Favorite Winter Projects for After Winter Break!

Happy New Year! If you are anything like me, you've spent ZERO time thinking about returning to school next week. Like, I mean, my brain has been switched to ANYTHING-BUT-SCHOOL mode. As it should be, I say. Until, that is, the end of break sneaks up on me!

So to put your cute little head at a tiny bit of ease, I thought I'd share my favorite winter lessons here in this blog post. Be sure and tap the highlighted link to each as many feature the full lesson WITH VIDEO. For free, of course. Cuz I'm a giver, y'all. 

Let's start off with some ambitiousness, shall we? If you are feeling up to it, might I recommend this tree weaving lesson? In my book, Stitch and String Lab for Kids I share how to create the evergreen tree weaving but you can also find the details here, just flip the plate upside down!

A lesson that my students love (and everyone who gives this one a shot!) is this Jen Aranyi-inspired winterscape! We create ours on cardboard pizza rounds found at Gordon Food Service (I'm lucky to have one down the road) but they could just as easily be created on white paper! If you are on a cart and want less mess, try doing the sky with the marker/water method, found here!

Want to introduce your students to printmaking? I love this printmaking lesson that could easily be done with kids of all ages. Okay, look, I'm not gonna lie: I often do the same lesson with multiple grade levels. It's much easier with my 30 minute classes that come back to back (with up to 8-9 classes a day). So, go easy on yourself! If that's what you do, just know that I'm right here with you! Lesson details here. 

This fun lesson introduces students to a wide variety of media from bingo daubers to chalk to...watercolor! Lesson details with video right here!

I did this project with my first graders and they always love it! We work big, 12X18 paper background but you could definitely work smaller, like even half that size. No bingo daubers? Try Sharpies!

This lesson for my kindergarteners is similar to that of the penguins which leads me to my next idea: do similar lessons! Less supply prep and less worry on your part. This year I have made an effort to clump lessons by supplies. I'm too old to be runnin around like a waitress, y'all. Lesson with video here. 

If you feel like tucking into a long lesson, this one might be for you. You know, there's something to be said for long lessons...it means less planning. You could shorten it, however by just making the snowglobes much smaller! Lesson with video here. 

As soon as we return to school, I plan to have my students dive into clay and create clay mugs! Our tradition has been to drink hot chocolate from our mugs once complete. This was inspired by an art lesson we did where we created hot chocolate collages! If you have no kiln, creating these collages and then celebrating with a hot chocolate party may be an idea for you! 

Here's a look at our mugs! Every grade level, except kindergarten, does this every year...so many of them have a collection of mugs at home! We also do another clay project but this one is easily their favorite. Lesson with a couple of videos here.

It's the year of the Rabbit! Did you know? If you need some quick lessons for your younger students, I piled a bunch of them in this blog post, check it out! 

Need even more cuteness? Here's another lesson that your kids WILL LOVE! My students had so much fun with this one and couldn't wait to take their kittens home. Lesson with video right here. 

Okay, need more ideas? Well, I actually have MUCH more! Just visit here where I did a deeper dive into all of the winter-y lessons on my blog. AND if you want to jump ahead and start working on art for Valentine's day, check out this post. See ya soon!

 

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In the Art Room: 5 Quick Winter Projects

Dear art teacherin' friends...ARE WE THERE YET?! Oh man, I dunno about you but I am so ready for a wee breakie. If anything just so I can clean this art room and start planning fresh and new projects. If you need some quick and winter-y projects to make to the gloriousness that is Winter Break (or need something upon our return!) have I got some art-makin'-mayhem for y'all! Let's start with these Heather Galler-inspired hot chocolate creations by my second grade students!

Heather Galler is a contemporary artist whose colorful artwork is always super fun to introduce students to for inspiration. We created our Dot Day trees last year with her work in mind. This project only took us about two thirty minute art classes...and that's with a hot chocolate party to celebrate our good behavior in-between! 

(EEEE! I love them all together!)

