Hello Again: Empty Nests, New Chapters, and What Feeds the Soul

It’s been a minute—four years, to be exact! My last post here was back in 2022, and a whole lot of life has happened since then.

If you’ve been following along for a while, you know this space was born out of my passion for art education, classroom adventures, and creative projects. But life shifts, kids grow up (hello, college!), and suddenly you find yourself looking around a much quieter house.

I am officially a newly empty nester.

With that big life milestone comes a lot of quiet time to think, reflect, and ask myself the big questions: What are my goals? What truly feeds my soul?

Reconnecting and Reintroducing

Being out of the traditional art classroom for the past five years has left me missing something vital: community. I miss the energy, the shared ideas, and the daily camaraderie of fellow educators. I’ve missed you.

At the same time, life is giving me the space to explore brand-new creative communities. Recently, I’ve found myself diving headfirst into the world of Urban Sketchers—learning to slow down, observe my surroundings, and capture real life on paper out in the wild. It’s been an incredible, humbling, and refreshing way to meet new artists and see the world through a different lens.

What’s Next for MiniMatisse?

So, what does this next chapter look like? Moving forward, this blog will be a reflection of my evolving creative life. You’ll see a mix of three main pillars here:

1. Art Education: Tried-and-true lessons, bite-sized video tips, and resources for teachers who want to bring more joy and structure into their art rooms.

2. Urban Sketching: My personal journey exploring urban sketching, sketchbook practices, and tips for drawing on location.

3. Art Home Projects & Studio Life: Creative things I'm making in my own space, DIY inspiration, and the quiet joys of a creative home.

Whether you are a longtime teacher friend who has been here for years or a new fellow sketcher just stopping by, I am so glad you're here.

Grab a cup of coffee, settle in, and let's get to know each other again.

Happy Teacher Application Week

Celebrating the Teacher Appreciation Week with a new lesson and a SALE May 3rd and 4th on Teachers Pay Teachers. 

Animal Weaving Project

CelluClay FaceVase

 

This was a really fun collaboration with Actívia! Be sure to click on this link for steps to making your own FaceVase as well as a video. 

Geometric Collaboration in 3D

I'm really excited to share this lesson that I did with my students last SPRING and will welcome them into the school this FALL!! This is a 3D bulletin board. It is a collaborative that my students participated in the last few weeks of school. I'm selling this on Teacher pay Teachers... let me explain more (watch this video)! 

I'm excited to share the final display with you towards the end of the month when I go back to school and display this great collaborative work of art created by the students of Hassan Elementary!!

 

 

Pop-Up Garden

I was inspired by Tracy Boberg Nichols who has a IG account called... @tracynicholsartclass. She did a pop-up garden with her students for Mother's Day 2021. I had to do it with my students as well. I have asked Tracy if she would mind if I shared the video I made off from her inspiration with others and she is happy to share!! So here is the video I created with my students. 

Here are the lessons I learned from teaching this pop-up garden 10 times to different sections. 

1) At first I asked students to create flowers on a half of sheet of paper. The problem was some flowers got too big and some too small. The solution was to create a template. This was helpful for students. I had students follow along with me using the following video. We did flowers 1-4 together to give students confidence. Then they could do 3 flowers on their own and two 'things' that fly in the garden (birds, bugs, butterflies... ). The flowers were created on Day 1 of this project. 

Many classes had some time after making the flowers. If that happened we used scrap paper to try to make the pop up portion of the cards. They could practice as many times as they wanted. If it was hard, they could practice over the week until the next class period. 

2) On day two, I handed the blue paper to the students as they entered the room. We folded the paper together and placed their name a table number onto the art. This was perfect for students to be successful by folding the paper same direction. They came to the carpet for the next instruction.

3) I showed students how to create 3 stems... I found this to be the 'magic' number of stems to not be too crowded and to allow students to be successful. This was also a good number that if students 'accidentally' added one more... it was OK. 

After the cuts as shown in the video I would remind students to "Hold the fold" then "Pull and Press". This seemed to help them quite a bit. 

4) After finishing this job I showed them (back on the carpet) how to glue the two together (the blue and green papers) and then showed them the portion of the video that shows cutting and glueing the flowers on... VERY short clip. For some students, this to take them the whole time... some finished up early. 

5) I made an optional instruction for students who were ready to challenge themselves or ready to move on. I showed them how to create a 'spring' with two strips of paper (as shown int he video). This was perfect for some to have as an option but if others were behind, perhaps with cutting or something else, they just kept working with the original steps.

This was a perfect end of the year activity but I will probably do it in April next year as Tracy did. I also think this would be a wonderful summer project for students to do as well.