DIY: Wishful Winter Wonderland

Let's just forget that it's spring in less than a month, shall we? 'Cuz this winter mural is finally finished! Note to self: start winter mural on first day of school.

Well, Happy Wintery Day to you! And, if you are here in Tennessee, this year's wintery has meant rainy, tornado-y, and weirdly warm. Nothing like our winters of the past two years which managed to produce enough snow to provide us with some delightful snow days. Not that us teachers like snow days. Oh no! We just spend the whole day missing the children...in our pajamas...in front of the t.v. ...with a tub of ice cream...catching up on Jersey Shore. Sigh.

But I digress. I'm here to share with you the mural that the artists at my school just finished! For which I can take little credit. I originally got the idea for a winter mural over at this website http://artwithmre.blogspot.com/; the woven houses were seen on pinterest; and the ice skating figures was a lesson taught by my incredible student teacher. So, basically, I just did what I always do: watched my little artists work and be amazed by the results.

We hung the mural on Monday just knowing that it would bring us the luck of a snow day the weathermen had been predicting. No such luck. Next week we are creating Weatherman Voo Doo Dolls.

The bulk of the work was done by my wee little kindergarten friends. We studied van Gogh and his love of lines and texture. Using the cold colors and water color paint, we created our own night sky. The following art class, we chatted about texture and creating tints of color. They created the ground pieces by painting their colored construction paper white and using a textured comb on the white paint.

Er, is that green smoke coming out of that chimney?

My first grade buds helped by creating the little collaged houses for the background and the snow covered trees. This was no small task for these guys as cutting out small bits and pieces can be a bit tricky for the under-6 set. But just look at 'em! I'd totally live in that pink and yellow casa.

I love the little cat in the window...reminds me of my house! 'Cept the cat looking out my window has a 15 lbs weight advantage.

Second grade was about to begin their circle loom weaving unit. I thought it might be a good review for them to create these little woven houses. Because they had woven before, they were able to whiz right through it. This allowed them to have more time to work on their houses...and it proved to be a great pre-assessment for their circle loom weavings.

Our school has the best P.E. program around with two incredible teachers. These ladies are absolutely devoted to the health of our students. I have learned so much from them...I just cannot say enough good things about them!

This year, our students spent two weeks learning how to roller skate. The students had an absolute blast. I knew I wanted to get my fourth grade artists in the gym to sketch the skaters...I just didn't know how to make it happen. Thankfully, Lauren, my awesome student teacher, created a gesture drawing lesson. The kids spent one half hour class creating drawings of the skaters.

Tiger-striped skating pants? A girl after my own heart.

These drawings were then used as the starting point for their figure drawings. Students learned how to draw a figure in proportion and in action. Ice skater details were added to complete the look. Once the drawings were finished, they traced over their lines in skinny sharpie, added color and cut them out.

I loved watching the kids create gesture drawings. Many of them resembled the gesture drawings I created in college.

Lauren assembled the mural -- thank goodness. I have this terrible habit of starting a project and petering out when the work becomes unfun. And gluing the whole thing together seemed very overwhelming to me. But she dove right in and got it put together. For the ice, she used foil painted with a thin coat of white paint for a frosty, less reflective look.

This would be me on skates. All wobbly limbs and "woah-woah-wooooah!".

Two proud art teachers.

Our last contribution came from our third grade students. They have been studying Wassily Kandinsky with Lauren. They created the miniature concentric circles that you see along the sides of the mural.

FYI, I just checked the extended forecast. The weathermen are predicting thunderstorms and 50 degree temps. I am so looking forward to those Voo Doo Dolls!

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In the Art Room: Walk Like an Egyptian

The Land of the Dead: A collection of my third grade art students sarcophagi (sarcophaguses?) laid out to dry. The kids dubbed this area of the floor The Tomb.

Last week most of my third grade students finished their Egyptian sarcophagus. We had a lot of fun with this looong project and I thought I'd share it with you. It began way back at the beginning of the school year. I remember it like it was yesterday...

Don't mess with Tut. I can't decide if I look mean or just constipated. Either one is unpleasant enough, I suppose.

