How to Make a Christmas Tree Collage
Are you looking for a fun art project to try over winter break with your kids? Here is one that is sure to be festive, fun and creative! What you will need: watercolor paints pencil watercolor paper paint…
Art Projects for Kids + Tips for the Teacher!
Art Projects for Kids + Tips for the Teacher!
Elementary Art Projects & Creative Lessons for Kids
Welcome to Art is Basic, a blog full of elementary art lessons, easy art projects, and teaching ideas for K-5 classrooms. Browse hundreds of engaging activities designed to inspire young artists.
Read More...How to Make a Christmas Tree Collage
Animal Cloth Paintings inspired by Korhogo Cloths
My 3rd grade classes learned about African Korhogo Cloth paintings. They had been studying Africa in their Social Studies class. Here are some of the resources we used: information about the cloth paintings and a couple of YouTube videos– Take…
Duncan Tonatiuh: Author/Illustrator Visit
On Friday, we had a visit to our school by author and illustrator Duncan Tonatiuh. See his artwork here. He is both Mexican and American. He grew up in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico and graduated from Parsons School…
“Emily’s Blue Period” Art Project: Personal Collages
Personal Collages: 4th and 5th Grade We read the book Emily’s Blue Period, which is about a girl whose parents are divorcing and now she has two homes. (Amazon affiliate link used at no cost to you.) Emily was…
3 Fun and Easy Kindergarten Art Lessons
For me it is always a challenge to keep up with Kindergarten art projects. I see my classes twice per week for 40 minutes, so they get to do a lot of art! They go through lessons and…
Color Theory and Rhythm Drawings by 3rd Grade
This is a project I love to do with the 3rd graders. Their drawing all turn out so unique and fun. First, we talk about what rhythm in art is. Rhythm is like a visual beat in a…
Abstract Shape Collages and Artist Reggie Laurent
Reggie Laurent: Contemporary Artist Reggie Laurent is a self-taught artist living in Georgia. He creates very intricate abstract shape paintings. I saw his paintings online and I was immediately drawn to all of the fun patterns and…
Letter Painting with Kwik Stix
I love Kwik Stix and so do my students. “It’s like drawing with lipstick!” I posted a video review of the product because I liked them so much. Then, the Kwik Stix company saw it and contacted me…
Published Article in Arts & Activities Magazine
I have a new article in Arts & Activities magazine this month! I am very excited. I encourage you to submit articles to magazines if you have ideas you’d like to share. It is very rewarding to see…
A Great Way to Communicate with Parents in Art Class
This year I have started using a new way to communicate with parents. After receiving some feedback last year that parents didn’t know quite what we were learning about with each project, I decided to type up description…
Blogging with Students: A Guest Post
Hi friends! I have a treat for you today. My very intelligent and dedicated co-worker Katie McEnaney is guest posting for Art is Basic today. She was previously our 3rd grade Language Arts/Social Studies/Drama teacher and this year she…
Painted and Doodled Stars Tutorial
I feel like I have stumbled upon my newest art series for my own art. Earlier I wrote a blog post about how to make watercolor doodled flowers. Using a similar technique, I made watercolor mandalas. I have a…
Animal Personality Drawings
Here is a really fun twist on self-portraits! I teach the grades K-4/5 at my school and the middle school art teacher is in charge of grades 5 We have a new art teacher at the middle school…
If I Were President… by Kindergarten
With the election coming up, my kindergarten classes answered the sentence “If I were President, I would make the world a better place by…” and they drew themselves as President. I got this idea from my daughter’s art…
Create a “Create” Banner
I’ve been busy this school year, but proud of myself that I feel like I’m keeping on top of things. It is so easy to feel like you are drowning in artwork, messes and things on your to-do…