In the Art Room: My Fave Landscape Lessons

Hey, y'all! Welcome to another installment of my Back to Art Teacherin' series! I kicked off this series with a lil What to Wear-ness and a Giveaway where y'all had to indulge me in your fave back-to-school-clothes shopping stories. I loved each and everyone but I gotta say, this one from Michelle was one of my faves:

My favorite, and most embarrassing, back-to-school memory involves my dad taking me and my two sisters shopping for back to school clothes...way back in the eighties! There was plenty of black and neon combinations, acid wash jean skirts, and at least one knitted cat sweater involved, which was my favorite thing. We were so proud of our gear that we begged our dad to film us putting on a fashion show - complete with commentary by my sister and some hilarious bloopers, including a particularly confident walk by my eight-year-old self, all the while with my hair tucked into the neck of my prized cat sweater (there were some quick dress changes!) and followed by three full turns at the end of the “catwalk” (I think I had figure skaters and fashion models confused at the time). My dad filmed it all on his old school video camera, the kind that was so large it had to be propped up on his shoulder and held a full-sized VHS tape! The evidence still exists!

Congrats, Michelle, on your grab bag of art teacherin' books win! Now, don't ya'll leave me hanging for our next fun-ness...don't forget to snap a photo of what you wear on your first day back to school! I know many of you either have already started (in which case, just snap a photo of any ole art teacherin' day, I won't tell!) or don't start back for a while. No worries! I don't plan to share the post until the end of Auggie/start of Septie. More details here. 

Now if all y'all are like me, unit planning, lesson writing and sample making are in full swing. This is also the time that I find myself getting a lil stumped and frustrated. And ain't nobody got time for that! So I thought I'd share with y'all a sprinkling of my very fave landscape and self-portrait lessons to kick off your school year! 

For starters, this landscape project you see above was created by my fourth grade students last year. I loved it because it was a color mixing lesson that produced the mostly lovely of hues as well as unique paintings. All the landscape-y color mixing deets here, kids. 

One of my fave projects my second graders tackled last year were these Chilean-inspired arpilleras. We used textured and printed papers, collage, origami for the houses, puffy paint and stitching for the border. So much fun in one project! 

After our big chalk episode this year, the classes that didn't participate were really interested in the medium. So I took advantage of that interest of theirs and introduced them to the artist Sushe Felix and her lovely landscapes! The kids loved working with chalk and thought this technique to be simply magical. 

I love meshing several art lessons into one project. I find that the experience for the children is more rich and the artwork lovely. If you think about it, artists don't usually create in one medium solely independent of another. Meaning, they don't make a collage with just paper or a weaving with just yarn but they mesh many different techniques and supplies. By introducing that style of art making to children we are showing them that the processes taught can be applied to the creation of something magical and great. 

I know, y'all. It ain't no wheres close to winter yet but this here is one of my fave kindergarten landscape lessons! It's always sweet to see their wintery scenes...and I'm convinced that each year, these babies bring us the luck of snow! 

Who says landscape lessons have to be taught two-dimensionally? This tree weaving is one of my faves of all time and can really introduce so many concepts on both landscape, scale, perspective and weaving! 

You know how people are always giving us the weirdest things? Like, toilet paper tubes, for zample? One year, when learning about Medieval times, the fourth grade used 'em to create these totes tubular castles! 

But even without the castles, these landscapes look all kinds of awesome, says me.

These Egyptian desert landscapes were created by my first grade artists. Can you believe the lil Leonardo was such a wiz with those camel-cutting scissors, y'all?! 

Introducing cultures with collage landscape is always a good idea (kinda like Paris). These second graders knocked this project outta the park! 

Tho this first grade artist did a pretty magnifique! Another use of those ole t.p. tube, y'all. 

Okay, now I'm all kinds of excited to start the year with some super landscape painting projects! Our theme at the start of this year is Henri Rousseau-inspired jungles...I can't wait to see what my wee artists create! What are some of your fave landscape lessons? I'd love to know!

