JOY to brighten these dark days!

Hello! Although it’s the season of lights, these times feel dark. Luckily for me, the art room is filled with JOY! It spills into the rest of my life and brightens my days. I’m forever grateful I get to spend my days with joyous, imaginative humans of all ages. This month’s newsletter is all about that joy. Joy from surprising color combos, from learning what shapes can do, and the joy that comes from spending time with creative people who make this season Merry & Bright. I’m happy to share all this joy with you. Let’s get into it…

Pictures & Words

Working on the illustrations for A Language of Stitches I tried to interpret, not copy, Rosie Lee Tompkins’ quilts. Below is her 1987 untitled quilt of abstracted pin-wheel patterns, in black and blue velvet. The contrast of dark to bright makes her quilt top pop. Tompkins selected her fabrics with intention. You can see the textured pieces in the detail image on the right. Purposely using velvet to reflect light, she used dark and light blues for emphasis. Below the images of her quilt, is the first draft of the painting inspired by her quilt. Painting with these colors gave me so much joy, I painted multiple versions. Pop over to my instagram to see the final painting come to life.

Art in School

How do artists get serious about play?

Upper grades started sewing. They learned running stitch, blanket stitch and how to add buttons.

Sewing starts with a day called “Knot practicing works!” Classes spend the entire period threading needles and tying knots. It’s a learning intensive disguised as a joyful competition. This year our winning class tied 903 knots! Now everyone knows how to thread a needle and tie a knot. We’re ready for the big project in 2026.

2nd grade learned about the Seven Magic Mountains by Ugo Rondinone. The temporary, land art sculptures consists of seven fluorescently-painted totems made of car-size stones. The stones are stacked 32 feet high in the Mojave desert.

One of the artist’s intentions was to bring poetry into the public space, with the contradiction of having a rainbow at night. I love that idea.

2nd grade made their own mini versions. Messy and fun work!

Kindergarten is learning about shapes. We spent a lot of time learning to cut squares, triangles, rectangles, and circles.

Next we added a diamond (aka rombus) and tracing to the mix. The book City Shapes by Diana Murray, beautifully illustrated by Bryan Collier expanded our learning.

Kinder took all that knowledge and created SHAPE ROBOTS. They cut all the shapes by themselves. I gave them dot stickers for eyes, buttons, or whatever. Finally, they drew their robots matching the shapes and colors. These give me so much JOY. I hope you love them too!

Studio News

Come visit this crew of Merry & Bright creatives at the Mighty Mighty Merry & Bright Holiday Sale, Sunday December 21st, 11am- 5pm.

We’ll be joined by a whole host of other amazing artists. You wont want to miss this one! Perfect for last minute gifts. Or hey, why not treat yo’ self! It’s the best day of the year!

Drawclub: Poppy Dodge, Sonya Philips, Erin McCliskey Wheeler, e Bond, Kaci Smith

You can take a class with me on Creativebug.com. Inspired by Picture Books is a daily practice that will spark your imagination with prompts based on a new picture book every day. This is a class for curious creatives of all ages.

Happy Holidays! Thank you for taking time to read the newsletter. Please forward this newsletter to anyone who might enjoy a monthly dose of creativity in their inbox, or send them over to constancemoore.com to join my list.

I truly appreciate your support.

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