Before the kids break out the screens, inspire hands-on creative play with a series of 3D pen projects to encourage skill building and creative exploration.

Drawing and coloring are timeless activities but now kids can take creativity off the page with a 3Doodler 3D pen. Transform your ideas into tangible, three-dimensional masterpieces, letting kids (and adults!) create anything they can imagine.

Jump start summer fun with a few ideas to get those creative gears turning!

Your Summer’s Creative Sidekick

As educators, you know first-hand how important it is to offer options to encourage creative play and reduce summer learning loss. Introducing 3D pens to inspire learning at home, can help in many ways.

Oodles of 3D Pen Doodles

Miniature Beach Scenes:

Create tiny palm trees, surfboards, flip-flops, and even little crabs or fish. You can then assemble them on a base to make a personalized beach diorama.
Pro Tip: Use blue filament for waves and clear/translucent for water effects!

Get the Stencil

Custom Keychains & Bag Tags:

Design personalized keychains with names, initials, or summer-themed icons like ice cream cones, popsicles, or suns. These make great gifts for friends or mementos of summer adventures!

Get the Stencil

Nature-Inspired Art:

“Draw” flowers, butterflies, or even intricate spiderwebs. Go on a nature walk and collect leaves or twigs for inspiration, then replicate them in 3D!

Get the Stencil

DIY Room Decor:

Craft unique picture frames to display summer memories. Design small decorative sculptures for shelves or desks, like abstract art pieces or geometric shapes. Create personalized pencil holders or small organizers for their summer reading nook.

Get the Stencil

Wearable Wonders:

With adult supervision, create unique earrings or pendants for necklaces. Design fun glasses or headbands for a quirky summer look (think oversized sunglasses or flower crowns!).

Get the Stencil

Bust summer boredom and embrace the world of three-dimensional possibility. 3Doodler 3D pens are a gateway to creativity and hours of screen-free fun. So, grab your pens, a rainbow of filaments, and let the summer doodling begin!

The post Doodle Days of Summer: 3Doodler’s Guide to Creative Adventures first appeared on 3Doodler.

It’s time to move on from worksheets and passive listening. Envision a learning environment where creativity explodes, and students are intrinsically motivated to conquer learning prompts and challenges like never before. That’s the power of gamification, and 3D pens are the ultimate tools to bring it to life!

A Winning Combination: Gamification & 3D Pens

At its core, gamification is about taking the elements and principles of games and applying them to real-world activities – in this case, the classroom.

Unlocking New Lessons

Interested in taking the leap and bringing this dynamic duo to your classroom? We’ve got you covered. Here are some gamified activity ideas using 3D pens:

Objective-Based Challenges:

Frame learning objectives as quests! For example, in a geometry lesson, the “quest” could be to design a specific geometric shape with accurate dimensions to earn “geometric gems” (points or small rewards).

Badge Systems (Tangible Badges!):

Students can create badges to represent mastery of a concept or skill instead of using digital badges. Imagine a “History Hero” badge for completing a timeline project or a “Science Superstar” badge for a successful experiment model.

Collaborative Builds for XP:

Divide students into teams and assign them a 3D design challenge related to the lesson. The team with the most accurate, creative, or functional build earns points or privileges. Think of designing a model of the water cycle or a historical landmark.

Escape the Classroom:

Create a series of clues or puzzles students need to solve related to the curriculum. The final clue could require them to 3D draw a specific object that “unlocks” the next stage or a small reward.

Boss Battles (Knowledge Checks):

At the end of a unit, present a complex challenge or problem related to the material. Students can use their 3D pens to represent their solution visually. Successfully presenting and explaining their creation “defeats the boss” and helps them earn rewards.

Personalized Tokens:

Offer students different learning pathways with reading challenges, for example. As they complete their reading and comprehension tasks, they can draw a small 3D token representing their progress.

The Future is 3D Gamification!

Integrating 3D pens with gamification offers a powerful and engaging way to bring learning to life in your classroom. It fosters creativity, problem-solving, and collaboration and presents learning in a format we know students enjoy. So, get your 3Doodler 3D pens, unleash your inner game designer, and watch your students level up their education in exciting new ways!

The post Leveling Up: Bring Gamification to the Classroom with 3D Pens first appeared on 3Doodler.

What is Algorithmic Art?

You’ve likely seen this type of artwork and didn’t even realize you were looking at mathematical thinking in an art form! The approach uses a system of rules and parameters to generate complex and often intricate forms.

Parametric design uses variables you set, instead of directly drawing every line, and it’s often used in architecture and engineering to create optimal structures. In this process, changing one parameter could alter the entire design. For example, imagine a spiraling tower where simple numbers control the radius of each level and twists or turns!