I spent the first week of school dressed as King Tutankhamun (aka Tut). As King Tut, or Mrs. Tut as the kids referred to me, I introduced all of my classes to Ancient Egypt. During this introductory lesson, my third grade students learned how to write their name in hieroglyphics and create a cartouche. If you look closely at the bottom of their sarcophagus, you'll see their rendition.

After that, we got a little side tracked with other projects: a field trip to the local art museum to see an Egyptian exhibit; a school-wide t-shirt tie-dying project; and a fall leaf-relief project. With those out of the way, we were ready to return to Egypt.

When I was in 8th grade, I had art for the first time. My art teacher showed me how to draw nostrils in a way I've never forgotten: like the handle bars of a bicycle. I demonstrated many different ways to draw a nose and this student looks like he went the handle bar route.

We began with a self-portrait drawing. After a chat about portraiture, we looked at some recognizable portraits (the Mona Lisa and American Gothic) and compared them to the paintings found on the Egyptian sarcophagus. Then we proceeded to begin our own Egyptian self-portrait.

Each student was given a copy of the head above. The copy was on a clipboard and the students placed a blank paper over it. After a discussion about head shape, we traced the shape of the head onto our paper. That's right, you heard me, we traced. Scandalous, I know. We also used the dotted line as a guide in understanding the placement of our features. We used mirrors to capture our own likeness.

After looking at many Egyptian examples, students were given the opportunity to add a nemes (that's the cloth headdress), a beard (even Egyptian Queens wore them during ceremonies) and a collar necklace.

The following art classes were used to trace over our pencil lines in Sharpie and add color with colored pencils and metallic oil pastels. We had a chat about how the Ancient Egyptians created paintings that were very two-dimensional. However, we were going to learn a bit about shading and creating a drawing that was three-dimensional.

Understanding the concept of shading is a pretty advanced skill. I introduced it to the kids anyway because I don't like assuming they cannot do something. I demonstrated by choosing a flesh tone and shading my forehead and bridge of my nose in a light value forming a letter T. I then used a dark value around the outside of the head creating a letter U. That dark value was gradually lightened as I colored toward the center of the face. The sides of the nose were shaded a dark value like two capital I's. When the students got confused about shading, I could remind them by saying, "Light T; dark U; two dark I's". This seemed to help.

A very clever student and her wadjet eyes.

From there, details of the students' liking were added to their face and headdress. Metallic oil pastels were used on the headdress. Once complete, students were ready to cut out their sarcophagus.

For the sarcophagus, students were given a 3' (maybe a pinch longer) piece of butcher paper. They folded that paper in half lengthwise and placed half of a sarcophagus template on top which they traced and cut out. From there, the kids glued down their heads and their cartouche. Then the fun of planning their sarcophagus began.

This student paid a great interest to patterning detail. I love her designs.

With a piece of vine charcoal, students drew hands, crook and flail and, if they wanted, Isis, the winged goddess. Then I asked them to divide break up the space of their sarcophagus with a series of lines. Once completed, students took their sarcopha-guys to the floor and painted over their charcoaled lines in black paint.

In hindsight, painting on the floor should have been done with some sort of floor cloth. I owe my custodial friends some chocolate for that mistake.

In between the lines the students painted, they were asked to add patterns in black paint. Once the black paint patterns were complete, I broke out the jars of metallic paint which proved to be a big hit.

Not all metallic paint is created equally. We used Liquid Metal by Sargent sold through the Sax catalog. It was expensive but cheaper than spending money on junky (and often odorific) craft store metallics.

Like I've said before, I only see my kids for half an hour. Some day it was a real struggle giving directions, passing back the work, getting out supplies and then turning to the clock to see YIKES! TWELVE MINUTES TO WORK! But we managed to get them finished. And, seeing them all displayed in the halls, make the kids and I see that our looong project was well worth it.

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In the Art Room: Hump Day

After a long chat about fore-, middle- and background, we glued our camels into our Egyptian Landscape Collages. Here's a kid that really got the concept of objects diminishing in size.

What would be more appropriate to chat about on this here Hump Day then a one-humped camel (which are called domedary in case you didn't know) and his habitat? My first grade artists finished up these Egyptian Landscape Collages last week and I thought I'd share them with you. I've been doing this landscape collage lesson for years but always with a connection to our current theme of study. With Egypt being our theme this year, a desert landscape was what we created.

