Pumpkin. Started with masking fluid to cover the pumpkin shape.  Applied the paint as a wet on wet again and then layed down some medical gauze adding a little more paint on top. After it was dry I removed the masking and gauze and painted the pumpkin with paint and watercolor pencil shavings.

And the last card above.  The gauze created the background again.  The spider was created on a separate paper with water and watercolor pencil, cut out after drying, and glued onto the textured background.

Above are the two rejects from this medium.  I used a masking fluid.  After drying the color was added and then the mask removed.

Stay tuned for the next celebration on Oct. 16th and the #K12ArtChallenge on Sat. Oct. 17th.

AEM Reflection

Another amazing couple days hanging with my TRIBE!! 

This weekend I attended and presented at the AEM Fall Conference.  It was held in Minneapolis this year and was close enough to drive.  Lot's of amazing energy rolling around in this building. I'll do a little recap of the weekend as I always do to review and reflect on the amazing information that I have learned about. 

Yesterday was our Keynote speaker Phil Hansen.  Stunning ideas on creativity.  For those of you on Twitter you already saw these but, here are some of the tweets I made as he was speaking. Powerful.

The message I took away with is that we are all creative people because creativity is more than just a drawing or writing or theater.  Most of us (art educators) know this.  Creativity can be found in any facet of life.  I heard Phil say creativity must be practiced, that it builds on itself and on failure.  Teaching our students (and parents, administration, co-workers, and community) that the final result is not the learning... it's the process. This is a hard idea in a product based world. I wanted to have a bottle of wine with this guy and chat more about creativity... but had more sessions to go to.  So our small-group, intellectual discussion between Phil and I will have to wait for another time.  I was happy to walk away with his signed book and quickly mentioned that students all over Hassan Elementary have been tattooing bananas inspired by him and my #ProccessPigs (click here).

The first session I had the honor to go to was Molly Wiste's, talking about Assessment in a TAB classroom.  She is so remarkable!  I have had the privilege to work 'with' Molly in a couple of different ways. We both taught at St. Cloud University last year and we are both instructors for AOE. She is also in our #PLN on twitter and has a blog I utilized often.  She's so earthy, and real, and approachable, and innovative and... well... inspiring. I took away a ton of ideas from her hour of speaking.  One of the BIG ideas was stations not having to be a physical space... but rather an online station.  BLEW MY MIND! Check out her blog Creativity, Society, and Education for so many great ideas.

The afternoon I spent with Bonnie Cutts and her presentation on painting Loose Landscapes.  She is wonderful! A wealth of knowledge... truly! It's always nice to learn from a practicing artist and it was really fun to experiment with new mediums. She has some stunning work and offers classes, so check her website out (click here).  The artwork below is not mine but rather another participant in class.  Mine was more about process... but I fell in love with this simple image of hers. 

Was pumped to present to a very intimate group... OK... the room was the size of a shoe box and so it had its challenges... but really it had it's advantages too.  It was so open and free flowing to share with this group of educators.  I wanted to make this as hands on as I could so I tossed out a bunch of mediums and we printed, and painted and drew as we were talking about ATC and the implementation of them in class.  Awesome group!! Lot's of laughs.

The best thing about this wonderful group that I presented to was that they were so creative and gave ideas to the group.  I find that in every presentation I am often not the only source of information.  I love when people share their experience.  This was a great tip that I had never seen.  Color bubble wrap with waterbased markers and transfer the print to a paper.  Brilliant! 

Today was a second keynote speaker, Peyton Scott Russell.  He is another local legend who talked about Graffiti.  His theme was very interesting and much of the information was the first time I had heard it.  I really would love to get him in to teach as an artist in residence.  He mentioned how Graffiti could be considered a Folk Art because it has a history and has been passed down from generation to generation.  I thought this was a new take on the artform and it got me thinking about bringing it into my classroom.  I know the kids would totally dig it.  I might even bring my personal minis to check out his classes at Sprayfinger if ever one works out for us.