Algorithmic art, on the other hand, uses a set of instructions to generate unique patterns and create artwork. Natural patterns, mathematical equations, or even abstract concepts can help inform the direction of a particular design. As you expand your thinking, you could create intricate branching structures or fascinating geometric patterns, all based on mathematical sequences.

Instead of complex software, using a 3D pen for this process enables tangible artistic creation that is accessible, unique, and allows for experimentation!

Getting Started: Simple Algorithmic 3D Pen Creations

Let’s get those creative juices flowing with a few quick and easy ways to get started. Get your 3Doodler 3D pen and plenty of colorful filament, and find a clean surface.

Geometric Progressions: Create art with sequences where each term is found by multiplying the previous term by a constant factor! You can use geometric progressionto create repeating patterns where the size or scale of the elements decreases or increases. For example, draw the circles with your 3D pen, making each one incrementally larger. Connect the shapes to form an expanding structure like a cone.

Fractals: These are geometric shapes that exhibit self-similarity, meaning they have the same pattern at different scales. For example, the Koch Snowflakeis a fractal curve created using an equilateral triangle, and each successive stage is formed by adding outward bends to each side of the previous stage, making smaller equilateral triangles.

Mathematical Sequence: There are many mathematical sequences that you can apply to art. The most commonly referenced is the Fibonacci Sequence, which is used to create a spiral by drawing squares with side lengths corresponding to the Fibonacci numbers.

More Tips for Success!

Combining the creative outlet of 3D drawing with the logical nature of parametric and algorithmic design allows you to explore new dimensions of artistic expression — the only limit is your imagination.

Remember to start with simple patterns and basic rules before you increase the complexity. Sketch your ideas with intention and map out how your design will progress. And, most importantly, don’t forget to embrace imperfection. The beauty of art lies in its organic nature, and creating with a 3D pen is no different. Remember that slight variations in your design add character and interest.

The post Go Beyond Doodling: Explore Mathematics in Art With 3D Pens! first appeared on 3Doodler.

Over the years, Barbie’s encouraged girls and women worldwide to express their personal style and to be anything they want to be. Barbie held careers in many different industries and represented all kinds of women while breaking fashion barriers.

Now, Barbie is about to hit the big screen in a new adaptation by Greta Gerwig that debuts on Friday, July 21.

It’s the perfect moment to dust off your Barbie dolls and create one-of-a-kind accessories with a 3D pen. Find out how Barbie got her start and explore 3Doodler’s project ideas!

Fashion Icon is Born

A trip to Europe rekindled the idea after seeing a German doll in a toy shop. Handler quickly created a prototype for an 11.5-inch (29 cm) doll with movable limbs. She named the doll Barbie after her daughter and presented it at the New York Toy Fair in 1959.

From the beginning, fashion played a big part in Barbie’s storyline. Handler envisioned girls playing with the doll to imagine a future where they could be whatever they wanted at a time when many careers were closed to women. Clothes could transform any doll into a flight attendant, doctor, astronaut, or actress. An outfit could create a new look, lifestyle, or career. Anything a teen could dream up was now possible to imagine playing with Barbie.

In the 1970s, Mattel introduced Barbie’s signature pink color to market the doll to young girls. Today the deep pink shade is part of the official Pantone Color Chart designers and artists use.

Make Accessories for Barbie

Whether you’re creating a bright pink accessory or adding to another outfit, one thing is for sure; you can design all sorts of interesting and unique items for Barbie with a 3D pen.
Try your hand at a headband, necklace, or purse with an easy-to-follow tutorial and stencil. Choose a color from a selection of PLA filament, grab your 3Doodler Create+ or 3Doodler Start+ pen, and get crafting.

If you’re feeling really creative, you could even design new clothes for Barbie and Ken. There’s no end to the possibilities.

And, if you’re looking to take the experience one step further, take a Barbie selfie and imagine yourself as part of the Barbie universe!

The post Let’s Go Barbie — Make Stylish Accessories! first appeared on 3Doodler.

She uses materials that have a life of their own such as clay, paper, and fiber, with her 3D pen creations. Anela recently completed a year as an artist in residence at the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts. She will be traveling to Malaysia as a School of Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University Traveling Fellow in 2023.

Finding Artistic Inspiration

Anela relies on her imagination and also draws from the resources around us to inspire her creativity.

“For me, I draw strength to move through the world from my identity as mixed race-Malaysian-Chinese, lessons from the natural world, and people close to me who have passed on,” said Anela.

In this piece, Anela uses the 3Doodler 3D pen to speak to Malaysian batik, a lost wax process where wax is painted or stamped on fabric and then dyed. She also incorporated a plant from both sides of her mixed-race heritage: okra. It’s a plant that Anela believes both her white Southern family members and her Malaysian-Chinese members would have intimately known through food.

