Christmas - Jars of Joy Paintings

Click here for: Gallery of Completed Paintings 
Just finished up a series of 5 classes with 2nd through 4th grade. We used acrylic paint on canvas to do some Christmas paintings.
Class 1: Backgrounds and edges (christmas colors, not too crazy with patterns - should be kind of muted - cover all white canvas - don't get the colors too muddy)
Class 2: Jars (we cut shapes out of cardboard first and traced around them)
Class 3: Twirly Vines (fill up the canvas, used paint pens for the skinny vine, used q-tips for the dots of color along each vine)
Class 4: Bows and ornaments hanging from the vines
Class 5: Tiny Manger scene - hot glue to the canvas and wrap a ribbon around the edge.
Kids and parents both loved it, and we had a Christmas art show!

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How to Illustrate a book

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For the people (especially my Mom) who have said, "I'd like to see how you do that!" I created this video to show my own pecular process of illustrating a book. The illustrations in this particular book, Song of the Crickets, were inspired by the Bluegrass lessons my daughter and I are taking. I drew each of the crickets with an instrument.
I use a Mac loaded with PhotoShop Elements and ILife which includes Pages. My camera is a FinePix S1500.
This is the 10th book I've illustrated for several different authors. They are all available through this link:
Phyllis’ Books:
​Books-illustrated-Phyllis-Dillard-Stewart

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Canvas Hot Air Balloon Class

Eleven children took my summer class for painting balloons on canvas.  This is how we did it...
Day One - Paint the sky
Day Two - Paint the clouds and the landscape
Day Three - Landscape details and start Balloon
Day Four - Balloon and basket details
Day Five - Finish up, and letter around edges

Each day they practiced first on a 20"X72" mural before working on their individual canvas. We then displayed our finished artwork for everyone to admire.

Artsonia has a gallery of all their results.

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20 Minute Guided Drawings

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 Teaching a drawing class during VBS in Deland Florida added the challenge of helpings kids, ages 5 to 12, complete a sketch in 20 minutes.  I had about 60 kids during the week, and they were divided into groups by age.  I also had to think up a sketch that was related to the Bible lesson for the day, and had a sea-creature theme.  So... "Friendly Dolphins" represented the idea that God is your friend, "Comforting Octopus", with all those arms to give hugs, reminds us that God can comfort us.  "Surprising Butterfly Fish" opened our eyes to the surprises of God's creation, "Seagulls" carrying a sprig of life illustrated the promise of new life.  Last, "Family of Sea Turtles" represented the generations through which our faith has been passed down.  You can view all the galleries at Artsonia .com.  The kids and parents were amazed at how these quick sketches turned out.

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Hot Air Balloon

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This is a painting I did with my daughters. I am planning on teaching 4th through 6th graders this in July. Can't wait to show the results! This was fun because each artist designs their own sky, landscape and balloon.  All done with acrylics on canvas.

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Painting a Summer Sky

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This video gives simple instructions for painting a sky with acrylics on canvas.  Three skies, one painted by me, and one by each of my daughters.  We then used the skies as backgrounds for a painting of hot air balloons.  That video coming soon!

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Drawing an Orangutan

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Drawing an orangutan or other monkey is a great way to remember a trip to the zoo.  I taught this to elementary students during summer camp. Having circle shapes (cups, bottle caps, etc) to trace around for the basic starting shapes is helpful. The video shows a watercolor, but the kids at camp used markers and crayons.

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Painting to Celebrate Summer Vacation

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Acrylics on canvas... this project takes up a whole week of summer art camp.  Great idea for pre-teen and high school girls, but younger students can have fun with it, too. Don't try to get too technical with the self-portraits, a cartoon-y look can be the goal.

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Beatitudes - Class Series

When I taught this class to 3rd and  4th grade we alternated - lesson one week, the clay dog the next week. 

1. Boston Terriers represent the "poor in spirit" because they know they need guidance.  Biblical example - Zacchaeeus

2. Bassett Hounds represent  mourning because they look so sad and bay so pitifully. Biblical example - the family and friends of Lazarus.

Get the idea?  I am writing a book for this series, so when I am done you can get the whole deal! I will post a link for sure.

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Clay Boxer - Brindle

                                Click here for: Video
Ahhh... the boxer, who has a reputation for keeping himself clean, so we gave him the "pure heart" award when we studied the beatitudes. This video shows how to make the whole body, too, but sometimes I just do a head, flatten it a bit, and glue a huge magnet on the back.  This saves money on clay when you have a large class, helps students concentrate more on the details of the face, and gets done a little faster. To give him a "brindle" look, have the students mix a little black clay with the brown, but don't mix it too much... you want to be able to see the black streaks in the brown background.

