Chickadees in Chalk Pastels

We took the time this week to work on a new art project. Besides the need to get some new art time in, our powder room needed a new round of art to adorn its walls!

Our family always enjoys working with Hodgepodge Mom's pastel art tutorials and this time I pulled out her new ebook- A Simple Start in Chalk Pastels. It's pretty easy to have everyone at the table with our supplies out, including my laptop, to learn a new project.

We're off to a great start!

We consulted our field guide for some details and our feeder has been fairly busy with chickadees recently. You can almost always catch them at the feeder when you walk by our french doors. I love to combine art with nature study- what better way for our Creator to speak to us than through His creation. Make the time! It always brings a measure of peace to our day.

Not bad E14!

Art is so effortful for E14...yet I always love his work in chalks.

A nice plump chickadee drawn by I10!

This is the sweetest bird by J7! I love his lines. And look at that painterly effect!

Isn't it lovely? R12 loves to chalk and made several more besides this one- she always chalks on long after the lesson is finished!

R12's finished chickadee on display in funky bathroom lighting...

A gift which will be sent along to its destination shortly

All four are displayed in our powder room where guests can enjoy them too!

The best part about chalk pastels is their forgiving nature. They can a little messy, but it doesn't last long and the results are always worth the effort.

My new favorite way to enjoy our children's artwork is to put it up around our home. Seeing their finished, framed work on our walls always brings a smile to my face. These four framed pieces are on the wall in our powder room which is delightful even to guests when they see it. I like to keep spare dollar store frames handy for gift giving and to rotate out and around the artwork. Thank you to Tricia and Nana for sharing this medium and all the lessons with us!



A Simple Start in Chalk Pastels
A full school year of chalk pastel art lessons. Lucia Hames, Nana to the Hodgepodge family, teaches forty-five lessons. Her simple instructions will have you creating masterpiece drawings in no time.

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Making a Zine {Artist Style}

Recently while traveling through my Twitter feed full of Project Based Homeschool moms I came across the recommendation or maybe just casual mention of the book Whatcha Mean What's a Zine? I checked to see if our library had it and reserved my copy. Like many books that are a huge success at our house, I simply bring them home and lay them out and watch the magic happen. Passersby will notice them conspicuously placed on the coffee table or I will point out that I picked out a book for a child and sure enough it's a hit.

Such was the case with this book and R12 has been making Zines regularly since. At first her Zine was daily, but she has settled nicely into an every other day publication. Before the first issue, she was dropping hints all day that her Zine was going to debut at dinner time. Since then we all look forward to seeing her latest creation at the dinner table.

Photo Credits: R12

Her Zine is called The Artist's Palette and features the same cover and sleeve- the little sleeve has the issue number on it and keeps the pages together.

She creates all sorts of art inside each issue either drawing, collaging, or mixing her media. Her attention to detail is impeccable and it's so fun to see what she will do with each issue.

At the time of this photo, she had 9 issues but has since published the tenth. The Groundhog Day issue is a special issue with double the pages. I need to ask R12 for some extra photos of this one. She did such a great job with the whole thing.

Tonight J7 asked her where the Zine was and she had to quickly think about whether or not today was a Zine day. It wasn't. But we eagerly await the release of the next issue.

Zines (think maga-ZINE) aren't just for art. You can put anything in a Zine and R12 has been trying to get her brothers into it- we're hoping it catches on a little, but for now we'll enjoy The Artist's Palette.

I love to watch as our children get older all the things they will pour themselves into. Feel free to drop a comment and tell us some of things your children enjoy!

Displayed Art

As promised, here is a look at some ways we display our pastels around the house. In our old house we had one gallery in our dining room. At the new house I've had a grand time decorating and finding places for the kids' work to be displayed. How about a look?

This is my Creative Memories magnetic frame. I wanted it up on the wall, but my scrapbooking things were still packed. So, I made a collage with artwork and some watercolored paper behind it.

I love the way this arrangement turned out by the front door. The photograph is one my mom took (I switch out several of her photos throughout the seasons) and the next one is a frame I picked up and I put I10's pastel leaf in it. The color matches and it looks sweet- the dollar store wallie was a quick add-on.

