creating with a kid- funnel paint pouring

One of my favorite activities to do with kids of any age is pour painting. It's messy, fun and any age can create beautiful results. Around here we like to experiment supplies and techniques and lately we've been loving pour painting WITH A FUNNEL (pretty much any kitchen tool makes painting more fun). Here are (tailored for kids) a few tips in case anyone out there is looking for a fun winter activity.

Before starting any messy process with kids, I recommend just accepting that IT WILL GET MESSY! In my experience, these types of projects are worth the mess because they are a wonderful way to foster creativity. If messes are hard for you to manage, just take extra time to prep- cover a table and the floor in drop clothes.

I also find that it helps to lay out ground rules before the mess begins (wash hands when finished, you will not get in trouble if paint spills, let an adult know so you can work together to clean up, give a time limit for mess making, ect). While I am not a big fan of rules when it comes to creativity, they are helpful when working with toddlers & younger kiddos.

For this project, we used funnels and a variety of paint. For the pouring process, your paint needs to be fluid. You can use water, ModPodge or puring medium to create fluid paint. 

There are a variety of recipes and supplies but with kids you can keep it pretty simple with watered down paint. I let Lucy use my "adult supplies" and we used a mixture of paint, water and Liquitex pouring medium.

We mixed up a bunch of colors and then I let Lucy go wild. First she poured a few different colors in her funnel and then drizzled it all over a canvas. She worked over the top of it with lots of layers of with her funnel and lots of moving her surface around.

Using a pour painting, using a funnel or unique kitchen tools really encourages getting creative with movement and expression- a great alternative to painting with a brush!

This process is one that has always captured Lucy's attention for hours and it makes for a great indoor activity and the results are amazing!

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spring bundle FLASH SALE!

Hey friends! Spring is in full swing and I’m celebrating with a FLASH SALE! For the rest of the weekend I've bundled four spring themed classes together for $30 (compare at $90 for all four) a cost savings of $60. If you are interested in stocking up on classes, this is the deal for you!

Head on over to my shop HERE for more details or to register.

Offer expires Sunday, April 27th at 7pm PST

spring bundle flash sale from Alisa Burke on Vimeo.

THE GARDENERS JOURNAL

Grab that art journal and meet me in the garden! In this class we will be using the garden as as the backdrop for exploration and creativity! We will be using a variety of techniques and materials to discover and document inspiration, memories, garden planning, wildlife observations, weather patterns and more! I will share all kinds of techniques- from sketching, collage and painting to create colorful and layered art journal pages.

WATERCOLOR BLOOMS

Flowers and watercolors make the perfect pair! In this class I will be sharing all kinds of really simple techniques for transforming your favorite flowers into expressive, beautiful and colorful paintings. 

BEAUTIFUL BIRDS

I love birds! They are beautiful, magical and are the perfect subject matter for drawing and painting. This little class is dedicated to exploring a variety of techniques to create birds. From painting to drawing to using simple tools and materials, we will have fun creating beautiful birds.

SKETCH INTO SPRING

Spring is the most inspiring time of the year- it's when the world begins to come alive after months of cold weather, the sun begins to peek through the cold. Its is also a wonderful time to pull out your sketchbook and capture the season. I've put together another fun online class that captures the season! Just like Summer Sketch and Create Daily, Sketch Into Spring is structured to fit into a busy schedule. Join me for drawing and doodling prompts, ideas, techniques and ways to turn SPRING into inspiration and subject matter for your sketchbooks and art journals!

Sketch Into Spring is a "mini class", it is structured in 30 small but inspiring posts. The concept is that that you have one simple idea, prompt, inspiration or technique to work throughout each day for 30 days!

studio retreat update

I've had a lot of inquires over here about the future of my Oregon Coast art retreats and while I've talked about it in Instagram, I thought I would also share a little update here in my feed.

While I had plans this year to announce my summer/fall 2020 studio retreat schedule, back January I canceled all of my plans behind the scenes- it was a really, really hard decision to make. During the month of January, I had been watching what was happening in China very closely and something just didn't feel right to me. While I had no idea at the time things would escalate so quickly for us in America, my gut told me to scrap my retreat announcements and wait and see what would happen with COVID19.

And here we are, most of the country at home, a health and economic crisis with so many unknowns. While I love offering studio retreats and it is a big part my business and income, I made another hard decision to take at least 1 year off from hosting events/retreats in my Oregon Coast Studio. While I've taken breaks in the past, this feels different because like so many businesses out there, I have no idea what the world will look like moving forward and if parts of my business will fit into that world.

I know there will likely be a lot of people who think this decision might be drastic but don’t feel like it would be appropriate or responsible for me to continue to welcome women from all over the country and the world into my small Oregon Coast community until we know more about COVID19. No amount of money is worth people's health and safety. So for now my studio retreats will be put on hold until things become more clear.

To be honest, it breaks my heart. Getting to open my studio, teach, create and share my hometown of Seaside, Oregon with so many creative, beautiful souls has not only been an honor but life changing for me. I cannot tell you how much it means to me to have shared my studio with so many of you and I cannot wait for the day when we can gather and create together again. In the meantime, I will continue to offer online classes and I have some new creative ideas coming in the months ahead. Thanks to so many of you out there who support what I do.

happy earth day

“You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”
-Jane Goodall 

egg decorating roundup

marbled plastic eggs   masking fluid eggs

bird nest eggs   watercolor easter eggs   everyday decorating easter eggs   butterfly eggs

wood burned eggs

mermaid eggs   geometric eggs   doodle eggs   

whimsical eggs

scrappy eggs   altered plastic eggs   speckled eggs   

canvas eggs