Winter, 3rd Grade

Today my third graders created winter scenes. Winter is my absolute favorite season, so I love this project. This project is rather complicated, so it was hard to get done in 75 minutes, but my students worked hard and we got it done. I began this lesson by showing students the artwork of Maud Lewis,a Canadian Folk artist. We noticed how simple her trees, houses, and animals were drawn. Our artwork is inspired after her.

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Here are the basic directions:

1. Draw three trees on black paper (I show students how to do this) and then cut them out.

2. Cut out a rectangle for a house and a triangle for the roof.

3. Put these things aside until later

4. Fold a piece of paper in half (Hot dog style). The fold becomes the horizon.
5. Paint the sky blue. Then add a little white on top while the sky is still wet to be the clouds.

6. Rinse off paint brush and paint the ground white

7. Glue the trees and house down the paper

8. Add snow by splattering white paint onto the page. (They love this part!)

I absolutely Love, Love, Love these!!

Rainforest Birds, 4th Grade

Today we created Rainforest birds. I showed the students how to draw the bird and then we added leaves and flowers in the background. The bird was colored completely with oil pastels. As I always do with my students, I had them blend colors together with their fingers. The leaves and flowers were only outlined with oil pastels. Then watercolors were used to fill in the background.
These turned out wonderful. I am so proud of the 4th graders!!

Aboriginal Dot Paintings, 3rd Grade

Students have recently been learning about traditions from many different cultures, so I thought it would be fun to do an Aboriginal art lesson. The Aborigines are the Natives of Australia and are known for their dot paintings. I showed the students many examples of Aboriginal dot paintings (there are a lot of examples of these on google images).

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We then created our own dot paintings. On a piece of construction paper, students drew simple designs. Then using Q-tips, students used tempera paint to add color. Students could only use dots!! We then drew animals on black construction paper and glued them on top of our designs.

This is a very simple project, but I like the outcome.

Abstract Paintings, Pre-K

My Pre-K students, in my opinion, is the hardest group to create lessons for. I love these students, but creating lessons developmentally appropriate for them has always been a challenge for me. I really like how these turned out, however. It truly is one of the first Pre-K lessons that I have been very satisfied with and will likely repeat in the future. This lesson was all about teaching these students how to paint with watercolors. I began by telling them the Paul Klee quote, "A Line is a Dot that Went for a Walk." We started with a black crayon and walked a line all around our paper. Then students used watercolors to fill in the space. Some students tried to fill in the spaces neatly inside the lines, but others did not. I was fine with what ever they wanted to do. I encouraged them to use as many colors as possible, but to try not to put colors on top of each other. It is easy for these students to start with a colorful picture and then put too many colors on top of each other.

Venetian Paper Masks, 4th and 5th Grade

I did this project last year, but absolutely loved it. It is very similar to the Inuit Mask lesson that I posted about a little while ago. To start this project, I showed the students examples of Venetian Masks worn during Carnival. Our masks are entirely made out of paper. We dug into my scrap paper box for this lesson. No new pieces of paper were to be used to decorate the mask.

I stressed the idea of symmetry. This can easily be done by cutting through two pieces of paper at once.

Also, layering is important. Gluing one piece on top of another really make these masks better.

Most of the hair was done with strips of paper and were either acordian folded or curled around pencils.

It's funny because the process of making these masks were the same as the Inuit Mask lesson, but the results were quite different. These definately do not look as tribal as the other. It just goes to show that the visuals you begin your lesson with does make a difference in the results, and students Do pay attention to the theme of your lesson!

Snowmen, Kindergarten

I realize that it is still Fall, but I can't help thinking about winter. Winter is my absolute favorite season! I just love snow. This is a project I did with Kindergartners last year.

Here are the steps:

1. Fold a piece of paper in half and draw half a snowman along the fold. Then cut it out. They now have two snowmen. (The whole one and the one with the negative space of the snowman). We will use the paper with the negative space of the snowman for our stencil. (you can save the other one for another project)

2. Put your stencil in the middle of a blue piece of construction paper

3. Use a sponge and white paint to dab inside the stencil (make sure students do not move stencil and that students are dabbing and not painting with the sponge). When students lift up the stencil, they will have a snowman shape on their paper.

4. Use Q-tips to put snow falling from the sky.

5. Q-tips can also be used to add buttons, eyes, mouth, arms, etc.

Students love this project and so do I! You are never too old to make a snowman!

Mixed Breed Animals, 2nd Grade

In this project, we looked at drawings of "Mixed Breed Animals" from the Middle Ages. They were told to choose 2-3 animals and combine them. To help the students with this, I brought in lots of photos of real animals. Having photos to look at really does help them a lot. After everything was drawn in pencil, I had them color everything with watercolor pencils. My students love these, they always think it is magic when water is brushed on top and it turns to paint.

Warm and Cool Color Hands, 3rd Grade

This is a really simple project and it looks awesome when it's finished. Basically, students start by drawing squares around each other until it fills the entire page. Then students traced their hands on top. I taught student's about warm and cool colors. The background needed to be all warm colors and the hand all cool colors or visa versa. We used tempera paints for this project.

I did not come up with this lesson myself. I have seen it posted on several websites before. Not sure who came up with it first, but Kudos to whoever it was.

Finished Kindergarten Ocean

Finally, The Kindergartners finished the ocean mural this week and it looks awesome. I posted before about the ocean mural that was being put up in the Kindergarten hallway and now it is done. I can't say enough how awesome the Kinders. are! Their fish are so creative and original. I just love that each fish looks completely different.

My Artwork

Here are examples of my own art. I love painting more than just about anything else in the world. In my free time, I spend a lot of time painting. Unfortunately, I don't have as much free time as I would like. The painting above is more realistic than is typical of me, but I like it anyway. Generally, I paint landscapes, because I love nature. Normally, though, I paint very expressively using bright colors and thick brush strokes. I like to make my paintings very alive with a lot of emotion.

These are all oil paints. I love the thickness of oil paints and the length of time it takes to dry. I also just love the vibrancy of these paints.

When it comes to my art, realism has nothing to do with it. It is mostly about emotions.

Not everyone likes my style of painting. If this isn't your "cup of tea", that is absolutely fine. Everyone has their own tastes when it come to art.

Food Chain Fish, 1st Grade

I guess I have had fish on my mind recently, since I have had several grades create them lately. This got me thinking about a fish project I did last year. This one was really about Food Chains though. I taught students how to draw fish by drawing a circle and putting a triangle in for a mouth. They were suppose to draw three fish in a row looking as if they were going to eat each other. The first fish was big, the second medium size, and the third small. Sea weed, bubbles, and other ocean animals were drawn. A boarder was drawn around the entire thing and students drew patterns in the boarder. Everything was colored with oil pastels and a light watercolor wash was used for the water.

Birds, 4th grade

This is a really fun project that I did last year. Basically, students draw birds and I bring in lots of photos of birds for them to look out. This isn't the fun part though. The fun comes in when I have them draw it on a clear transparency using gel markers (or permanent markers). We then put them in black mats and I hang them in the windows around the school.

These look a million times better in person than in a photo.