Clay Dragons, Summer Art

As I have mentioned in a previous post, I am teaching summer clay classes at the local community center. Recently, my students made these really cool clay dragons.
These are very simple to make. Basically, we made the body of the dragon by rolling a long coil. One end is bent upwards to use as the neck and head. Legs and other details were added by scoring and slipping. Unfortunately, we did not have time to glaze these, so we finished by using tempera paint. A few of my students chose to add glitter as well.
This is a very simple project, and is perfect for students who are inexperienced with clay. Also, kids LOVE dragons, so they were really excited to add details to make it their own.

Clay Wizards and Witches, Summer Art

This summer I have been teaching clay classes at the local community center. Here are some photos of the clay wizards/witches we created. With the new Harry Potter movie out, this project was a big hit with the kids.
I found the idea for this lesson on Deep Space Sparkle. There is a really nice tutorial on her site, so just click on the link for detailed directions. This last person decided she didn't want to make a wizard, so she turned it into an angel. I love it when my students think outside of the box.

Finished Bottle Cap Mural

The bottle cap mural is finished, and I just LOVE it. This one is hanging in the school hallway.
My students worked extremely hard on this mural, so they were very excited to see it hanging in the hallway. It looks awesome!
Here is a closeup of the mural. We certainly used a lot of caps for this project. This was such a fun way to recycle.

Bottle Cap Mural #2

It's the last week of school, but I am still trying to finish a few projects. I know I recently posted on the bottle cap murals my students have been creating, and this is our second mural. This one was inspired after Van Gogh's Starry Night. Today three fifth grade classes worked on this mural, and tomorrow, I plan to have a few students finish it up. I will post another picture when it is completely done. I am extremely excited to see how this one turns out.

Sidewalk Drawing

Over the weekend I went to an arts festival. The best part of this festival was the Sidewalk Drawing Contest. There were absolutely amazing chalk drawings there. Here is the one I created.
I did not win the contest, but it certainly was fun to create.

Wizard of OZ

Every year our music teacher puts on a play with the elementary students. This play is a big deal, and is a major fundraiser for the school. The children have to try out, and practice every day after school. For the past two years, I have volunteered to do the scenery for the play. This is a huge undertaking on my part. During the last two weeks, I have spent many hours after school painting. The scenery certainly came alive during the performance. Here a few photos I took during the performance. Sorry, they are a little fuzzy. My camera doesn't take good photos in the dark.
The costumes were wonderful, and the student did a wonderful job.

Salmon, 4th Grade

My fourth graders recently read a story called Salmon Summer in their English class. To tie my art lesson into this, I had my students look at Native American salmon art. Native American salmon are very decorative and expressive. I found many examples of salmon art by searching in Google images.
For this project, I had my students draw their own expressive salmon. These salmon included interesting designs and patterns. Students drew everything with black crayon, and then painted with yellow, red, and orange watercolors.
I am quite impressed with the results of this project.