Greek Art Lesson

Mason's final art project for the curriculum year is based on the Black Figure vase paintings of Ancient Greece. His mission: to recreate a Black Figure vase using paper maché and utilize the patterns in examples we found in books and the Internet.

We started by building the basic form out of a balloon and some heavy cardstock. Crude, but it'll get the job done.

I mixed up a glue from flour, water and sugar. The mixture was a little thinner than a regular glue and a easier to work with.

He then dipped his newspaper strips into the glue, skimmed off the excess and smoothed onto the vase form. It was messy fun.

After pasting on a few layers, the form needed to dry overnight before putting on another coat. Another coat of newspaper went on.

Next was the task of forming the handles. We started with cardstock paper that was wrapped in masking tape. The masking tape added a little more stiffness to the handles so they maintained their shape after pasting on the newspaper. Another full coat of newspaper was applied and the form was allowed to dry overnight. Next up: painting. Stay tuned.

Picasso-Inspired Self Portrait

Monochromatic Self Portrait

Chemical Reactions

I received this from my friend Sadie Edles for my birthday.

I had to mix some stuff into a cup.

I read the directions to make soda.

The thing under the directions was this.

I pourd cold water in with the other stuff.

It was all bubbly in the cup.

I added the flavor in.

We tasted the drink and it was gross.

Rory's Story Cubes + iPhone = Fun Learning

The premise of Rory's Story Cubes is simple: role the dice, or shake your iPhone, and create a story using each of the pictures on the dice. This was quite a challenge for Mason, given that he likes to keep his stories short and sweet. What he came up with was pretty good, considering his 8-year old (nearly) vocabulary...........


Once upon a time, the first rainbow appeared on the Earth. The strange thing was is that it was made of lightning and fire. The rainbow made a rainbow river with only swimming bees and flying fish. The fish always ends up on a house next to the river. The fish threatened to use the bees as keys so they could get inside. The bees said, "It's made of glued dice, so just take apart the dice."

It's a work in progress. Some of those prompts were more difficult, but overall, not too shabby.

Color and Pattern Practice

As an artist, it pains me to hear about schools cutting the arts out of their budgets. Art is all around us and in everything we see, hear and do. It's shameful that the arts are considered less than important because the value can't be quantified on a standardized test.

Since we are homeschooling Mason, his former teacher and I have had the privilege of teaching a curriculum that caters to Mason's needs AND interests. He loves music and creating colorful artwork. So, why not incorporate what he likes into an assignment he'll learn from AND enjoy? Perfection.

The premise of the project was to decorate one piece of the pie with a geometrical pattern, lots of color and to incorporate your name in the design.

Once the piece of pie was completed to his satisfaction, he photocopied the pie 4 times and taped all of the pieces together. As you can see, my geometry was off a bit and he had 1/8 of a piece of pie left when it was all put together. Woops. We'll start on geometry and how to figure an entire pie sometime soon...

He was able to copy a 1/8 piece from the project I had done to fill in his gap...

Viola! A beautiful, colorful, geometric masterpiece! This was a lot of fun...we may revisit again.

The Wren's Nest

Mason and I started a Social Studies unit on Black History month, and to mix things up a little, we visited The Wren's Nest in the Historic West End of Atlanta for story-telling.


The Wren's Nest was once the home of Joel Chandler Harris – author of the Uncle Remus tales. The home was dubbed "The Wren's Nest" because a wren had built her nest in the mailbox of the home.


The home was transformed into a museum in 1913 and was registered as a National Historic site in 1978. It still maintains all of its Victorian-era charm on the inside and out.


The storyteller was animated and engaged the audience in all of his wonderful Brer Rabbit stories. To preserve the history, he told his stories in the dialect of the slaves that would have shared these stories on the southern plantations. It was truly an experience to be had!