The next session I hit was with Lockie Chapman. Her session was Art REMIX and it was a challenge to the audience to think about teaching differently.  Find our #PLN using Twitter and Facebook.  Used Flipped and Blended classes.  She gave amazing resources of places that will support your curriculum as an art teacher or maybe not even an art teacher but someone who really wants to 'art it up' in their classroom.  Lockie is a celebrated educator (and award winning this year with AEM).  It was so nice to meet her, to have conversed with her, and learn from her.

The last session of the day was creating again.  I went to the Textile Centers session on felting presented by Scarlett Larson, their Youth Education Coordinator. We made some little projects but my takeaway was the wonderful information that Scarlett shared with us about her programs.  Also the set-up for teaching this medium. Clever! Again a wealth of knowledge and a great resource for educators.

As always, I leave with an uplifted feeling, with a love for my job, and more connections than I had previously.  I adore Professional Development!! Thank you, Art Educators of Minnesota.  I appreciate your hard work.

Art Reflection- Artist Trading Cards

Last year I shared how to reflect on the Artist Trading Cards by using a worksheet (click here for previous post).   I have added a worksheet to share with you for free on Teachers Pay Teachers (click here).

This year I have had the MOST successful reflection on the Artist Trading Cards!! This is the breakdown of what I call Trade Day.

First, I have placed a card into every students ATC sleeve.  I can look at the cards that they have created and match up ability levels and interest.  When they come into class, I try to really pump them up.  I write down the number of cards we received in the trade... one number at a time.  This creates a lot of anticipation and a BIG... united WOW! Then I explain that I have cards in their folders right now!! This minute!! Waiting for them!! Again... the crowd goes WILD!!! I explain that they will have the opportunity to look at the cards and keep it, or look at the card and exchange it.  I see the kids going around with such excitement showing off the cards to one another.

Then I have them join me in a circle with their cards.  Here is the conversation that takes place:

Me:
Do you know where your card came from? Raise your hand if you do... If you don't know where it came from, Why?

Student Answers:

• Because the handwriting is sloppy.
• Because the Artist didn't write the correct information on it.
• Because it is in a different language.

Me: 

OK... so we are going to know where some cards come from and some are a mystery to us. Let's keep that in mind as we do our next activity.  We will be passing the cards to the person on your right (point to the person on your right) every time I say switch. You will have a few seconds to look at the image and the information on the back. There is no conversation at this time, you are simply letting your brain take it all in.  Don't worry... you will get your card back.

We then do the activity of passing the art from around the circle as I show in the video below.

More discussion takes place.

Me:

Did you see some cards that were totally impressive?  What made them so amazing?  What techniques or mediums did you see? Why do you think they were so high quality?  I'm going to give you a minute to talk to your neighbor and then we'll talk about it as a group. 

Students responses: 

• I think they were good because they took their time.
• I think they were high quality because they were older then us.
• The mediums were interesting. 
• So on, and so on.

Me: 

OK, did you see any cards that if you saw the Artist, you would make suggestions for them to improve on?  Why do you think some of the cards could be a little better?

Students:

• They might be a kindergartener. 
• The Artist might have different abilities. 
• They might have not cared about the project.
• Maybe the teacher didn't give them enough time.

One little guy said, I don't think we should judge their work.  I validated that, I said you're right, we don't know what the situation of the Artist was however conversation about art is for learning.  These are just suggestions that we might make to an Artist to help them grow and get better. 

This took most of the hour.  I gave the assignment that they will be making an artwork that is inspired by the art received.  They will be making their own ATC replicating the art they received... or being inspired by the subject or the elements of design used.  I show them examples of students who did this last year.

See in this example, the student is using the technique as their inspiration. 

In this one, the elements of color and somewhat of the subject.

This Artist was inspired by the texture created by the braille paper used on their received card. They created their own bumpy paper for their card.

This student chose to recreate their card with the colors and style. 

 

The rest of the hour (maybe 10 minutes by this time) we spend preplanning how they will create their card inspired by the received art trade. They can also let me know if they need specific materials for next time. 

The following art class we will be working on the cards and then writing a compare and contrast using a worksheet to guide then (click here).  I will have them take a digital image of this to send to me and also place on their google drive/ Schoology account.  This will be how I grade their work for this trimester... It will allow us to reach the national standards of reflection and connecting.

