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You CAN Be an Artist! Waterfall Tutorial

You CAN Be An Artist - Waterfall Chalk Pastel Tutorial at hodgepodge.me

Nana is here today to share how you can be an artist and paint motion… This is an easy, quick pastel painting that I think artists of every age will enjoy!  You can get into the tumbling motion of the water as it crashes down to the rocks below the falls.  I painted this from [...]

You CAN Be An Artist! Name and Sign Every Picture

You CAN Be An Artist - Name Every Picture

Naming every picture is a habit I learned from a teacher years ago who said, if you name your picture, it gives it permanence.  A named painting most likely will be kept and not thrown away!  Children are great believers in keeping their artwork…all of it! Name Every Piece of Artwork A finished painting deserves [...]

You Can Be An Artist – Just Practice!

You CAN Be An Artist! - Just Practice

Pastel chalks are an easy and almost instantly rewarding way to introduce a student to creativity. Using the chalks are often referred to as “painting” rather than drawing. Chalks are pure paint pigment. Yes, they are messy and stain your fingers when you use them. We’ve shared often here at Hodgepodge those gentle tips to [...]

Old Shed in the Snow Chalk Art Tutorial

Old Shed in the Snow Chalk Pastel Tutorial at Hodgepodge

This is an actual building still standing after over 100 years. Originally this shed was a kitchen, built separate from the main house because of the heat and possible fire.  It is on family property and houses yard machinery and equipment. We will start our drawing by using the following pastel colors.  Deep red or [...]

Christmas Star Chalk Pastel Tutorial

Christmas Star Chalk Pastel Tutorial at Hodgepodge

This lesson is a simple, yet a lovely one to celebrate the Christmas season. My students enjoyed the bright colors and the velvet blue night sky that we painted. He appeared and the soul felt its worth… The supplies are simple: we used regular copy paper, pastel chalks in black, yellow, orange, white, dark blue [...]

Acrylic Fall Trees Tutorial

Fall Trees - Acrylic Art Lesson at Hodgepodge

I am a firm believer that each of us can paint; especially children, who possess an innate ability to create art. The hardest lesson is this: you cannot paint exactly like someone else. Embrace the freedom to please yourself!! This painting is one my students and I so enjoyed! The trees here in Georgia are [...]

How to Start Art with Young Children

How to Start Art with Young Children

A dear reader, Mary, asked about beginning art with young children. She said, “Hi Tricia! I was reading your art curriculum and I saw Pastels and technique with Nana and I loved it! What age do you recommend to start? I have a four-and-a half and a three-and-a-half year old. The oldest one lovesssssssssssss to [...]

Sandpiper Shore Bird: A Chalk Pastel Tutorial

Sandpiper

On a lazy afternoon at the beach the children and I decided to draw a sandpiper – after seeing these fast and delightful birds all morning swooping down and racing the waves. We assembled our limited color palette of pastels. We just couldn’t pack everything! I drew a large bird shape on a piece of [...]

Southern Shrimp Salad

IMG_3099

It was almost biblical…six or eight cold boiled shrimp left from a feast at supper the night before. A hungry horde to feed, a 5:00 dinner challenge… A wonderful, very easy recipe was given to us by true south Georgian gentleman…a sort of “five fishes” type for limited leftovers.  It was his late mother’s concoction [...]

Soft Chalk Pastels: Storage and Cleaning

Chalk pastel storage

If you or your students are serious about continuing to work with pastels, it makes sense to protect the pastel sticks with storage. This week I decided that the children needed a nicer storage box for their pastels. I have a three-drawer wooden box that will hold about 50-75 sticks of soft and hard pastels. [...]

Toffee Poke Cake

Toffee Poke Cake

We enjoyed this wonderful cake after our lunch last Sunday. The easy recipe is from Taste of Home. I did make two adjustments. I put the Heath bars in the food processor to make fine crumbs. For allergy-friendliness, I only put the Heath bars on half the cake. Yum. *Click over to Taste of Home [...]

Nana’s Fried Okra Recipe

fried okra

I really feel quite silly authoring a post on “Fried Okra.”  Southern cooks learn how to make this dish usually the same way that their Mamas made it. Goodness gracious, there are a lot of ways and opinions on cooking this famous vegetable! My Mama was a great cook, she denied it to all, but [...]