Y'all know I'm always game to dress like a crazy person. So when the first grade team at my school approached me this and asked if I'd dress as Cruella Deville for their 101st Day of School celebration, you know I was more than game. I mean, I already had the wig and everything. Since we were doing all things 101 Dalmatians, I decided to have the kids create art based on the sweet spotted pups. You can check out the video I created (along with many other art teacherin' videos) here. Here is the video I created...feel free to use it on your 101st Day of School. Or any other, for that matter!
If you are curious to know how we created the heart stamped background, I cover that in this video...I did create the heart stampers for the kids. But in the vid, you'll see me explain how they are made.
We had so much fun with this project! We learned about printing, reviewed the elements of art and built our confidence with a short guided drawing. Many of my students are bringing in puppies from home. They've also started watching the other how-to videos at home...and I love that!
I can't wait to see these in the hallway along with all of the other heart-tastic masterpieces we've been creating.
Most kids drew one puppy...but I had several who drew more than one. Here's why: on the day we are drawing, some students said they were not happy with their drawing and they wanted to start again. I told them that in art, we ALWAYS finish what we start (hahahhaahahaa, as if I EVER finish ANYTHING but whatever). I promised them that the following art class, if they still wanted to, they could rewatch the video and draw another. I encouraged them to think of their first drawing as "practice". The following art class, those kids still wanted to create another puppy...but they had forgotten why they "didn't like" their first one. I convinced them to put both into their printed papers and call it Puppy Love.
The classroom teachers had their kids watch the original 101 Dalmatians so the kids were perfectly frightened of my Cruella threats to "take their fur".
I feel more like Cruella meets Anna Wintour...or is it just me?
This was definitely a whole lotta fun and something I hope we do again next year! By the way, don't forget about tomorrow night's Make and Take Facebook LIVE Chat!
Recently, our school library was magically transformed thanks to our amazing librarian Laurel Aiello and magnificent muralist Gale Hinton.
Over a weekend (that's just a matter of days, y'all!), Gale worked tirelessly, climbing up scaffolding and ladders with just paint and imagination as her tools. Gale does little preplanning; no sketching on walls and definitely no projecting of images. She's been doing murals for 50 years (!) and manages to create masterpieces in a matter of hours. When I walked in the library the morning she had started working, she had already created the background of the large mural above the checkout desk. I knew then that I wanted to interview her for my Field Trip! series and I was thrilled when she agreed.
Isn't she amazing!?
The selection of books that our librarian pulled for Gale to serve as inspiration. The kids were thrilled to walk in the library and play a game of I Spy looking for the book characters. Gale even has the characters talking to each other which adds another dimension to the mural.
Gale said she wanted the mural to appear accessible to the students so she had it grow outside of the rectangle border with the ladder coming down from the treehouse and Fancy Nancy dancing on the bookcase.
The ladder is so realistic, we've had several kids ask to climb it!
The speed with which Gale paints is amazing. She began this mural and the one below at 4:30pm and had them both complete by 9 that evening!
One of my favorite parts of the mural are the quotes that she and Laurel chose. They are so inspiring and empowering for our students. I have yet to tire of reading them and just gazing at all of the beautiful work that Gale did.
A question I received from my students was why I wasn't painting the mural. As art teachers, our kiddos often see us as the all-encompassing artist. I responded that I am an art teacher, that my skills lie in teaching art. Gale is a professional mural artist, that is her skill which she has cultivated over many years of hard work. There is NO WAY 1. I would get on that scaffolding (and a ladder on top of that, my hands are sweating just thinking about it!) and 2. that I could paint so quickly and with such confidence. What took her days would take me MONTHS and it still wouldn't look nearly as amazing.
The beautiful murals were dedicated to Laurel's husband T.J. Aiello. He would have loved seeing the library transformed into such a magical and amazing space.
For now, this is my favorite quote painted by Gale...my opinion changes every time I go in the library.
Thank you so much, Gale, for sitting down with me and the students of JES to chat. AND thank you for sharing your incredible talents on the walls of our school library!
Just a note: I'm constantly updating my YouTube channel with new lessons that y'all are free to borrow. The lessons don't typically make it to a blog post until several days or weeks after I've shared them there. To keep updated on those videos, y'all might wanna subscribe here. And please let me know if you use the videos in your art teacherin' world, I'd love to see what your kiddos create!