Art Ed Blogger Network- Student Engagement and Participation

It's not hard to engage our youngest Artist. Our kindergarten through 3rd grade are always willing to learn and participate in the Art Studio. In fourth grade, there is a shift. Students start getting bored, they start thinking that they are or art not 'an Artist'.  In my eyes, there are a couple of reasons this happens. Students are maturing and starting to notice others and their abilities, this allows for students to compare themselves to others around them. Another reason might be because students have been drawing for years now. They are getting bored with the medium, process, tools and so on. I have a solution to both... Continue to bring the new...

This is where it is perfect to have a full program set out at your school. A scope and sequence will identify the concepts covered in each grade level, but it can also identify where students used certain mediums, processes, and tools. This way, every year you are bringing something new to your students. In the Visual Arts Studio, this should be no problem, we teach so very much!

I discovered this philosophy in engagement due to a shift in my programming. Our time with each student in the elementary setting was reduced to one day, every six digital days (we had seen them every 5). This meant that we were seeing them 34 times before and now we were down to 28 hours with each class. That doesn't sound like a huge shift but it has been enough of one that we have found it difficult to assess and reach our standards. I had to shift my mindset... Instead of a class that is teaching skill and building great Artist... I'm sharing the 'awesome' of Art to my students each year. It is more about exposure and less about skill.

I want to make sure that my students have all the 'fun' experiences that they can so I introduce something new each year. Let me give you some examples... K's through 2nd... Life is new so everything I teach them is amazing (gosh I love that about my littles). Third grade I don't have to work hard but I try to teach them painting using tempera cakes, liquid tempera, watercolors, liquid watercolor.... this is enough to keep them interested. In 4th grade, I brought in fibers to the classroom. I wrote about this in previous posts. Students LOVED it! In 5th grade, I brought in Stop Motion Animation something that most of them had not had up until now. And 6th grade I challenged the whole group with new mediums with Celluclay sculptures. You have seen me post these amazing birds every quarter, and we are starting our last sculptures currently for this quarter. 

Any time people (not just students) have the opportunity to learn something new, their brain is challenged and therefore engaged... many times this triggers the rest of them, their emotion and productivity. It also puts everyone back at ground zero and skill levels are equalized again. There is less room for comparison. I encourage you to not only bring in the new for each grade level but be enthusiastic as you do so. I find this idea of experimenting and learning something new also engages me as an instructor. Therefore, I'm excited and emotionally connected about the lesson presented. That most definitely is another reason the engagement for my student's increases, it's contagious. 

Find more on this subject here...

PARTICIPATING ART TEACHER BLOGS:

• Art Class Curator
• Art Ed Guru
• Art is Basic
• Art Room Blog
• Art with Mr. E
• Arte a Scoula
• Artful Artsy Amy
• Brava Art Press
• Capitol of Creativity
• Create Art with ME
• MiniMatisse
• Mr. Calvert’s Art Room Happenings
• Mrs. Boudreaux’s Amazing Art Room
• Mrs. T’s Art Room
• Party in the Art Room
• shine brite zamorano
• Tales from the Traveling Art Teacher
• There’s a Dragon in my Art Room

Introducing #ProcessPigs

If you follow my Pinterest Board, you would have noticed among the 13,000+ pins, a large amount of pigs being pinned. You might remember last year at about this time, there was a bunch of monsters being pinned... That was to prepare me for my Monster Mediums that are hanging in my room right now... and the pigs are preparing me for next year... 

I'm excited to introduce you to #ProcessPigs ! This is part of my Summer Goals for 2015.  I will be creating pigs with many mediums and many different processes.  I will be documenting the process and again, having the students learn about each pig created throughout the year as a warm-up.  The goal is to have students understand the what the word process is, but more so, to let them become excited for trying different process in art.   

My friends would laugh at me pinning or picking pigs as a subject.  I grew up on a farm and I'm not really an 'animal person' as you find in the suburbs where I live now.  I have friends who dress their dogs up, bring them to Starbucks, and let them sleep with them at night.  I have NO problem with this in anyway, shape or form... it's just so not me.  I enjoy the love people have for their animals.  Anyway, why pigs?  Because it starts with 'P'.  I don't have to be in love the the subject to be in love with the process.  