“A huge part of using vibrant colors for me is being unapologetic in taking up space,” said Anela. “As an Asian American you are often viewed and shaped by culture to be as small and unobtrusive as possible.”

The bright color in this piece represents reclaiming spaces as an active agent in the world. The colors draw from the traditional Malaysian dress she grew up with and family members who wore such patterns and colors as batik sarongs.

Surprising Ways with Mixed Media

“As an artist who is mixed race dealing with world building I believe it is important that my work reflects a meeting of materials, soft fiber and hard filament or ceramic meeting in ways that create beautiful complexity,” said Anela. “This interdisciplinary approach reflects the strength and commonalities between the different worlds I inhabit every day.”

She started this project using the 3Doodler Pro+ to draw the central okra stalk element and the other floral patterns. She continues to create until she has enough in varying colors and styles to lay out the design. Next, she begins the papermaking processes to transform the PLA drawings.

“I work with a fiber called overbeaten abaca which is a plant fiber that I beat for 8 hours in a machine called a hollander beater,” said Anela. “I use it because it is extremely strong and connects seamlessly to the 3Doodler drawings.”

She used a papermaking tool called a deckle box to “pull” the sheet using the unpigmented abaca to create the base sheet of paper. Then, she dips each 3D drawing into a pigmented abaca container before placing it on the base sheet. Finally, she removes the abaca base sheet once the 3Doodler designs are placed.

Experimenting & Creating in 3D

During her undergraduate program, Anela used the 3Doodler Pro+ in a metals class and fell in love with the process. The objective was to use the 3D pens to think through modeling before casting. Anela found herself making rings and other jewelry directly with the pen and ABS material.

“I found it very accessible to start working very creatively,” said Anela. “I was building three dimensional forms, flat forms and building them up, and ended up making forms combining those ways of working with the pen that were used in my thesis show.”

She explains that it’s essential to use materials that spark excitement. Trying out new materials encourages the imagination. A new technique may transform an artistic approach.

“I think a huge part of any artistic practice is joy and experimentation,” said Anela. “When you integrate different materials it provides endless problem solving and opportunity to play with how the materials work together.”

Anela advises budding 3D artists to experiment and play. She finds that the more you experiment and add new tools and skills to your toolbelt, the more you will find the things that resonate.

“It took me quite some time to figure out how the 3Doodler Pro+ would function in my larger practice in a meaningful way,” she said. “Now, I’m working with clay in similar ways due to my experience with the 3Doodler pen. I can’t wait to see how all of this learning keeps expanding the relationships between my materials.”

The post Artist Spotlight: Anela Ming-Yue Oh first appeared on 3Doodler.

Styles come and go quickly these days. That’s why creating custom charms, bike bling, or friendship bracelets could be the ticket to staying one step ahead of the trends and on budget.

Making unique 3D summer accessories or adding custom details with 3Doodler is easy. Check out our tips, and imagine what else you can create!

Fresh Fruit Clog Charms

Summer is right around the corner, so it’s the perfect time to create DIY clog shoe charms to celebrate the season. We took inspiration from summer fruits that will soon be available in farmers’ markets and fresh fruit stands. Design a lemon slice, strawberry, watermelon, grapes, or avocado following our tutorial and stencil. There’s no end to the amazing shoe charms that people design. Find more inspiration and create new versions to reflect your style!

Design Clog Charms

Bike Bling

Customize your bike with classic details or vary it up to personalize the look of your ride! Created in the 1980s, spoke beads or spoke dokes, as they are also called, add a bit of nostalgia to any bike wheel. The original beads clip to the spokes of your bike and often make noise as the beads travel up and down the spoke while the wheels are in motion. The faster you ride, the more noise they make. Follow 3Doodler’s tips to make decals you can add to your wheels, handlebars, and more. Check out 3Doodler’s earlier blog on bike accessories for more ideas!

Create Bike Decals

Friendship Bracelets

Friendship bracelets are a classic simple craft that never falls out of fashion. If you are a lucky Taylor Swift fan who scored tickets to the Eras Tour, you’ll likely see attendees exchanging bracelets at the show. Learn how to make a friendship bracelet with your 3D pen using our free stencil, or try the more advanced charm bracelet to test your design skills. Find plenty of inspiration at 3Doodler to help get your creative ideas flowing!

Make a Friendship Bracelet

The post Make 3D Summer Accessories That Shine first appeared on 3Doodler.

Discover all that libraries have to offer during National Library Week, April 23-29, 2023! Libraries provide a space for community events, guest speakers, crafting classes, STEM activities, and book clubs. In addition, librarians are there to help you find what you need. They lend movies, musical instruments, games, and museum passes. At a library, you might be surprised to find courses that support local businesses, job seekers, or entrepreneurs.

This week, take a moment to explore how libraries support the local community with tips we rounded up. While you’re at it, use your 3Doodler tools to design a flipbook or trace your favorite storybook character. Read on!

