Mixed Media Exploration and Elements of Art Review!

Recently, when I was working on THIS line design lesson...

Where I shared how to make black glue without actually making black glue...quick video here:

It got me thinking. If you can make black glue that way, then couldn't you do the same with any water-based marker on white paper? 

The answer, YEP! You can! And that's how this lesson came to be!

For this project, which I envision would be perfect for 5th grade and up, I started with a 12" square of paper, water-based markers and Elmer's Glue All. Check out the full lesson here:

Once the glue is dry, I used my paper cutter to cut the papers into 4 6" squares. Then I decided to do a mixed media exploration on each!

To alter this lesson, you could always NOT cut the paper and just pick one of the mixed meda methods to do on the entire paper. Just a thought. I did find exploring all of these really fun but I know that would take a several art class days...so I'll leave that up to you!

For the first one, I just used a permanent marker, a cup of water and a paintbrush. I used my Line Design sheet and a permanent marker for the first step. Then I added water to the marker lines to create a blurred line effect with a little bit of a tint of color.

For the next square, I used chalk. Whenever I use chalk in my art room, I always use a color wheel. I created this free color wheel download for you to use, you can access it here!

If you have hesistated to use chalk pastels in  your art room in the past, don't sweat it! I created a whole video and blog post of all of my chalk Tips and Tricks and you can see it here!

I also just recently posted a lesson for 2nd grade and up using chalk and line...and you can check that out here!

Okay, back to the lesson at hand! I LOVE chalk and my students do too. I really enjoyed creating this little chalk square study.

BUT THIS ONE...

Was even more fun! For this, students will use bright and light color oil pastel and saturate their paper in color. THEN...

Using a combination of black paint (I used acrylic but tempera would work) and a squirt of dish soap (I only had Dr. Bronner's on hand but Dawn or any other would work!) blended together well, paint over the areas you wish to do scratch art on.

Allow that to dry COMPLETELY before using a skewer to remove the paint and create line designs. 

I really recommend adding the dish soap. What it does is help the paint scrap off evenly and not in chips. I've tried it without dish soap before and...it just didn't work as well (chips. We had chips).

So fun, right?

And for the final method, we explore wet-on-wet with watercolor.

Now, when it comes to display, I laid my pieces back out like a puzzle. But these could be displayed individually, on in a vertical or horizontal manner...so many options! I'm so stoked about this lesson. I don't often do lessons for upper grades because I never taught beyond 4th. I do think this could be done with fourth (maybe after Christmas, when they are officially fourth graders) and definitely beyond. 

By the way, if you are looking for books, downloads and resources for all things art teacherin', I have a library of them! You can see them all here!

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In the Art Room: A Color Mixing Unit

You wanna make a whole buncha kids excited, happy and edu-ma-cated all at once? Celebrate the end of a color mixing unit with a Color Mixing Cookie Party! My kindergarten through second grade have been immersed in all sorts of color theory. We've read books, watched videos, learned songs and, of course, painted. Today I thought I'd share with you a couple ways we've been studying color!

My kindergarten friends were introduced to color with the Ellen Stoll Walsh book Mouse Paint! I love this book for a coupla reasons: it's short, to the point and full of great visuals. After that quick read, we did a lil mouse drawing of our own!

In this video, I'll show you how to draw the three mice from the book. And how to mix those primaries into secondaries. I created the video in such a way that you could share it with your students so they could draw along with me.

When I do directed drawing with the kids, they sit on the floor with clipboards, oil pastels and 9" X 12" paper. Because the drawing is repetitive, it doesn't take long for the kids to finish their three mice.

From there, we review the colors mixed in the book. We talk about creating small puddles so that we can still see our cute mice. 

 Once these masterpieces are complete, the kids will paint on 12" X 18" pieces of paper, folded in quarters, all of the secondary colors. These papers will be used for a colorful self-portrait that I'll share with you soon...although, if you follow me here, you've already seen preview! 

These have been my favorite videos to share with the kids on color mixing and color theory. I love when the kids watch and sing along. These videos have been a fabulous addition to my art teacherin' repertoire! 

Being a big ole They Might Be Giants fan from way back, I love playing their tunes in my art room. 

And this series of videos on the Elements of Art have been great to share with the kids before start our sketching at the start of class. 

My students have been working on a behavior incentive where we can earn parties for good behavior. You can read more about that here if you wanna. Well, when they earned parties (and they all eventually will), I wanted to keep it fun and educational...so we had a Color Mixing Cookie Party to celebrate our awesomeness and the end of our color mixing unit.

Here's a lil video for y'all to walk you thru the supplies you'll need and just how easy this activity is.

I happened to have a million popsicle sticks so these worked perfectly as our icing mixers!

 So much deliciousness!

If you decide to do this, just a coupla reminders:

ALWAYS check with your school nurse for allergies! We don't want to chance any child getting sick.

Do this at the END of art class because these kids will be JACKED up on sugar. Thankfully for me, my kids go to P.E. after art...so they were able to burn off all that extra energy. 

And remind the kids how awesome the party is! I like to tell em, "if you thought THAT was fun, just wait until the next party you earn". Nothing like a good bribe for good behavior.

Have ya'll done this in your art room? What spin did you put on it? I'd love to hear details, ya'll! 

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