Vol. 6, No. 3, January 24, 2026

Week 3

Day 15 - Asymmetrical.

I used a piece of scrap paper that had been partially run through a crimper. Then I drew a mini optical illusion example following my 2nd grade lesson plan.

Day 16 - Blue.

I had been hearing something scrape outside my house recently; today I checked it out and realized that my wasp trap was falling apart. I took it down and decided to repurpose the now blue paper. I colored it with oil pastel, crayons, and markers.

Day 17 - Giant.

I am currently in the middle of a dinosaur drawing unit with my kindergarteners. We began by reading "The Day of the Dinosaur" by Stan and Jan Berenstain. I've read the book so many times now that I nearly have it memorized and when I read today's prompt I immediately started saying..."The giant brontosaurus was seventy feet tall. Its name means ‘thunder lizard.’ It was the biggest one of all." So here is my brontosaurus drawn with markers on an old envelope. 

Day 18 - Tiny.

When I thought so something tiny, my mind went back to my embroidery and specifically to the ant. Since I couldn't cut the ant out of my project, I had to sew a new one. I found a scrap of fabric and opted for gold thread. The ant kinda looks more like a spider, but either way it is tiny.

Day 19 - Black and White.

Tomorrow my 5th graders will be beginning a unit looking at African Art and creating zentangle style images inspired by African patterns. Their drawings will black and white; so I created a mini zentangle to get in the mood for the lesson.

Day 20 - Curved.

A simple curved line drawing, that was created as a meditation during a workshop I attended a couple years ago.

Day 21 -  Mammal.

My first thought of a mammal was a squirrel and conveniently today is Squirrel Appreciation Day, so it made sense to draw one. Made with crayons on paper.

Vol. 6, No. 2, January 17, 2026

Week 2

I decided this would be photography week. All of the papers used in the collage were photographs that were printed to be entered in Open Class at the County Fair.

Day 8 - Sunset

While this isn't my favorite sunset picture, it was the best one I had printed that I was willing to sacrifice to a collage.

Day 9 - White

A winter scene much like today, with lots of white.

Day 10 - Ground

I believe this is a picture of a leaf in the water at Gooseberry Falls.

Day 11 - Green

The Northern Lights reflecting in a snowy field creating a green glow all around.

Day 12 - Wet

Wet rocks of a waterfall.

Day 13 - Smooth

A bowl of oranges photographed through vases of water, creating a refracted image. 

Day 14 - Symmetrical 

A mayfly on a car, creating symmetry in the reflection. 

Vol. 6, No. 1, January 10, 2026

The blog is back! My goal for the year is to make/find one small artwork everyday following the prompts provided in the Wild Kids Magazine Photo Challenge. At the end of the week, I will use those artworks to create a 3"x3" collage. I hope to put those 52 collages together into one large artwork at the end of the year.

Bonus Week

I realized after making this initial collage that I should have waited a full 7 days. Therefore, I incorporated the scraps from this bonus collage into my Week 1 collage.

Week 1

Day 1 - New

I decided to look through my art supplies and find something I had never used before. I found a KiwiCo Tinker Crate Spin Art Machine that was given to my many years ago that I had assembled, but never used. Fortunately, the paint still worked and the spin art was easy to make.

Day 2 - Broken

I always tell my students "broken crayons still color". So for this project, I pulled out my bin of broken "naked" crayons. I chose the same 4 colors I had used for the spin art, grated them on the the paper and placed it on a hot plate to warm. I also colored directly on the paper while it was heating.

Day 3 - Bark

This one took me a minute to figure out, but then I remembered that I has some birch logs in the garage that have been waiting to be used. I peeled off a small section of bark and then slowly peeled that apart into thinner sheets. After washing, drying and pressing the birch bark papers, they were ready to use.

