Survey Says: CLAY!

I'm going to be returning to my teaching schedule soon and wanted to poll my previous after school students to see what they wanted to see more of in the coming year and the media that won was: CLAY!

This is probably no surprise to some of you, but this means I am going to make a serious effort to include some awesome clay projects with this year's classes! This does take a bit of planning since I don't have a kiln--this means air dry clay it is. I have some plans for Model Magic, Crayola Air Dry Clay, and plans to test a couple of new (to me) air dry clays on the market. Any suggestions?

Another downfall: drying space. Since I'm "art on a cart" I don't have space to store the items safely where I teach while they dry. That means I pack all the clay items up, load them in the car and bring them home to dry until the next class. This stresses me out! I worry that one of my kids will get into them or the dog will knock them over. I'm come up with some good ways to transport and store clay creations in progress, but it will be nice when I don't have to worry about moving them.

So, without further ado, I repost this lovely "Forever Sandcastle" post I did awhile back. The lesson is from Family Fun magazine and is really fun for the children to make. Make one yourself and enjoy those summertime memories all year long!

Whip up a batch of air dry sand clay
to make a forever sandcastle of your own!

My latest painting...

So, I'm a bit behind in my birthday gifts this year. My sister-in-law had her birthday in March, but I'm just finishing her birthday gift. What held me up was that I just couldn't figure out WHAT to do exactly. I find it so hard to come up with unique gifts for people sometimes. SIGH. It really stresses me out. I hate the thought of spending money on a gift that someone won't like and will get rid of, so I've been sticking to consumables such as food, gift cards to restaurants, etc. But these things are so impersonal! Well, this time I had an idea...

I grabbed a photo she had taken while on vacation and posted to her facebook account and created a watercolor/colored pencil piece from it. The photo is from a place that is near and dear to her heart: Rehobeth, Delaware. She vacationed there with her family as a child and still goes there every year now that she's a grown-up.

You Are Here...
(Rehobeth, Delaware)

To create this piece, I used pencil to transfer the photo to Arches cold press watercolor paper. The photo wasn't exactly the dimensions I wanted--I wanted to show more ocean and beach and give it a more contemplative feel, so I drew in more of the ocean and beach. I then used permanent marker (a very thin tip) to outline the important contour lines in the piece. Afterwards, I added washes of color using my trusty Windsor Newton watercolors from college (I love those babies!). Once everything was dry, I went in and added layers of color and texture with Prismacolor colored pencils. Finally, I added some white gouche for the crests of the waves.

So here's the original photo and the finished piece. I'm very happy with it and I hope she is too. Happy Birthday Susan!

The original photo Susan took...Beautiful!
I can see why she likes it there so much!