Art Teaching Tip

Book Covers make wonderful "art mats" to protect desks and tables during art lessons. (Thank you Mrs. Brown.)
Your school probably receives free book covers from various vendors at the beginning of each school year. (Hint, if you can't find 'em, check your library.) They last forever, but be forewarned, kids will beg you to keep them for their own. Then after they've been used often, adults will want them too because they end up looking like works of art.

(Back of mats)(Front of mats)

These art mats have been used this year by kids at 5 different schools. That's more than 1,000 students!!

Kids Art

Georgia O'Keeffe

American Artist 1886-1987

Oriental Poppies, 1928

Georgia O'Keeffe inspired flowers

Monterey Road Elementary Artists

Kids Art

Georgia Brown Elementary "Art Show"

School art shows are a ton of work to accomplish, but hugely appreciated by parents, kids, and staff! (They can even be fundraisers too.)

Famous Artist

"I know that to paint the sea really well, you need to look at it every hour of every day in the same place so that you can understand its ways in that particular spot and that is why I am working on the same motifs over and over again, four or six times even."

Claude Monet
French 1840-1926



The Japanese Footbridge, 1899
National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

Kids Can Draw!

San Gabriel Elementary Artists - 4th Grade

Cartoons inspired by http://www.unclefred.com/

A kid said.....

I was passing out paper in a 2nd grade class on Tuesday and overheard a little girl say to little boy next to her, "When I grow up, I'm going to be a rock star or a teacher."
What did he say back? Nothing, he was too busy trying to get his pencil through a hole in the bottom of his sneaker.

Art Teaching Tip

When students are painting their sky, they can turn their paper upside-down, so the sky part is on the bottom (closest to them). This keeps blue drops of paint from landing elsewhere on their painting because they won't have to reach across it to paint the sky.

Kermit King Elementary Artist

Who says the colors have to be realistic? :)

One of my little Pop Artists

San Benito Elementary Artist
Kids love, love, love Pop Art!

San Benito Elementary artist

Kermit King Elementary Artist

Teaching a Pop Art lesson at San Benito Elementary. This is an Andy Warhol poster titled "100 Cans". Every time I teach this lesson, kids want to know if there really are 100 cans? (We then count together, 10 down and 10 across, mental math 10x10, then they believe me when I say, "Yes, there really are 100 Campbell Soup cans in this poster.")

One of Andy Warhol's famous prints of Marilyn Monroe. He started making prints of her in 1962 soon after she died.
Andy Warhol is the artist known to have characterized the philosophy that there isn't a distinction between fine arts and commercial arts. Attributing the word "art" to magazine illustrations, comic books, record albums, advertising campaigns etc. is done now because of this perception Andy Warhol illuminated. He once said, "When you think about it, department stores are kind of like museums. "
Today, the Andy Warhol Museum can be visited in his hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Andy Warhol, 1928-1987

Kermit King Elementary Artist

Artist Quote

Andy Warhol once said,
"But I always say,
one's company,
two's a crowd,
and three's a party."