Day 4 - Leaf

I considered doing a texture rubbing of a leaf, but then I remembered my collection of pressed flowers and leaves. I pulled out the box and carefully looked through each paper towel selecting my favorite leaves; I couldn't choose just one. I am fairly certain that some, if not all, of these leaves are relics of my childhood (pre-2007) harvested, placed between paper towels, and pressed within the pages of a JcPenny catalog with assistance from Granny, my maternal grandmother.

Day 5 - Shadow

I knew that I had some Nature Print Paper somewhere I my art supplies, and I was so excited when I finally found it. While cyanotype isn't exactly shadows, it does require the sun and essentially makes a print of the shadow of the objects laid on top of the paper. This is a print that I had made years ago and is ready for repurposing.

Day 6 - Rock

I had a snow (ice) day today, so I decided it was a good time to do a task that I had been putting off. When I travel to new places, I like to collect some sand to remember it and layer the sand in jars. It is fun to see the layers of different colors. Today I added 6 more layers of sand collected from various sites I visted while traveling to the east coast in September. The most course and rocky of these sands was collect from Lake Ontario, so that is what I will use in my collage.

Day 7 - Speckled

I went back to paint today finding some paint markers to make a quick splatter painting. I stuck to the same color scheme of blue, green, orange, and yellow that came with the spin art for a unified look to the final collage.

Vol. 5, No. 163-170, December 28, 2020

You probably noticed, this year, I have been really bad at posting work. The truth is, I wasn't enjoying writing the blogs, so I would put off posting. Therefore I decided that next year, I am only going to post to Instagram and let it do the automatic post to Facebook. That way, I only have to post once. If you want to know about my project, you will have to ask.

Before I "give up", I am going to post all of the projects that I have missed.

5163 - Squash Soup.

I was helping to make squash soup and got to run the immersion blender. When it is held at just the right height, it creates a fun woven star design.

5164 -  Quilted.

In mid-November, my mom, sister and I finally finished the baby quilt that we had started nearly 2 years ago. It was a gift for my niece. It turned out pretty well considering it was out first actual quilt.

5165 - Mixed Media Self-Portrait 12/12/09.

In college, I took a drawing class; one of the assignments was to create a self-portrait. It is labeled as mixed media, although I am not sure what I used; I am guessing chalk, colored pencil, and paint.  After the class, I filed away the project in a tube. As I was going through art supplies recently, I came across the drawing. I unrolled it thinking I would look at it quick and then put it back in storage. Unfortunately, I noticed mold spots on the paper. I decided the best course of action was to photograph it and then dispose of the artwork. 

5166 - Giving Thanks.

Thanksgiving looked a little different this year. Rather than gathering with my dad's family like we normally would, it was only my immediate family in attendance. We still had a full dinner including homemade bread and pies. We arranged this picture showing our "bounty", to share with my dad's siblings as they were all sharing pictures of their own feasts.

5167 - COVID Cardinal.

At school, we are trying to keep our curriculum the same as much as possible, while still following COVID guidelines set out by the state. Sometimes this means changing how we do certain projects and we have found that some of these changes are good and we intend to keep them. One such happy change was the addition of a cardinal to Kindergarten Paper Mache Ornaments. In the past students have been able to choose between a reindeer, a snowman, or a penguin. All three ornaments were cute, but the penguin required two colors of paint and either two brushes or water to wash the brush. I didn't want to deal with the extra setup, so I changed the project. Our school's mascot is a cardinal, so I knew that would be a great winter bird option. I love how they turned out and will be keeping cardinals next year.

5168 - Snow Globe.

The ornament project that I did with my Transitional Kindergarten class last year required a lot of prep work and it wasn't really COVID guideline friendly. Therefore, I wrote a new lesson plan, deciding on paper snow globes. Using Epsom salt "frozen" paint, we iced the background. Next we added finger print characters and decorated with markers. The plan didn't go quite how I had intended, but most of them stilled turned out cute.

5169 - Cake Construction.

