Serving up the final installment of our 2019 art show for y'all today! This here is the 2D portion of our art show where every work of art that every kiddo has created all year long is on display! You can check out our Glow Gallery Tour and our Pirate Gallery Tour here! In this blog post, I thought I would share a link to each and every one of these lessons you see! This will give you an idea of what projects I teach (2D, that is) throughout the year. If you are interested in details on this art show: how it's hung, who does the hangin', how it's taken down and sent home, then you might want to watch this tour I created to answer those questions for you:
Please feel free to leave any questions about what you see here or on my YouTube channel and I'll be sure to answer them.
Let's take a tour of theses projects! We'll start with kindergarten. My kindergarteners always have the biggest amount of artwork because their lessons are shorter. I started the beginning of the year with my lessons on line. Those projects did not make it to the art show as they were sent home at the start of the school year. From there, we did the rainbow lesson and Mouse Paint project.
One of the more popular lessons for kindergarten on my blog is this one. This lesson is always followed by my Chicka Chicka Boom Boom project which you can find here.
Our snowmen were a lot of fun to create this year too. We learned all about the cold colors and painting spiral lines.
A new lesson I came up with this year were the heart prints. We were able to get many prints created and used our two favorites for our work of art.
With our printing plates, we created these beauties! Super fun and stunning!
The kindergarten gallery is almost always my favorite!
Although first grade sure does take a close second. Let's talk about their projects. One of my favorites this year were our Mad Scientists!
A classic that we've done many years in a row are our Royal Self-Portraits. I love that we have two selfies in this art show: one as royalty and one as kid-genius. Perfect for my kids!
We also did those heart weavings that you see with the stitched edge. With the heart we cut out from our construction paper for the weaving, we created these Romero Britto inspired pieces. You can see a variation of that lesson here.
All of the artwork and the kids who created them make me this happy.
Let's move on down to second grade! These kids had many works of art both in the Glow and Pirate Gallery that their wall seems a little empty. Don't let that fool you: we are always crankin' out some art!
Speaking of, let's move on down to third grade! You'll notice these kids also did the Chris Uphues lesson...in fact, all of my students did as it was a sub plan. One lesson of mine that was especially popular was the landscape project! I had run out of paper (omg, an art teacher without PAPER, hello!) and had a lot of cardboard pizza rounds...so we improvised! The kids also created those amazing Sandra Silberzweig-inspired self portraits!
My students did two kinds of weaving, tree weaving and circle weaving. Two kid favorites. These are also featured in my new book!
One lesson that I'll be sharing soon is this one! If you can't wait, then check out this blog post as this lesson is a variation.
This is another lesson that I'm excited to share with you soon!
This third grade display brings me so much happiness!
My fourth graders spent the start of their school year making pillows! We made pizza, donut and emoji pillows, all of which are in my sewing book.
Brace yourselves, y'all. Wintertime is here and it's been non-stop winter-y projects up in my art room. Which can only mean one thingie: this here blog is about to be all sorts of frosty, freezy and fun projects galore! So many, in fact, that I'll be posting a couple each week so be sure to pop back by. The good news is these projects are Winter-y not holiday-y (my school is a melting pot so just focusing on one holiday isn't fair to all) so that means you can create these masterpieces until the snow melts and the flowers bloom!
This was a quick and simple project that one of my second grade classes knocked out. They somehow managed to be ahead of the rest of my classes (doncha love when that happens) and I needed a lesson that would reinforce what we've been learning, introduce a coupla new techniques and only take the kids two thirty-minute classes. I created a couple of videos for you to either show in your art room or simply view on your own and share in your own art teacherin' way. I hope you find them helpful! You can always subscribe to my youtube channel for more videos like this one.
For this project, our first order of biznatch was creating th background. The kids had previously worked with watercolor and splatter technique so they are pretty much pros at this point.
