These beautiful paintings were created by my fourth graders. They recently went to Annapolis for a field trip, so I thought it would be fun to do a painting of it. For this project, I handed out a photo of Annapolis. The photo had boats in the foreground. It had buildings, trees and the capital in the middle ground, and, of course, the sky in the background. Before beginning this project, we talked about simple overlapping to create depth. Judging from these pictures, I think they understood the concept.
Students began by drawing in pencil. After this, students used oil pastels to color the boats, houses, and trees. Lastly, students used watercolors for the water and sky.
These are beautiful and make me think of summer.
I LOVE winter and I LOVE lighthouses. For this project, I thought I would combine the two. We began by drawing out a simple round shape for the ground, and a simple horizon line. We painted the sky, water and the land with tempera paint. Lastly, we cut out a lighthouse from construction paper and glued it to the painting. 
I think these turned out very nice. I like how some of my students added boats and whales in the ocean. I didn't tell them to do this, they just did it on their own. I Love when my students come up with good ideas. I just wish I could have had more time on this project. We really had to rush to get it done in 75 minutes.
The basic idea for this lesson came from Deep Space Sparkle. I changed it to a winter scene, but it's basically the same idea.
Okay, so I know I posted on this project last year, but I LOVE the results, so I thought I would post some pics again. I do this project every year when the fourth grade students study the different regions of the United States. It is just a fun way to depict the Southwest region. 
To begin, I have the students draw sand dunes, cacti, and an expressive sun on black paper. I do emphasize that I want everything drawn fairly large, and that things can overlap. (For instance, the cactuses can go all the way into the sky). Otherwise, they will draw tini tiny. This time, I had the students use oil pastels to color everything in. In the past, I have had them use soft pastels instead. Both work nice, just a slightly different look. 
Many of my students love to mix colors, which I love, but sometimes they don't think before they blend colors together. Before letting them color, I brought out the color wheel, and explained the concept of analogous colors. I told them that if they mix colors next to each other on the color wheel, they will never end up with a hideous color. I also tell them that complimentary colors look wonderful next to each other, but not as wonderful on top of each other.
The final step to this project is to outline everything with black glue. I basically just take regular glue and mix in black paint. Students have to be very careful when outlining with the glue. They should not squeeze the bottle to hard, or huge globs may come out.
I found this awesome lesson on Deep Space Sparkle and thought it would be perfect for my summer art students. This lesson was inspired by the art of Maude Lewis, an artist who painted scenes of Nova Scotia. My summer art class has a huge age gap. The youngest is five and the oldest a seventh grader. I did end up having to help the five year old quite a bit, since this lesson was more on the complicated side
We began this lesson by drawing in the horizon and the island. Students painted the sky with light blue tempera paint. The water was painted with a darker blue and the grass was painted green. While this was drying, I had students use construction paper to cut out houses, lighthouses, boats, whales, etc. When the painting was dry, we glued these things to our artwork. Lastly, we used white paint to add waves into the ocean.
These turned out wonderful.
My second graders have been learning to read maps recently, so I thought this would be the perfect time to create pirate maps. I showed my students many examples of pirate maps before beginning our project. We noticed that old maps are often very artistic. Often drawings of boats, flags, treasure, and other things can be found within the map. 
We began by tearing the edges of brown construction paper. Then students created a title for their map (The title could have their own name in it, or a fake pirate name). In the corner of the map, students drew a compass rose. Students then drew and named their islands. Finally, it was time for the fun stuff, the details. Students added treasure, ships, sea monsters, anchors, etc. Everything was then outlined with black marker. I had my students use oil pastels to color their map, but crayons would have worked too. 
When students finished their maps, I had students crumple their maps to make it look old and crinkly. Students absolutely loved the crumpling part. I told them that this was the only time I would allow them to crumple their art.
The first graders have recently been learning about rainforests, so when I came across this lesson on Mr. E's Blog, I just had to do it with my students. First, I taught the students how to draw trees. Then we filled the tree with lots of cool designs and patterns. After that, I had the students outline everything in black. Finally, we colored everything with oil pastels. 
I started this lesson by showing the students photos of the houses in New Orleans. These houses tend to be tall, but not wide. We also noticed how bright and colorful the houses are. (I found lots of images on google to show them.)
We started by drawing a large house build out of rectangles (rulers were optional). I showed the students multiple ways to draw windows and doors. Also, I encouraged students to add porches, or balconies, or other details to their pictures. We outlined everything with black crayon and painted with watercolors.
I just love all of these!
Fifth graders have been recently studying the layers of the earth. When I was asked to come up with an art lesson with this topic, I was at a loss of what to do. After much consideration, I came up with this lesson. I began this lesson by showing students photos from the Grand Canyon. We noticed how sedimentary layers can be seen in the canyon. 
I did this lesson with the fourth graders last year (when they were learning about different regions of the United States.) We talked about the idea of a birdseye view and how the land is split into segments when looking from above. The patterns represent the different types of crops the farmers grow. These were drawn with oil pastels and painted with watercolors.
