Marcia

Marcia

Marcia is an elementary art teacher and loves painting, drawing, sculpture, art journaling and clay. Her blog, Art is Basic, features many exciting art projects for kids.
  • Joined: January 15, 2013
  • Articles: 984
  • Comments: 272

What can you do with a dot?

This colorful abstract art uses yellow and green shapes, surrounded by purple and red dots on a white background.

What is art?  What materials can be used to create art?  How do we properly use art materials?  These are the questions that the Nest (grade K) discussed at the beginning of the school year.  They also learned about the…

Tiles!

A framed abstract artwork with colorful shapes and a small portrait at the center.

I’m in love with painting tiles and making tiles from Sculpey.  I just tried making Sculpey tiles this week and wow, was it fun!!  I got the idea from Laurie Mika’s book Mixed Media Mosaics. I got the idea for…

Art Class Room Set Up

A sign that reads "Creativity Test" with directions to invent and draw something to add to the school for the new school year.

Today was our first day of school.  Would you like to see a glimpse of my room?  Paints Paintbrushes Free Draw Cart View of the classroom.  We have small rooms because we have small classes. This is the view from…

Fun Blog

I just discovered a fun blog from a kindergarten teacher who does lots of way cool art projects.  These kids are so lucky to have such a creative teacher!  I’m impressed with the felted balls she made with the kindergartners. …

I really like these drawings

I really like THESE drawings.  (they are not mine, but they are making me want to pick up my sketchpad.) Drawings in a crowded cafe.  If you click on the link above you can see them up close.

Pinecone Crafts

Craft a turkey using a pinecone, colorful feathers, and a purple paper head with a googly eye. This fun project is great for kids' crafts and adds a festive touch to any holiday decor.

At our church garage sale I picked up a large bag of pine cones for $2.  I suppose I could have found pine cones on the ground, but hey, they were all in a bag right in front of me…

Creativity Exercise

I’m going to have some of my students do a creativity exercise on the first day of school to get their juices flowing.  Creativity TestDirections:  Use your imagination to invent something that we could add to the school.  It could…

Clay Figures

Two small handmade clay figures of zebras, one climbing a block with letters and numbers, and the other on the ground near a striped barrier.

So, you may remember that I made a couple clay figures as demos for a kids’ clay class that I taught.  I painted the girl and put her in a chair that I had.  This is a chair made of…

Making Pendants

Close-up of colorful wire-wrapped stones, ideal for jewelry making, on a yellow background.

Making jewelry is one of the hobbies I enjoy.  When people ask me what kind of art I do on my own, I have a hard time saying what I do… I love photography, jewelry making, collages, drawing, watercolor, clay. …

Photography from the Dells

Three riverboats docked at a pier surrounded by lush trees with a sign reading "Upper Dells Boat Docks" in view, creating an ideal scene for photography.

We went to the Wisconsin Dells the other weekend and of course, I took about 300 pictures.  My theory is that if you take 300 pictures, one of them is bound to look great!  Playing around with photo editing online…