#Crush Announcment

The last two years I have celebrated February with a series called #Crush. This February I would like to continue my #Crush celebration but this time I'm going to crush on Mediums.  See every week since the start of school all of my elementary students have had the same kind of warm up as they enter my classroom. They come in and I introduced them to a new Monster Medium. The purpose of the warm-up is to get students to 1) understand the what the word medium means in Art. 2) To help them recognize different media use and techniques 3) To create some routine fun-- yep, you can have a system set up to have fun. :)

I'll highlight the Monsters a bit more in March when we have brackets to vote for our favorite Monster Medium. This month, I'm going to #crush on different Media. Here is my schedule.  I think it would be fun to hear what your favorite lessons, uses, or techniques are with these mediums. I'll be sure to share some of mine as well! Hashtag your shares with #Crush and tag me on Twitter with @MiniMatisse and on Instagram with @MiniMatisseArt. Something to look forward to this month.

Here is my post on Crayons, Paints, Markers,

Everyday Art Room: 5 New Mediums for the Creatives in our Lives

On the Everyday Art Room today, I talked about 5 New Mediums for the Creatives in our Lives. Art Teachers might want to give a listen to see if you are missing some of these in your classroom... but what I had intended for this episode is to provide it for teachers so that they can offer it to the families and partners in your lives who are wondering... What do I get my young Artist for the holidays or a birthday? Here are 5 ideas... plus on the podcast it's self, I give one bonus thought. 

1. Solid Tempera Paint Sticks

As I mentioned, I don't have a favorite brand of these paint sticks. I do however know that kids love them... I have used them with students as old as 6th grade and ALL of them love this material! 

2: Semi-Moist Tempera Cakes

I adore this product because of the bold colors. I have recently done some work with them in lessons that Art to Remember has placed on their website... Heres how we used the product in class. 

3: Black Light Studio (Thanks to Sarah Karjewski)

Sarah actually has a pro pack on how to create a Black Light Art Show... Check out the free preview to see how to get this kind of a look in your classroom! OR... Here's some hot tips and tricks in an article she wrote on the same subject! 

4: 3D Printer Gun (Thanks to Abby Schukei) 

Abby not only has the link for the supplies but a great article about the product and how to use it. Check out this article on The Art of Education Magazine

5: Pearlesints Watercolors

These are the Ooly Watercolors I was telling you about on the podcast. Be sure to get your young artist both white watercolor paper and a brush, but also some black paper to explore what that looks like as well. 

Listen to the Everyday Art Room podcast to hear the bonus medium that I would suggest for you to give the young creatives in your life. 

The Kandinsky Project- Monoprint, Chalk Drawing, Recycled Art and Collage

Finishing up The Kandinsky Project unit with this post.  These were my 4 favorite lessons that I did with my K's (well and actually with some of my older students as well because it was so successful and engaging). I can't wait to share the last four lessons with you in this post.  I am also sharing them with you via Teacher Pay Teacher as well. 

Check this out! In this unit you will get four student instructional videos. This means you just push play and let me do the teaching. This is to support the four out of the seven lessons in the Kandinsky Project. I have already posted on the other three.  I posted on Sidewalk Chalk, Shaving Cream, and Manipulative's as the mediums. These four lessons in this TpT unit are extremely engaging because of the mediums and processes. Let me share a little about each.

In the collage unit, I bring our young artist through the process of cutting, and gluing with good quality.  This was a fun lesson for many of my students because I often gave them challenges throughout the class.  After completing one circle collage... I 'dared' them to try to beat their number of circles in the next collage.  The kids got such a thrill with this.

The recycling lesson was fun because it's all about discovery.  After the Art Studio collects lids from the families of the school, we turn this trash into treasure in two ways.  This lesson gives a more traditional way using color caps and a less traditional way using a glue and paint concoction that allows you to create a similar look using only white lids. I'm telling you, most of the fun with this lesson is finding the just right lids for the perfect repeating circle project.