Currently, my fourth graders are creating large scale candy hearts (shown below, lesson here). Because my students work at different speeds, I wanted to have an additional project that they could work on if they finished a phase in the sculpting project early; would tie-in with their sculpting project; would introduce drawing three dimensionally and would be fun...and that's how this Candy Heart Drawing lesson came to be!
I did something very similar to this idea last year when my fourth graders created these large scale crayons and pencil sculptures and worked on these collaborative crayon drawings in addition. This Candy Heart Drawing project could easily be a collaborative drawing project as well...which was originally my intention. But with some kiddos still sculpting while others were ready to draw, it just didn't work out that way. But, if you do this lesson with your students, it would be something that you could definitely try!
Complete lesson video with tons of technique and vocabulary for your students!
Full Disclosure: I am currently working with Faber-Castell and creating lessons using some of their art supplies. I agreed to do so after testing their supplies out personally and with my students. I feel very confident in the quality of these oil pastels. Here is what I found: * There is less breakage. Often the oil pastels my students use crumble and break. These did not nor did they produce as much "oil pastel crumbs" as the brands I have used in the past. * They don't roll off the tables! I love the hexagon shape of the pastel. * The pack I had didn't have a huge assortment of color...but we don't need it! With the baby oil trick, you are blending the colors and producing a wider range of color and value. * They are bigger and will last longer. I used to order a different brand that was about half the size and we wore those out. These are definitely going to last.
If you decide to do this lesson and you want to have visual steps for your students, here you go. I having the visuals up as well as the video rolling (on silent, if it has already been played once) can be a helpful reminder of the steps. Supplies: * 12" X 18" watercolor or heavy stock paper. Because you'll be using baby oil, thin paper will not work. * Oil pastels * Baby oil * Q-tips * Heart-shaped templates (not necessary but helpful) 1. Trace several hearts all over the paper using the template. Think about a spilled box of candy hearts. Have some hearts overlap, other only partially on the paper. 2. Create the illusion of three dimensional hearts by drawing only on the right or left side of the heart.
3. Using an oil pastel, outline your heart and then color in one direction.
4. Cross-hatch over that with a white oil pastel.
5. Using a Q-tip and baby oil, blend the colorful oil pastel and the white together to create a tint, or a light color.
6. To create depth, color only the top and bottom of the side of the heart in color and the middle in white.
7. Blend with Q-tip and baby oil.
8. Think of what you'd like your Candy Heart to say. Write it out on a piece of paper the same size as your heart.
9. On the reverse side, color very hard with a pencil using cross-hatching. Place the paper heart over the oil pastel heart and trace your words.
A copy will appear!
10. Go over your words again in red oil pastel or a color of your choice. Continue with this process until your masterpiece is complete!
My students have already started their hearts and they are looking fabulous! I'll be sure to share a follow-up post when they are complete.
Feel free to share this lesson and video with your students! I'd love to hear from you (and see the amazing work of your kiddos!) if you do. Have fun!
Hey, y'all! If you missed last night's Facebook Live chat, it was so fun! We talked about all things Art Show and so many fabulous ideas were shared. I'm so thankful for all of you that took the time to join the convo. You can still catch the archived chat right here and be sure to join me on Wednesdays at 8pm CST for the fun! My least fave thing? Repeating myself. As much as I love to talk, saying the same thing again and again to small people is, like, the worst. I have found a solution that works for me: Call and Response! I have chatted about it here as well:
The kids really enjoy Call and Response and it's very much apart of our art learning routine. Do you use this? What techniques do you use to help your students retain directions? Love to hear from y'all!
Hello, Cutie Pies and Love Bugs, won't you Be Mine on this Candy Heart Sculpture adventure? I'm so excited (and maybe a pinch sugar'ed up from one too many candy hearts) about this project I've got planned for my fourth graders. I've been kicking this idea around for sometime...but there were some issues I thought the kids might struggle with. After finding solutions that will make their sculpture making adventure a little easier, I put it all together in this here video.
To make your own Candy Heart Sculpture, you'll need the following: * Tag or poster board, one 2" X 24" and two 8" squares * Scissors * Stapler * Tape * Rigid Wrap Plaster Cloth from Activa Products Approximately 24" of wrap per student. The wrap comes in a width of 6" so I cut it in half for this project. My plan is to have the kids do the cutting when they finish their armature. * Tempra paint
I played around with a couple dimensions with the heart and decided that the 2" edge would be the best. It's the most accurate appearing ratio and it requires a lot less plaster wrap. Having the kids create those tabs of tape and fill in the gaps with excess tape will really help when they are creating their armature.