The original gallery frames- this was a tough one, but I chose to put them on a wall in the kitchen that faces the door we use regularly. It's time to make some new art for these frames. I love that they are "floating frames" so it doesn't matter what size the paper is when you begin (as long as it isn't bigger!).

Remember these pastels? I put them all in the powder room with terrific results. At the time we didn't have more frames so R12 collected some twigs from the yard and we used twine to hang them on the wall. We thought it was lovely, but the wind created by closing the door made it hard for one in particular to stay on the wall!

This week I upgraded to dollar store frames. Even the second hand store over-charged for a used frame so I thought I'd try the dollar store. I bought a nice variety of frames to try. These frames replaced our twigs and twine. I'm looking forward to the Christmas project for the bathroom this month.

This one really makes me smile every time I'm at the kitchen sink! It happens to be just above our instant hot water faucet for tea and coffee. Another second hand frame, it adds such great dimension to the art that our children create.

The best part about decorating with the kids' artwork is that we get to decorate authentically and inexpensively. The children love that their work is there for others to see. It makes me smile to see the fruit of our work together throughout the house. It also makes our art studies and projects more meaningful.

Now that I've just posted about our fall artwork, it's time to get going on our Christmas projects so we can have a seasonal look about the house. I've received frequent compliments on the pieces of framed art we have scattered around the house. I encourage you to look for ways you can decorate using your children's art.

How do you display your kids' artwork in your homeschool?

Fun with Pastels

Can you believe how quickly this season is passing? I've been trying to soak it in especially now that the sun is out more often than not lately. We've had a lot of gray and rain this autumn. In October we took some time to enjoy a chalk pastel project. Tricia over at Hodgepodge has a wonderful set of tutorials. I posted on the Blog, She Wrote facebook page about Tricia's free chalk pastel tutorials, but I wanted to be sure and share here on the blog as well.

One of our favorites from last year was the Apple or Pumpkin lesson. Since ours were still packed away and we wanted to decorate for the season, we made some more! And we tried the fall leaves.

The kids all tried several apples & pumpkins- a few tried leaves. Even E14, who doesn't particularly enjoy flexing his artistic muscles, enjoys chalk pastels.

R12 started making her own designs. She really lights up when I pull out the pastels.

Pastels are so fun to use and so forgiving! Next, I want to share what we did with some of these after we finished making them. The results were splendid so stay tuned!

School Cabinet {Supply Central}

Time for a close up of one of the items in our learning space- the supply cabinet. It's a gift from a friend and so perfect for our needs!

After losing a big, deep closet (not the best space but there was plenty of it), I really needed a large cabinet in which to hide some basic supplies. This lovely early American piece exceeds our expectations for storage. It makes me smile every time I see it or open it.

You know a space is just right when you still smile when you see the inside!

The cabinet is for supplies we use but are not used daily. They are also supplies that fall into the project category rather than just general craft supplies. Those are down in our basement now nearby to tables where the kids can work on their own.

So, what's inside? 

• paints- we have Colorations temperas in basic primary colors plus black and white for coloring mixing and painting projects.
• BioColor paints- also from Discount School Supply. These marbleize when mixed and are very enjoyable to paint with.
• science equipment- stays in the middle on the bottom. Mostly right now this is glassware and pipettes
• Inherited Art Supplies- from our retired pastor who does a lot of lovely drawing and painting. This is a pretty cool stash that includes lots of pastels, watercolors, and fun paper
• Paper- we have the letter box of sulphite construction paper, watercolor paper, and plain white sulphite drawing paper in 50lb weight both 9x12 and 9x18 sizes. 
• Laminator and pouches
• ProClick Binder and the coils
• Watercolors- our big box of water color supplies
• glue and other adhesives, Mod Podge- luv Mod Podge! Also, some Shimmer n' Shine art glaze
• stamps and other project supplies
• tissue paper and other small box supplies in a stack
• a few manipulatives and other misc items

I hope you enjoyed your peek inside this big cabinet. I thought it would be fun to list out some of our favorite supplies.

Stay tuned for more of the INSIDE tour of our learning spaces!