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What the Art Teacher Wore #136

New Skirt Monday: Nuthin starts a week off better than some new duds, says moi. I got this lovely skirt as a birthday prezzie (thanks, Tamara!) and I was so stoked to wear it now that the weather is as sunny and colorful as it is. jean jacket: Buffalo Exchange; embroidered blouse and bracelets: yard sale; skirt: Flying Tomato; tights: Target; shoes: Anthro

Hello, party people! How are all y'all? After having so many short weeks due to snow, holidays and being in NOLA, this week was like a big fat dose of reality. On Tuesday I thought it was Thursday and by Wednesday, I swore it was Friday. Yeah, that's never a good sign. However, this week I'm totally ready. Our school is hosting chalk artist/street painter Lee Jones for a coupla days. I cannot wait to see what she and my super stoked second graders create. And on Tuesday evening I'll be chatting with Tim Bogatz and Andrew McCormick right here...

I'm so excited! Both of those dudes are incredible art teachers as well as AOE presenters and writers. I'm thrilled to have been asked to chat on AOE Live. It'll all go down on Tuesday, April 14th at 8pm Central and, added bonus, it's free. We'll be talking about finding your own art teacherin' style. For more info, just get yerself here.

So that's my upcoming week...here's a lil taste of what went down in the art room this past week! 

I needed a quick one week self-portrait lesson for my super star first grade artists. They only needed a week before their clay projects would be back to them so this self-portrait proved to be a great project. I'll give ya the complete lesson here soon on the blog. I've purchased those fancy frame papers to insert these bad boys in. I cannot wait to see the result!

I wish you could see this sweet lil girl to know just how accurate that awesome portrait is!

Flowerin' Tuesday: So everyone around here is putting stuff in the ground. But, having lived here for some time, I know that the weather in Tennessee can be 80 one day in the spring and than BAM! we get a hard freeze. And, being the total lazy slob that I am, I always forget to cover my plants and therefore kill 'em all. So I'll be wearing my flowers for a while...and planting them in about a week or two. How 'bout you? Stick anything in the ground lately? sweater and dress: Anthropologie, purchased at Buffalo Exchange; dotted booties: made by me, DIY here

Third grade land is in the midst of creating these chalked landscapes. What you see here is the final-ish stage as most kids are planning to add their desert animals. I love 'em with or without! We chatted about the artist Sushe Felix (you can see my prezies here and here). I'll give you the full details on how we created these lovelies soon.

Painterly Wednesday: So I found this dress in a resale shop in NOLA and I was all, OMG, that thar is an art teacherin dress if I ever saw one! I wore it complete with my paint brush crown, another NOLA score. I tell ya, the shopping there, to die for! dress: Buffalo Exchange; Necklace: The Paper Source

My fourth grade has been on a color-mixing adventure. I loved all of those One Hundred Days of School/Mix One Hundred Colors images I kept seeing pop up on pinterest. I thought my kids could really use that concept in their landscape paintings. So the rule was: you gotta mix all of your own colors. They absolutely loved it! We chatted about he artist Xavier Castellanos (prezi here) and worked on these for a couple of art classes. Again, lesson to come, kids! 

 Color Wheel Thursday: Mixing color means knowing your color wheel! Those fourth graders became champs at reading that wheel. Although it still would crack me up (and some of the other kids) when one kid would say, "I don't have any orange!" to which we'd all reply, "That's because you have to MAKE it!" sweater and tights: Target; dress: Modcloth; palette belt (I know, right?!): vintage, etsy; shoes: Fluevog

Oh, lookie! We're getting closer and closer still to completing our Johnson Elementary Has Heart mural! I couldn't be more excited. I'll be sure to keep y'all posted. 

Soupy Sneakers Friday: My super sweet aunt and uncle sent me these new kicks in the mail. I couldn't wait to wear 'em to school and chat with the kids about them. But guess what proved to be the focal point of my ensemble? That's right, THE PANTS. They just couldn't see past the thought of me in pants to focus on my shoes. Le sigh. sweater and jeans: old, Target: dotted blouse: thrifted; shoes: Converse

Is it just me or are these first grade fish not the biggest crack up? We used the same technique you might have seen in my kindergarten clay post. I cannot wait to share this simple clay lesson with y'all! Until then.

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