A Lady Bug in the Garden

Here's a cute lady bug visiting my garden. 

Take a closer look.

She flew over to check out the ferns.

I love when the ferns just start to unfold in the garden. Spirals - my favorite design element. 

Beautiful. 

Zentangles

I was invited to teach a lesson on zentangles at Crone Middle School in Naperville. My friend Sandy Knight has a STEAM club after school where her students explore Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math. Creating a zentangle is a way to combine art and math by using repeating, structured  patterns to create beautiful images.

I created a work sheet with zentangle information with 2 boxes on the bottom for creating zentangles. 

We looked at zentangle examples...

then we drew lines called strings in our framed area to break up the space so we could add pattern called tangles into each section.

Creating the tangles requires focus and concentration.

After the students learned how to make a simple zentangle on the work sheet, they got a box template that Mrs. Knight printed on green card stock. (Thank you thetoymaker.com for the box template) Students created zentangles on each section, cut it out and folded it into a dimensional box.

Thanks Mrs. Knight for inviting me to your school!

It's Spring!

A walk around my house found spring everywhere! 

(I created this photo collage on my phone with the cool ap Pic Stitch)

Water Waves

One of the lessons I do with my students is to make painted paper for collage. They use cool colors of tempera paint to paint horizontal waves. When the paint is dry, they cut or tear horizontal strips to look like water waves and glue in layers. I was inspired to make my own version below.

Cardinals on Grey Slate

My friend Resi asked me to paint cardinals on this piece of grey slate. 

She's going to hang it on a low flag stand by her front door. 

Here's how I started

I painted with acrylic which was a challenge for me because watercolor is my media of choice. I discovered that it was very blobby to use (difficult) but I could make changes which is not possible with watercolor. 

Details

Finished