4-H Word Cloud Textile Art

About a month ago I purchased the Hearts and Trees Volume 2 Magazine and we've been enjoying it here and there as we've had time before and after our move. R12's favorite activity has been the word cloud. While she was playing around with it, she made a 4-H clover leaf and put in it all the words she could think of that had to do with her 4-H experience. I encouraged her to take a look on our local cooperative extension website to explore other 4-H events and ideas and she came up with this great little word cloud in just the right color. She decided it would look terrific on a tshirt. Here's a look at how R12 made the shirt.

After she made the word cloud she had to reverse the image in order to iron it on a shirt- we have practice at this from making the FLL tshirts.

Iron is ready- ok it's not my iron. Ours has not turned up at the new house. I didn't pack it...Dan did. When you iron on the shirts you can't use an ironing board. Interesting, huh?

She trimmed around the edges of the clover leaf and you can see we printed it reversed so it will turn out right on the shirt.

I gave a hand in the ironing- she didn't want to take any chances on messing it up!

Ready for lift off!

The finished product. Isn't that cool?

We had a feeling this one would do well and look! A blue ribbon!

Even better look at this! Later on we saw that it was chosen to go to State Fair! Congratulations R!

I encourage you to check out Amanda's Hearts and Trees Volume 2 Magazine. The tag line says- Encouraging Art. Handicrafts, and Nature Study. We had a fun time with the first volume as well and I'll be sharing more about the magazines really soon.

I just wanted to share with you some good news from the 4-H Fair and there's more to come. E13 has another game on the way to the Great NY State Fair. Stay tuned!

On the Go...

Well I'm sure most of us can identify with a busy schedule as we've gotten back to our fall routines. Around here we aim to keep things as low key as possible, but with four children that doesn't always happen. Here's a peek at some things we've been doing while I9 plays out his soccer season (oh and one orthodontist appt was thrown in there). We only have one more practice tomorrow (Wednesday) and Saturday is the final tournament. So, things are winding down for soccer...

My kids had no problem removing the magazines off one of the orthodontist's tables to play a game.

A little Spill and Spell- after a while they had turned the board on its side and were launching the cubes into the cup at the end.

We take art supplies just about everywhere. They were working on fall colors from the HBNS blog.

Somehow artwork on a blanket at a sporting event always draws a big crowd of young spectators...J6 was noting the blue sky around his colorful leaves.

I made sure to provide the fall color palette for reference- this is from the FIAR Fall Nature Study (one of my favorite nature studies of all time)

What else have we been up to this fall? Weekly Co-op, FIRST LEGO League (updates on that coming soon), Sewing Camp, and E13 just finished hunter safety with Dan- another step on the road to his falconry license. The older kids also volunteer at the Salvation Army with Dan to serve a lunch meal on the first Saturday of the month. So, things are busy but thankfully FLL isn't really going to hit high gear until after soccer is finished.

How are things going at your house with a busy routine?

Apples & Pumpkins...Some Art

This week we tried out the Apple or Pumpkin Tutorial at Hodgepodge. Once again Nana's Tutorial was a grand time. In fact, we've been adding to our collection all week. We have fodder for next summer's 4H Fair, a lovely garland for our school room, some art for Dan's new office (have I mentioned Dan will start a new job?), and a fall birthday gift.

Hands down one of E13's best pieces of art. Ever.

I9 does a nice job.

R11 adding a "painterly effect"- making something look like a painting

Can you see J6's in the middle right? He doesn't like the chalks. Though I do now offer him the chance to scumble with a Kleenex. He likes that much better.

I like to make a workspace with wax paper.

With my laptop, the tutorial was right there beside us and I could point to Nana's directions the whole time.

R11 had a great time making lots of them.

Ever the artist, she spends a lot of time making her drawings just right. And they do look lovely. She really enjoys playing with colors and layers.

Later in the day I sat down and tried a few. I like the painterly effect.

Instead of using a brown, R11 made pumpkin lines by changing the shade of her orange a bit.

As Tricia over at Hodgepodge says, pastels are blessedly messy. That's a wet paper towel there. R11 thought it would be great just to swipe her finger and carry on with the art.

We are looking forward to more tutorials. If you haven't tried out pastels as a medium, make time very soon. It's a great medium and makes artists out of everyone! The garland in our school room window turned out well. I'll try to post a picture soon!