Image pulled from pinterest.com.

We began our lesson with a nice long chat about sunrises and sets. We looked at photos, artist renditions, and discussed personal experiences before creating our own. Each student was given a 12" by 18" piece of paper folded in half lengthwise. On the top half of their paper, students painted their sunsets. During their second art class, we discussed the horizon line and how objects near that line appear to be smaller. With that in mind, we painted our clouds, small near the horizon, gradually growing in size as they approach the top of the paper.

Would you like one hump or two? The two-humped camels (called bactrian) are found in Central and East Asia. So apparently this one migrated to Egypt.

The following art class, we began the textured paper for the desert sands. This time we had a wee chat about creating tints of colors and textures. Each student was given a new sheet of 12" X 18" paper folded in half lengthwise. They were to create a tint of brown on each half of the paper and create a texture with the texture combs. If you don't happen to have texture combs, you can easily make them from stiff pieces of card stock with small notches cut out of the bottom.

It's just not a kid's landscape unless something is levitating. I totally dig the floating pyramids.

Once both paintings are complete, the collage process begins. Now, I've done this project many times and the first time I did it, the collage portion made me want to whack my head against the wall. So to save you some head-whacking, lemme tell you how I explain it to the kids:

1. Tear a strip of paper off of your textured and tinted paper lengthwise.
2. Put glue around the edges of that paper. Place it directly on your horizon line (this way, no white space can be seen between the sky and the horizon).
3. Continue to tear strips and glue down. Overlap the brown papers so there are no white paper gaps.
4. When you run out of paper at the bottom to glue the land to, you are finished!

This idea to create pyramids came from the book Dynamic Art Projects for Children. If you teach children, this book is a fantastic source for art project ideas.

Once the landscape was complete, we began creating objects for the land. We kept these bits and pieces in an envelope labeled with our name until we were ready to glue them down.

To create the pyramids, the kids folded a rectangle in half, cut across it diagonally, opened the paper and viola! we had a triangle. To make it look three-dimensional, we laid a piece of scrap paper over the triangle, drew a heavy brown line in oil pastel and then smeared the pastel toward the edge of the triangle. We used oil pastels gifted to us from Paul deMarrais. You must see his beautiful pastel landscapes (and pick up some of his hand crafted oil pastels!) here: http://www.pauldemarrais.com/home/index.html

The How-to-Draw sheet that I made multiple copies of and had ready at the tables.

Once our pyramids were complete, we began our study of camels. We read a book about them, looked at this amazing stuffed one that our librarian happened to have and proceeded to draw together. I firmly believe in guided drawing (meaning, I draw something on my paper, the kids attempt to replicate on their paper). Art teachers that I have met are either firmly for or against this idea. My rational is this: you wouldn't hand a kid a math worksheet and just tell them to have at it without explaining to them the concepts first, right?

I love how the little camel's legs are firmly rooted as if to say, "I'm not taking another step! This walking on three legs business is just too complicated!"

So as we are drawing the camels together, we are looking for the shapes and lines within the object, discussing what we see and drawing them. After we have created one camel together, the students were given the above How-to Draw sheet and asked to draw as many camels as they'd like in their landscape. They used the sheet as their starting point and them proceeded to draw walking legs, multiple humps, etc. Again, we kept them in our envelope.

Another beautiful Egyptian sunset. I shared similar images with the kids to help them understand the concept of a silhouette.

On our final day, students were given back their envelopes and their landscapes. We had a chat about fore-, middle- and back ground, diminishing size and silhouettes. Then the students proceeded to assemble their collages. Finally, we were finished! I have this habit of creating the World's Longest Art Projects...but I have myself convinced that it's okay. We learned: painting, color mixing, texture, collage, drawing, shading, etc. So, it's really about five projects packed into one, right?

As I said earlier, I've done this project many times before. When we were learning about Japan, the landscape was vertical and filled with origami houses. One year we learned about Medieval times and created a green landscape full of castles. The original idea came from a SchoolArts article many years ago. That teacher had created a sea scape, using blue textured papers. The possibilities are endless-ish!

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