I want to make sure that my students have the opportunity to use chalk as a medium in my classroom however, I hate the dust and mess of the medium inside.  I show you a new way of using chalk by combining it with white paint.  It gives a very interesting end result. I can't wait to see how these works of art look coming out of other art Studios... I know your students will love it. 

My favorite lesson in this unit was Monoprinting.  I love printmaking in the classroom and this is an extremely easy and fun way to introduce the process to your little artist.  The video is brightly colored with a clear explanation.  Additional resources for this lesson include how to set up the room and facilitate this printing process in the classroom.

Click here for The Kandinsky Project Unit on Teachers Pay Teacher

#Crush on the Medium Paint

This #Crush got a little bigger than I had planned, but I'm glad I chose to do this medium because it reminded me of why I let my room get so messy with paint so often.  It's because it's a spectacular medium and should be celebrated and used. Let's start by talking about one of the most out of the box... but inside the frame, ways that I have used paints... painting with Sphero.

Painting with Robots: 

Last year I was lucky enough to work at a school where we had over 25 sphero robots and iPads to run them all. I wanted to get all students to have the opportunity to use the robots so what better way to do that than bring it into the Art Room where in a digital week 700+ kids make their way through the space.  We played with the spheros in many ways but one was Painting With Sphero. Check the previous post to see the other ways that we explored spheros in the Art Room. 

Painting on Clay: 

Paint is a great alternative to glaze.  Once I do clay week with my students I'm often overwhelmed with the amount of clay that must be finished.  In order to reduce the amount of glazing (and subsequently firing again), I use paint as a finishing technique often.  Check out the post about Crock-O-Gater, Clay Bugs, and the Coil Pots pictured above. 

Paint Reduction: 

I love using a reduction method with paint.  Sometimes we 'make paper' by spreading paint onto a paper and taking off the paint with rubber tools, eraser tips, or texture tools. Two examples I can share with you are as follows: 1. As we were designing paper to use on our Artist Trading Cards 2. in this cute little Painted Snail project. Both examples students paint on the page and remove some of the paint for a different application of the medium.  

Large Format Painting:

Paint is often the medium of choice when we want to cover a large space in a short time. It's fun to give students a large sheet of paper and have them paint in a traditional way. They love it and feel like 'artist'. Here are three examples of painted projects that I have done in the past; Warm and Cool Color City, Paint by Number Geometric Shapes, and Radial Balance Painting.

Color Theory: 

Color mixing, blending, and playing is often discovered most strong with paint. Check out this Color Mixing lesson where I have asked my students to mix 100 different colors. Or this tint project where there is a student ready video explaining how to create tints. 

New Paint Mediums:

Playcolors or Paint Sticks are a new medium to me in the last couple of years.  They are such a slick way to apply paint.  I still have a hard time putting them in the 'paint' category, but the bold colors are comparable so sure... why not... let's call it paint.  One lesson where my students used paint sticks for their project is in the Primary Pedal Project.

Watercolor: 

See... this is where the medium 'paint' gets big. Watercolor fits under this umbrella as well... and under that umbrella is pan watercolors, liquid watercolors, watercolor pencil, and tube or fresh watercolors.  I chose to highlight liquid watercolors above with this really fun Swimming Figure project. I love the quick application and bold colors of liquid watercolors.  Below is a watercolor painting that was altered with snow. Simply flicking water or snow on a watercolor image leaves these organic shapes that can really shift your image from realistic to abstract. 

Collaborative Painting: 

There is nothing like setting up your classroom for some collaborative painting. I set out paints and paper for these little Artists at the end of a school year. At the start of the next school year, their paintings were displayed in one large work of art, click here. 

My love for paint runs beyond my classroom walls.  I'm not at all afraid of a little color on my wall. My husband says we loose square footage of our homes that we live in because I change the colors on the walls so much that the walls are getting thicker with the paint coats. Some of the most recent rooms I have done is my son's room and my laundry room. 

In my personal life, the greatest paint love is watercolor.  I love to bring watercolor into my sketchbooks and art on a regular basis.

Well, there you have it... I have professed my #crush on paint to the world. Check back on Thursday when I share my #crush on markers as I continue my series on mediums.