I also played with several ideas for putting the wording on the heart. I first toyed with the idea of just letting them write on their hearts but my students do not have the best of handwriting, not even gonna candy coat it for ya (pun intended). Giving them a guide like the sheet which will ultimately become their carbon copy paper seemed like the best solution.
I will definitely keep y'all posted on how my fourth graders do. While their projects dry, they'll be working on another sweet project that I'll be certain to share with you soon. Check ya later, Love Bugs!
In case you missed my chat on Time Management (and many other things!)...you can still view it for one week here!
Hey there, cats and kittens! I hope you'll join me this evening for my first Facebook Live. So, like, I've never done a Facebook Live and my hubs just asked me if I'd given it a test run yet. Um, no. I am divin' into this thing head first without checking the water for sharks or 'gators cuz that's how crazy I am. Hope to see you tonight, Wednesday, December 14th, 8pm CST for our first Live chat. I'll be talking about Time Management because I get a whole lotta questions on how I manage my time (which is simply hysterical to me). Get all my magical tips and tricks (bwahaha!) tonight and I'll see you real soon.
A couple of weeks ago, I shared with y'all a video I created for my third graders. The video (seen below) introduced my kids to the colorful work of Sandra Silbertzweig and allowed them to explore creating a colorful and abstract self portrait. This lesson is currently one of my faves! Check out how stunning these beauties turned out. All of my students are currently creating a wide variety of self portraits for our Artome fundraiser...and I daresay, these just might be my faves.
For this project, we used:
* 9" X 12" black or dark blue construction paper. I would have loved to make these bigger but that is the size of the Artome frames.
* Black glue or black puffy paint. There are a couple of ways to create black glue. My friend Ginger creates black glue with a mixture of Elmer's All Purpose glue and India Ink. I created mine with a one part mixture of paint to two parts glue. The key is to use Elmer's All Purpose, not the school grade stuff as it's runny. Also, I had some students use black puffy paint which worked great. Another alternative is to use glue on black paper as it dries clear and will leave behind a kind of transparent line that the dark paper can show through.
* Chalk. I'm a big fan of Koss Brand chalk which can be found on Amazon. It's pricey but GREAT.
This project took us two plus art classes to complete. On the first day, we watched the video, learned about Sandra and did a little guided drawing. If you watch the video, you'll see I left the drawing portion open to many levels of drawing alternatives. Once the drawing was complete, the kids traced their lines in glue. From there, if time allowed, we watched a bit more of the video as a kind of sneak peak to the following week.
The real fun came with the chalk. In the video, I really stress how to use the chalk properly...and we do a whole lot of chatting about analogous colors. I really felt like this lesson was a wonderful exploration of color theory.
Here is how each table of four children was set up: a laminated colorwheel that I found online and two bowls of chalk, one warm, the other cold. Students were to use the colorwheel as I did in the video. Many of them took the time to pair up and lay all of their chalk out on the wheel. This way, they could easily see what colors were available to use. I love that they were so into picking the correct colors for this project.
After the second day, several kids were not finished. This was fine with me...I mean, look at those results! The following art class, as they wrapped up their drawing, we chatted about how their artwork was going to be hung like work in a museum. I had them get a notecard and create a label for their work. On their label, they were to write: Artists Name Title Medium Process or Description The information from this card will be used as both an assessment and also info for their Artome paperwork.
Once all pieces were complete, I blew off the excess dust and sprayed them liberally with Aqua Net. I did that three times to insure the chalk particles were attached. I'm hoping hey remain as vibrant and colorful when they are framed.
Because of our small format, I decided to opt out of having the kids add designs to their work. I had a feeling it might have gotten a little muddy if we did. If the pieces had been of larger format, I think that would have worked well.
I'm so looking forward to this winter art show. All of the kids have been creating beautiful works of art! I'll be sharing the work of my other grades soon.
Labels: elementary art, vintage clothing
100 day of school,
100 day of school activities,
101 dalmatian drawing,
art class,
art day,
cassie stephens,
how to draw a dog,
how to draw a puppy,
what the art teacher wore
