A Little Me Moment

I feel a little funny just typing all about my life, but this is my blog, so here goes...

One photo can sum up the majority of my time/effort/life over the past 6 weeks and 3 days. (But who's counting, right?)

Not sure what this is? I wouldn't know either. The cover isn't particularly representative. It's a textbook. Specifically, "The Developing Person Through the Life Span." Over the past 6 weeks and 3 days I have spent at least a couple hours a day with this big guy. And I am counting down the next 1 week and 4 days until he goes in a box back to his home, the textbook renters at Barnes and Noble. 

He's so fat and full of information and stuff to spend hours.and hours.and hours. reading, that he deserves a second picture. 

Over the course of this psychology class journey my little brother had a birthday. But as you can see, he does not enjoy pictures so much.

Some rolls. Don't you wish you could eat them? So do I. Last night my mother made these to go with dinner, so my allergic self took pictures instead of eating them. Normal, right? 

Need I comment on the glass head? Its clear. and thick. and head shaped. 

I got a handy dandy Pier1 gift card for Christmas and pulled it out a few weeks ago when I stumbled upon this little lovely in the veeeerry back corner of the store on the verrrryy bottom shelf. It's as if they wanted to save this little gem for themselves! Better yet, when I bought it the cashier told me I needed to purchase a sequin-covered mask because they look creepy if they are on display without one. hmmm? 

So I have a thrilling life, right? 

I have some creating-related photos as well to put up later. I can't wait to tell you all about my newest project!!

-Emily 

Art Class: Layered Landscapes

One morning a week I have a couple kids come to my house and we have a little art class. We've done all sorts of fun things with colored pencils, oil pastels, and their favorite- paint! I'm going to start posting some tutorials of the projects we do together. And the first is: Layered Landscapes. We did this a couple weeks ago, and I've been meaning to post it since then, but school work tends to get in the way of that. But here goes-- 

Materials: 

• Paint (I only gave the kids red, blue, yellow and white. We did a lesson on mixing colors earlier in the year, so this was a chance to put it into practice.) 
• Acrylic paper
• Pallets
• (Not pictured) Oil pastels 

Give each child a piece of acrylic paper. I used the paper for this project because after painting, children will use oil pastels over top and I knew the canvases would end up with a nice, deep concave effect ;) 

Instruct students to draw three diagonal lines across their paper. 

(Hint: it is really fun if they don't know what the picture is going to be at the end. They will draw exactly what you tell them to (a line) rather than what they expect it to be (a hill.) Also, they will spend the whole time guessing with those creative little minds!)

Draw two parallel vertical lines coming out of each horizontal line. Erase the section of horizontal line cutting through the vertical pairs. 

Your drawing is complete! Next it is time to paint. Each hill should be a different shade of green. 

Paint the sky blue, and the tree trunks brown. Let dry

Once dried, students use oil pastels to add leaves, birds, sun, clouds, people, ponds, animals, fences and anything else their minds imagine. One of my students created a fall landscape complete with leaves falling into piles and squirrels scurrying along. Another created a summer escape. He had a pond all ready for fishing with the tackle box and fishing poles not too far off. 

--Emily