Use stone wall pattern for cottage facade. Add a snow-covered roof with chimney for decoration. Perhaps park a sled with reindeer on the roof. Decorate with X-mas colors and some of the cut out characters below. Refer back to Pop-Up Castle project if needed.
Thanks Sara for inviting me! Just spent a fun afternoon with fellow volunteers for the filming of the fall ad to promote The Von Liebig Art Center. Did a couple of passes as background people entering the building, and then we set up a classroom on the second floor to simulate an ongoing ARTScool kids' art class. We even had 4 properly attired interns walking around the room supporting the students creative efforts. Speed sketched a few cartoon drawing examples on the dry erase board, and the students colored and cut the components of the pop-up castle activity for the camera. The kids were having so much fun, that many continued with they projects after the camera stopped rolling. Aimee made some mean chicken salad and home made brownies for the well-stocked refreshments table. It was fun meeting other volunteers, and naturally quite a few souvenir cartoon portraits were drawn between takes. Quite curious to see the finished ad this coming fall on local cable channels.
Just got another batch of Iwako eraser sets for my nieces that have been growing their novelty eraser collection for a few years with a bit of help from yours truly. These Japanese erasers can easily be taken apart and put back together in different combinations. The Maneki Neko (Lucky Cat) and Kokeshi doll models are available in 6 different colors each. The kimono on the dolls is actually a wrapper decorated with colorful fabric prints. Reportedly they work well as erasers too, but I have not test that claim myself.
These puzzle erasers would make great classroom incentives and gifts for the school-age kids in your list. I bet quite a few grown-ups would also be happy to receive any of them. Who could refuse a "Lucky Cat" or "Kokeshi Doll" eraser to brighten a work station or cubicle?
Came across this set of tempera cakes in a box of donated art supplies, so I recruited my nieces to give them a try. They look like the type of product that you might encounter in a teacher's catalog. The generously-sized cakes adequately released the color washes after moistening them with a wet brush, but using larger diameter brushes and adding a few drops of water to each cake seemed to work more efficiently. Nicole and Camila both chose still life themes for their afternoon experiments. Stray paint wiped off easily enough with a wet paper towel. Color mixing was limited as you might expect for economy paints, but the kids had fun boldly "drawing" with their tempera paints.
Will add this tempera paint tray set to my classroom tool kit for upcoming classes. They might come in handy for experimenting and larger scale work for younger students.
Today we held the ARTScool 2011 Open House to showcase samples of the students' work created during the past 8 weeks of summer art camp held at The von Liebig Art Center.
These graphic works were on display in the hallways throughout the building and on the tables of 3 classrooms.
It was a lot of fun to see so many entire families walking through the exhibit and collecting their kids' final projects on this Sunday afternoon.
I enjoyed the opportunity of chatting with some of the parents of the talented kids that took my classes this summer.
It is always nice to hear course feedback directly from the satisfied parents and kids.
Even on our final day, a few interns were hard at work unloading the kiln since the students from David Himmel's ClaysCool class worked on their projects all the way until last Friday. David is a great teacher for kids of all ages and levels with many taking his class multiple times in the summer. After a solid foundation on ceramic building techniques and glazing, kids are able to explore their creativity in 3-D in no time. ARTScool 2011 was a complete success, so hope that most students, interns, and fellow instructors will return for ARTScool 2012. In the meantime, keep sketching and drawing kids!
Print castle template on 8.5" X 11" card stock and fold in halves twice, so that the castle wall pattern ends up inside the folded card. With sharp scissors cut one or two pop-up tabs to add additional decorative elements or standing characters to your castle diorama.
Selection of characters and decorative elements for coloring, cutting, and pasting to your castle backgrounds. I would recommend using colored pencils or fine point markers for coloring such small elements. I used doubled side Scotch tape for ease of use and clean handling, but a glue stick or glue bottle might provide a stronger bond so long as you are careful.
Sample pop-up castle cards. Here is the front view of the same grouping. This is the top view and the 3/4 view of the most heavily decorated castle. This is the close up view of the Dragon and Knight castle. And finally a castle inspired by Harry Potter.
Put together this finished sample with some Faber Castell Albrecht Durer watercolor pencils and some double sided tape. Crayola fine tip markers are also a good choice for coloring the character cut outs.
On the last day of class, the students completed their pop-up castles.
Afterwards some of them made a mini comic, some experimented with oil pastels, and quite a few worked on a large underwater or outer space scene.
Really impressed with the creativity, discipline, and dedication displayed by the students that worked on their pop-up card project for the past two sessions. Once their first task was accomplished for the day, the students had the option of creating a mini comic or work on a large scale illustration to be eligible for the classroom prizes that included toys and art supplies.
Underwater scene colored with oil pastels.
This student chose to color her cartoon portrait with oil pastels. While another student used Prismacolor Art Stixs to color her own portrait.
Mini comic drawn with marker on ledger size card stock (11" x 17"). Five minutes before the class was over, our jury of interns chose the prize winners from our gallery wall and the completed pop-up castles. Thanks again Grace, Sarah, and Xylia for all your help this week! You were all great interns, and hope you consider returning for ARTScool 2012. With your discipline, initiative, and positive rapport with the kids, I am certain that you will prove again to be instrumental in creating a fun art experience and maintaining a safe environment for our students. Any instructor would be lucky to have you as part of his or her classroom support team next summer.
Photo gallery of my final Cartoon Sketching class for ARTScool 2011 at The von Liebig Art Center. This group of boys and girls ranged in age from 6 to 11 years old.
Students had the opportunity to try a variety of coloring tools: markers, watercolor pencils, watercolor crayons, and even some soft pastels.
Drawing from reference Xevoz kits 
and fantasy chibi drawings from imagination.
Making a pop-up castle card.
Several students jumped at the opportunity to color the chibi animal characters from one of the class drawing demonstrations.
Hmm, perhaps coloring on the dry erase board should be part of the curriculum for future classes next summer.
Throughout the week all the students received several cartoon portraits and custom drawing requests as souvenirs or starting point for different inking and coloring projects.
Half of the students already got their PanPastel and Prismacolor Art Stix colored cartoon portraits, so I will complete the remaining later today. 
Thank you to all the students and interns that participated in one of my Cartoon Sketching classes this summer. 
With our impending move to North Carolina, this might just have been my last summer class at The von Liebig Art Center. It has been an honor working with all of you, and I hope that you will all continue to embrace your artistic side and keep on sketching and further developing your artistic skills. Keep on drawing and filling many sketchbooks!
I just used the remaining two carded items from the last bundle of Mega Brands samples as mini prizes during the ongoing ARTScool Cartoon Sketching class this week. The retractable ballpoint pens were loaded with a very smooth ink that was also praised by one of the High School interns that distributed the pens to the young students in the summer art camp. The high viscosity ink felt as smooth as Japanese gel pens and started flowing freely after removing the protective tip from each pen.
The design on the highlighters barrels suggest that they are intended for female students. Yet since they yielded fairly bright colored marks that dried quickly, they should prove useful to anybody in need of highlighting some text for their studies this upcoming school year. Both the highlighters and the retractable ballpoint pens laid down marks smoothly and were readily accepted by the Elementary School-age kids in this week's art class.
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