art Archives -

Mixed Media Seahorse Art Project for Kids

by zzlivingJanuary 24, 20170

A new art project for kids by art teacher, Kathy Barbro.

Kinders in my district learn about “amazing animals” around this time of year.That’s the perfect time for a seahorse watercolor resist project. A reading of the “Mister Seahorse” book by Eric Carle will show all the amazing ways fish take care of their young, and a direct draw seahorse with crayons and watercolor will show off all they have learned.

1. Students draw their seahorses as shown on the diagram.

2. The art is traced with a marker.

3. The seahorse is colored heavily with crayons.

4. White crayon is used to make waves and bubbles.

5. The paper is covered with blue watercolor paint.

By Kathy Barbro

Arts & Crafts

Kathy Barbro earned her B.F.A. at Minneapolis College of Arts & Design, enjoying a 20-year career in graphic design. When her son entered kindergarten, her career path took a turn. The local elementary school had no art program and that was all the inspiration she needed. Kathy served as a volunteer art docent for several years, later becoming the school’s Professional Expert in Visual Arts. She teaches twenty K-5 classes weekly and conducts an after-school Art Enrichment program. Kathy pooled her talents to share her curriculum via the blogosphere. With 500 classroom-tested art projects posted, her Art Projects For Kids www.artprojectsforkids.org is a favored source of art lesson plans among teachers, home schoolers and parents.

Learn How to Make Money Online as an Artist

by zzlivingApril 23, 2015May 11, 20150

Are you an artist trying to understand how to make money doing what you love? You are not alone. And whether you are a self-taught artist or a schooled artist, the challenges are the same.

Although there are many opportunities to sell your work at local and national art shows, there are many, many more opportunities to get your work seen by prospective buyers and art collectors. The internet has opened up so many new venues enabling artists to get their work seen by buyers internationally. In fact, the number of opportunities is almost overwhelming. The challenge is to find the best use of your time and choose wisely.

One of the first steps you need to take, as an artist, is to initiate getting a website or blog. Ideally, the site you create to house your artwork will be one that contains a function of showing your work in a gallery of images. You needn’t spend a lot of money doing this either. There are a ton of wordpress themes to choose from and a wordpress site is very user-friendly as far as adding new images and writings. You will want to make sure that your site showcases linking icons to your Facebook and Instagram accounts.

Ah, yes … social media. In this day and age, using social media is a must to survive. Although there are a number of social media options, such as using twitter, tumblr, facebook, instagram etc. … some lend themselves better to showcasing art than others. And if you have been keeping up with facebook recently, they are constantly changing their algorithims which determines how many people actually will see what you posted on your personal or business page. It is important to have a presence on facebook but the payoff is not as great as the early days. We are getting more and more feedback that the place to be, for an artist, is Instagram. Apparently there are art collectors that cull the Instagram feeds every day. In case you aren’t familiar with instagram, this is an app that you normally use from one of your devices, such as an iphone, ipad, nook etc.

Also, you will want to take advantage of online art galleries that will showcase and feature your artwork. Most of these art sites will take a percentage of any sale and they often pay for the shipping or the buyer does. Check out the details before signing up of course. Some of the best, and most reputable art sites, you will want to check out are: Saatchi Art, Art Finder and Ugallery.