It's hard to believe, but ten days ago, one of my favorite littles turned 3! I did lots of research to find the perfect cake. He is in to trucks of all kinds, so I decided to make a construction themed cake. I made a Double Chocolate Banana Cake (he loves bananas) topped with chocolate ganache and crushed Oreos. A bit of powdered peanut butter helped to create the three in the middle. The cake was finished off with some Milk Dud rocks and little toy trucks.

5170 - Quarantine.

Due to close contact, I got to spend some time in quarantine. While it may sound like a paid vacation, it's really not that fun; especially for a teacher. I still had lesson plans to prepare. I decided to use a lesson I had initially done during distance learning last spring; Guided Drawing Cardinals. As the school mascot, I figured a cardinal was something that students could benefit from knowing how to draw. I made two examples showing different backgrounds that could be added.

Vol. 5, No. 162, October 30, 2020

5162 - Creative Sprint Day 30.

I was setting out some fall decorations, arranging gourds on a tray. My mom was watching, at one point she said "that looks like a swan". I thought that was cool, so I stopped arranging and deemed the swan my trophy.

Vol. 5, No. 161, October 29, 2020

5161 - Creative Sprint Day 29.

I decide to redo yesterday's prompt, use a tool in a new way. I was thinking about the tools I use in the art room and I remembered the "tragedy" that happened when I was peeling crayons a few weeks ago. I had dumped a bunch of crayons into a bucket of water to encourage the wrappers to come off. When I returned to the crayons, some of them were soggy and mushy. I noticed that these crayons all had labels marking them as Washable. I decided that I would use crayons in a new way and paint with them. I soaked a rainbow of washable crayons in water. When they were wet, I rubbed a paintbrush on them like one would do with paint. I liked this new way of painting and may try it with my students someday.

Vol. 5, No. 160, October 28, 2020

5160 - Creative Sprint Day 28.

Today at school I was removing glue dots from envelopes because I didn't want my students to struggle with opening the envelopes. When I was finished, I used my pile of glue dots in a new way as a sculpting material. I created an elephant and a heart. For future reference, a pile of glue dots is not the same as clay.

Vol. 5, No. 159, October 27, 2020

5159 - Creative Sprint Day 26 & 27.

Yesterday, it was late before I decided that I should paint in reverse, so I opted to wait until today and combine it with today's prompt. My plan worked perfectly, it provided me with both a subject and medium. On my way home from work, I stopped at the thrift store and picked up a clear glass plate. Then I got to work making a painting from a snails point of view. I started with the details and outline, adding the base colors last.

Vol. 5, No. 158, October 25, 2020

5158 - Creative Sprint Day 25.

Today was the final performance of The Little Mermaid. During the cast party, I received a beautiful bouquet of flowers from the seniors. When I finally made it home about 9pm, I took time to arrange the flowers in to a scrambled rainbow in a vase. Calling any of the flowers blue was going to be a bit of a stretch, so I chose a vase with a blue ribbon.

Vol. 5, No. 157, October 24, 2020

5157 - Creative Sprint Day 24.

I didn't have time to make a frame today, so I just took pictures of beautiful things. First I made a carrot cake that I made for my dad's birthday. I decided to photograph both the whole cake and an individual slice. Then Margo made cookies to bring for the cast and crew at the theater tonight. I made the sign so that the kids would know what the cookies were for. Finally, I took pictures during the show tonight. This was one of my favorite shots; with over 2500 pictures on the camera (only 2 shows worth of pictures) it took me a bit to find my way back to this one to snap the picture for my collage.

Vol. 5, No. 156, October 23, 2020

5156 - Creative Sprint Day 22 & 23.

With it being performance week for the play, I have been busy and didn’t have time to create yesterday. So I combined prompts today. I created a movie poster inside of a box. I found a box in the recycling, opened up, grabbed a Sharpie and started drawing. I drew for about 25 minutes (one episode of a show). When the show was over, I put down my marker and called it good enough. I really like the direction it was headed. Maybe I will finish it some day.