There’s More to the Story

It’s easy to participate in National Library Week! Explore these suggestions and discover something new at a library near you.

Storybook Projects

Libraries are also an excellent resource for STEM/STEAM clubs and maker spaces. In addition, you may find tools you can borrow, like a 3Doodler 3D pen or activity clubs, that you can join for weekly project ideas.

No need to delay. We’ve got a few project ideas that will get you started as you celebrate National Library Week. So enjoy these creative projects you design to support your love of reading, storytelling, and more with 3Doodler!

3D Flipbook

Create a small book with a series of images in different positions to create the illusion of movement when the pages flip quickly.

Make It

Bookshelf Doodling

Bring storybook characters to life! Use a favorite book from home or check out new books at a local library. Once you’ve settled on your favorite, we’ll teach you how to take any picture book and create a stencil for doodling!

Try It

The post Celebrate National Library Week! first appeared on 3Doodler.

Established in 1961 by the Art & Creative Materials Institute (ACMI), the creators sought to emphasize the value children derive from art education. Today Youth Art Month is coordinated nationally by the Council for Art Education (CFAE).

3Doodler is delighted to support the visual arts and inspire young creators to use their imagination and bring their ideas to life. Explore Youth Art Month activities and learn how to engage with 3Doodler’s community to celebrate the visual arts!

New York Youth Art Month Poster

Your Art, Your Voice

This year participants will recognize the month through the theme “Your Art, Your Voice.” In addition, participating states host various activities, from a state flag design contest, local and state Youth Art Month proclamations, and art shows at state capitals and legislative buildings.

The celebration is intended to bring attention to visual art’s value in developing critical thinking skills, raising multicultural awareness, and encouraging technical, communication, and expression skills.

The Texas Art Education Association kicks off Youth Art Month with a Big Art Day, where grades K-12 participate in art events across the state. Big Art Day will take place on March 2, 2023, featuring 1,000 art activities.

In Illinois, students participate in a statewide art show hosted by the Illinois Art Education Association. The submissions are reviewed by a panel of judges who select 45 participants to feature in a statewide slide show that travels across the state.

Visit the Council for Art Education to learn more about Youth Art Month events and activities in your state.

Inspiring Young Artists

3Doodler looks to inspire young artists in the classroom and at home through lessons, projects, stencils, tutorials, and more. All these resources are readily available in the 3Doodler resource library and the 3Doodler App.

The 3Doodler App is a great way to encourage budding artists to expand their ability to draw and create in 3D. Through the app, young artists will find stencils, tutorials, and other art prompts to jumpstart their creativity. Plus, they can share their latest doodle creations with the community via an online gallery. The photos featured are from Doodlers like you. In addition, fellow artists can comment on shared designs and offer support. It’s a fantastic way to build community and celebrate art.

Explore Your Creativity

Get started by creating one of the following projects to celebrate Youth Art Month!

Collage Display

Get Started

Action Figure

Get Started

Keepsake Box

Get Started

The post March is Youth Art Month first appeared on 3Doodler.

As we head into a new year, 3Doodler will look to collaborate with artists, educators, and entrepreneurs to explore ways we elevate creativity. But, of course, it’s also important to inspire new creators. With that in mind, we’ll share accessible stencils, tutorials, and more to support budding artists.

Let’s take a quick look back to revisit the projects and artists who inspired you the most. Plus, we’ll share a quick project to jump-start creativity in 2023.

Dina Velikovskaya

Dina also shared a behind-the-scenes look at creating the film using a 3D pen. First, all the characters were created using a 2d digital drawn animation technique and then outlined with a 3D pen. The result was sets of flat filament figures. Next, the director filmed the figures frame by frame in a stop-motion set, along with wire objects.

Rick Martinez

Rick continues to push the boundaries of art and technology with his creative use of materials. Keep an eye out for a 3Doodler collaboration with Rick later this month!

Cornelia Kuglmeier

See more of Connie’s helpful tips and tutorials on her YouTube channel, where she shares loads of doodling advice.

Edwin Ramirez

Spark Creativity in 2023

Now that you’ve seen a small sample of our vibrant community, we invite you to make this your year of 3D creativity. Get started by creating a custom work of art for home using our go-to phrase. What will you create?

Get the Stencil

The post Celebrating Creators, Makers, Artists first appeared on 3Doodler.

Gather a group of family or friends to reflect on the year and gear up to make new memories in 2023. It’s always an excellent way to close out one year and start another. Depending on the size of the group, you can make a few fun props to share or customize one for each guest. Ring in the new year in style with 3D creations. Let’s go!

Party Hat

Make a Party Hat

Photo Booth Props

Create Photo Props

Goofy Glasses

Create Glasses

Cupcake Toppers

Create Glasses