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Clay Dalmatian for 3rd Grade

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Great activity for Fire Prevention or Fire Safety week.  The head is the most difficult part - create the heads before class and bake them to make it easier for younger classes.

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Sculpting a Black Lab from Polymer Clay

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The class has finished a dog head and a laying down dog. Now it's time for a  dog who's been told to "Sit!" and is waiting for his treat.  Since many of the kids have black labs as pets, we decided to do these.



We used Fimo III polymer clay, which says "soft" on the packaging. Usually "soft" Fimo III clay is only a tad softer than the other types, but the black has a tendancy to be very soft and sticky. You will not need to warm this black up in your hands to work with it. It was so sticky that I ended up making and baking the "toothpick heads"  in advance, and then letting the class build the body, insert the pre-baked head, and  put on the ears and eyes. That was still a challange for kindergartners, put they turned out awesome! These need to be baked at 225 for 15 minutes.

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Easy Irish Setter or Labrador Retriever in Clay

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I was teaching Kindergartners how to do clay sculptures, and I didn't realize their limitations on arranging shapes and sizes. I had to come up with a super-super easy dog that looked real.


This gives the students practice in arranging shapes, almost the same brain function as Tangrams.  So, build a Fimo Clay dog and call it Math!  A variety of colors could be used to make either an Irish Setter, a Black Lab, a Chocolate Lab, etc.Older kids, even high-schoolers,  will love this, too, and theirs will probably turn out even better!  Great first project in polymer clay.

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Clay Hound Dog

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The second dog in my clay dog series is the Long Eared Sporting Dog. Depending on the colors chosen these can be spaniels, basset hounds or coon dogs.



My video lesson gives a quick overview of these breeds and what they their physical characteristics are,plus it shows the step by step building of the head and body. This project definitely works better with the older elementary grades, the younger kids just get all these little shapes into a jumble.
One important hint I can give it to instruct the kids to warm the clay up for about 5 or 10 minutes before they start to work with it. This makes it much easier to manipulate. I hand them each their package of clay and tell them to put it in their pocket or sit on it while I show them the video tutorial.

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Boston Terrier in Clay

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My students love to use clay, and one of their favorite subjects is dogs. This is a good first project for clay dogs - just the head of a boston terrier. When they are finished baking I glue a magnet on the back to display on the side of the fridge.Warning - if they fall they will break, so don't put it on the refrigerator door, which slams a lot! You can tell by looking at the results of these that the kindergartners had a little trouble constructing the snout, but still good practice in spatial reasoning!

Click here to view:

kindergarten/1st boston terriers

However, by the time they are in second grade, students will show great improvement in their construction understanding.

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2nd grade boston terriers

Click here to view my video tutorial and fun facts about this breed. This could be shown to the class before they do their project so they would have a general idea of what they are doing.

Clay Boston Terrier Tutorial Video

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Easter Painting for Kids - Tells the story of Easter with Paint!

VIDEO:
Easter Painting for Kids - Tells the story of Easter with paint

Here's how this video came about.... I was asked to paint a mural during Good Friday and Easter Services for my church.
I did this video to practice and show the worship leader what I was thinking and the kinds of music that would go along with it. It ended up being a nice little video to show the whole story of Easter, and I thought it might me a different way to tell the story to children.

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Doodle Bible

Click here: Doodle Bible Video

This is a video I put together using a compilation of all my students sketches after many weeks of teaching. It was a fun way to teach  and remember those Bible facts!

Several years ago I took on the task of teaching 3rd and 4th graders in Christian Education.



I found a great way to do this was to give each student a sketchbook to keep "doodle-notes" in. They helped me divide the sketchbook into the major sections of the Bible - Law... History... Poetry...Prophecy... Gospels...Letters... Then, each week I'd read or tell them a Bible story, and I would show them how to do a simple doodle to go along with the story. We skipped around, whatever good story I could find at the last minute.

Believe it or not, they remember the main points of the stories from this, and they know what section of the Bible it came from. Even weeks later. At the end of the year they have their sketchbook to take home... a permanent record of what they learned.

While this may sound a bit odd at first, in reality, the idea has been a hit! Using the doodles in the class seems fun, artsy and laid back…yet the basic study is very chronological and structured. I must say the use of sketching in the lessons really helps my students move into a right brain, active learning mode. The little "interrupters" usually zip up their lips when they are drawing.

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