Here's how we did it:

• Using 8" X 8" squares of scrap and painted paper, we created patterns. I really emphasized that patterns are made by a repetition of the elements of art like line, shape and color. We used oil pastels.
• On a 3" X 8" sheet of scrap paper, more patterns were created. We chatted about using a contrasting pattern and color to allow the designs to stand apart from one another. 
• The following class the kids used a cup, saucer and handle template that I cut from a manilla folder, the kids cup, designed and glued the rest into place. Patterns were added if desired.
• To emphasize the cup, they were traced in black oil pastel. This was also a nod to our Heather Galler inspo. We added steam to our cups with a thin brush and white paint.

Our final step was to add our names! They now proudly hang in the hallway. 

Of course I always end up with the one random class that happens to be a couple of days ahead of the rest. To allow them time to explore materials and create in a short amount of time, a second grade class worked on these cute dudes. On their first day, they used 9" X 12" paper and created an oil pastel resist with white snowflakes and the cool colors of watercolor. 

On our second day, we did a quick review of how to draw animals using shapes: oval for the body, rectangle neck, circle head and rectangular legs. Details were added as the kids saw fit. These guys were then cut out and glued to the background. 

 Kindergarten created these sweet reindeer in the same fashion. On the second day of art class, we drew together with brown, peach and black oil pastels, emphasizing shapes and lines. We began with a peach oval for the muzzle. From there we added an arch for the top of the head which was colored in. Triangles were used for ears and a rectangle neck. We always use black last because it can smear so easily. 

 These were then cut out, glued down and signed by the artist!

First grade has been going through all of the elements of art and this lesson was great at introducing texture. I busted out the texture rubbing plates for these and the kids used oil pastels to create a background. Once the entire paper was covered in texture, a white oil pastel was rubbed over the entire sheet to make the colors more muted. We chatted about the three parts of a landscape, fore-, middle- and background, and added those with oil pastel. Our final step was to paint light green triangle trees (with the largest being the closest, getting gradually smaller as they fade to the background) with dark green texture. 

The following art class, the kids were shown how to draw a deer using shapes, much like my second grade class. These children had the time to add as mean deer as they liked. I am in love with the one peaking out from behind the tree!

 I only had one art time with this particular kindergarten class so we weren't able to make deer. Instead, we busted out these sweet penguins which introduced much of the same concepts! Together, we drew the penguins on white paper in oil pastel. You can see the steps and another version of this project here. 

From there, we used the cool colors and practiced out painting of spirals! It's not easy for the wee ones to have such control over their brushes and create such delicate lines. I was pleased with their hard mad skillz!

I shared this second grade lesson just last week! In case you missed it, check it here. 

Of course, for some variety, your students could create baby polar bears! 

 Or winking bunnies! 

The possibilities (and the ideas they'll come up with!) are endless! Any animal they think of, just google "easy how to draw..." and you'll find all the deets! I'm currently too pooped to give a proper how-to, me so sorry. Now if you'll excuse me, Ima gonna go fix me a cuppa like this...

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DIY: A Warhol's Flowers Printed Dress

You know, being the uber professional and not-at-all shallow person that I am, when I was initially asked to teach a workshop at a local -n- lovely botanical gardens my first thought was, "OMGah! WHAT AM I GONNA WEAR?!" 

Not the lessons I was gonna teach or the examples I was gonna share. Nah. Because, you see, I'm about at deep as a nearly-drained kiddie pool. I ain't braggin, y'all. Just statin' facts, ma'am. And that one lone sir who accidentally found himself on this blog and is wondering, "how in the world do I get outta here?!".  Oh, hubs, if I've told you once, I've told ya a million times, hit the back button and return to the land of the non-crazy. Sigh.

In all (non)seriousness, when I was approached by Karen Kwarciak, Manager of School and Outreach Progams at Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art (holy cow, that was a mouthful), she mentioned that the workshop was on the very last day of the Andy Warhol's Flowers exhibit. Being that the exhibit was super fabulous, Karen and I thought it would be fun to base the workshop around Warhol's Flowers.

I mean, riiiiiight?! Super fabulous. Unfortunately, this piece is no longer available as it's hanging above my couch. Thanks for the discount, Cheekwood! Wait...what do you mean you want it back?! And, really, was it necessary to call the cops? I mean, suriously.

Since museums tend to get all huffy about folks "borrowing" their masterpieces, I thought we'd create our own Warhol-inspired pieces at the workshop! AND, being that I needed something to wear, I decided to print mine on fabric and use 'em to embellish a dress. I was super stoked with how these turned out so I thought I'd share the super simple process with you!

For this, you'll need the following supplies:

* A Gelli-Plate. If you don't have these as they do cost a small fortune, no worries! You can make your own version of a Gelli-Plate outta gelatin found at the grocery. I wrote a blog post about it a while back...go here for directions and it will yield the same results (I just wanted to say "yield the same results" because I thought I might fool you into thinking me intelligent. Did it work?)

* Fabric Paint. Only necessary if you plan to wash the fabric. Otherwise, acrylic would probably work.

* Brayer.

* Thin Cotton Fabric. I noticed that the thinner the fabric, the better. Or paper.

* Flowers. I used these daisies (that's what those are, right? I have two black thumbs so I've no clue).

For the first print, which will be the negative image, ink up your printing surface and lay a flower down face down. Place your fabric (or paper!) and massage the surface. Lift off your paper/fabric and VIOLA!

Groovy, right? But wait, there's more!

Now, remove the flower, apply a fresh sheet of fabric/paper, massage and BOOM!

Can I get an applause? Thank you, thank you vury much.

After pulling over a dozen of these prints, I decided I was ready to add it to a dress. So I skipped down to the local clothing-resale shop and found this super short-shorty for a mere $6. I thought the colors were perfectly suited for me prints.

I was so excited to begin, I only snapped a coupla photos. I did appliqué stitch the flowers to the neckline...

As well as quilt and attach these prints to the hemline.

For a quickie DIY, I thought the results were pretty fun. AND NOW I had something to wear for the workshop. Otherwise, I woulda just had to call in sick. 

So just what was the workshop all about, you ask? Okay, so you didn't ask but whateves, Ima bout to tell you. We began with a fantastic guided tour through the Warhol exhibit. Once finished, I introduced that aforementioned gelatin printing. If you've not tried this yet, it's one of those everyone's-successful/inspired/challenged type projects that we all love. This got a lotta oooohs and ahhhhhs. The process works exactly the same as that I showed ya on the Gelli Plate: negative print first...

Remove the leaves, print again and positive prints second. Not only did the participants play around with the gelatin plates but they also tried their hand at printing on the Gelli-Plates. They created prints both on paper and on fabric. I loved their results.

And, being the awesome art teachers that they are, they totally came up with their own ideas! For example, several experimented with using the flowers as a stamp.

For the image on the left, the artist stamped onto their negative print paper with a flower. It turned out the flowers held the paint for a pinch thus making this possible. I do believe that same idea was used on the right.

I thought the flowers looked pretty amazing after this process! So Warhol-esque!

These images were created on fabric. The one on the left was created with that stamping technique. I also had puffy paint available for those that wanted to play around with outline or design ideas.

That morning, I also introduced a leaf relief project that is another one of my faves. If you follow this link, you can read all about this simple yet super-amazing looking process.

After a super delish lunch and some down time, we jumped right back in for more crafting. This time, I introduced a stenciled embroidery project that I can't wait to try out with my students. I also showed 'em my fave craft in the whole wide world -- needle felting!

I tried to keep the afternoon projects super open-ended. I thought this would be better for the teachers to visualize what might work best in their art room with their resources and curriculum. I loved the variety of felted fun they had! I think felting was their fave.

Here's an example of an artist using her stenciled piece with needle felting. The fabric paint dries quickly so no one had to wait before attacking with the felting tool.

Y'all know I loved this piece!

And so, there you go! A Warhol-inspired dress for a workshop full of artsy mess! Special thanks to Cheekwood and Karen for hosting the fun. Chat soon, y'all!

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