In this video, you can see how I walked them thru creating with oil pastels, thinking about what makes an interesting composition, using the elements of art and both oil resist and wet-on-wet techniques.
After our chat which I try to keep super short, the kids had just enough time to bust out the likes of these bad boys.
I am learning that not all oil pastels are created equally. I've not ordered new ones this year (we are currently down to the numbs) but I'm learning toward ordering more Gallery brand pastels. I especially love the fluorescent ones, they are just so bright!
Once complete, these are placed on the drying rack until the following thirty minute class.
During the following class, the kids use white scratch paper to draw their birds. The kids are getting older now and no longer need me to direct them in drawing. However, some do like me to walk them through how to "read" the how-to-draw books which usually just entails a couple of reminders to break the objects down into lines and shapes. I also tell the kids that if they are feeling stuck or frustrated, to practice on a dry erase board until they feel they are comfortable enough to tackle their paper.
I found a variety of how-to-draw birds and cardinal online and made several copies for the kids to get ideas from. As an artist, I always like to have a reference and I know many of my students do as well. I leave 'em as an option for the kids.
Once the birds are drawn, the kids cut them out and commence gluing them in place.
Because we created these right before heading in to Thanksgiving break, we worked hard to complete these in those two short art classes. Usually our projects take a bit longer...so this was a fun and fast alternative.
Once complete, the kids use a Sharpie to sign their name so they can be hung in the hall for all to enjoy and for the artist to be recognized. There's just something so sweet about seeing a child's handwriting on their art. I always emphasis neat handwriting and placement. Artists always sign at either the top or the bottom...NOT THE MIDDLE (because, ya know, it's happened).
Once complete, we pop each one of these up on the T.V. via the document camera. We always cheer for the artist and pay them a compliment for their hard work. I love seeing the kids beam when we do this, it truly makes the "job" of teaching art worth while, y'all!
Hey, y'all! I just had to share with you a project that we are about half way through: A big ole self-portrait mural inspired by the artist and author Todd Parr! It's a school-wide effort but currently only my kindergarten through 2nd grade students are finished. Once my 3rd and 4th grade kiddos complete their self-portraits, I'll add them to the mural and be sure to share the finished product with y'all.
This unit of study has not only involved creating a colorful self-portrait but also color theory and collage. But I'm getting ahead of myself! Let's talk about the inspo: It's Okay to be Different. Do y'all have this book? It's a super short and colorful read that's perfect for the art room. What better place to emphasize our differences and celebrate them than art class, right?! It's a happy read with a great underlining meaning that the kids really love.
And I really love the crazy and colorful result! To walk you through the entire process, lemme tell you how we started. With kindergarten and first grade, that meant this color-mixing lesson and a reading of the book Mouse Paint.
Kindergarten created these in one class: read the book, did some drawing together and boom! Mixed up some secondaries. I created a more thorough blog post here. A video of the steps is below.
My first and second graders earned a party for their awesomeness and we used our color mixing skills to ice our cookies!
If you'd like to know more about this, you can watch this short clippie:
Once we'd become paint mixing masters, we created these painted papers! The papers had been pre-folded by yours truly, first in half and then a 4" fold across the bottom. This created two squares and two rectangles on the paper. The kids were instructed to use their knowledge to paint three shapes in the secondary colors and in the last shape, they could paint any color they liked.
I loved the colorful result! I need this as some wallpaper, stat!
Now, in this NEW video, I'll walk you through our collage portrait making process. I throw a TON of ideas at the kids and let them pick and choose and, of course, come up with their own! I feel like the more ideas you give them, the more confident they will feel that they can make any of their wild and crazy ideas come true.
Because I see my younger students for 30 minutes, they spent two days collaging and on their final day they outlined in black paint. In the video, I am using brush painting supplies to help the students keep their "paintbrush ballerina" on her tippy toes.
Each portrait was different and, of course, that was okay!
Y'all better believe I love that crayon hair clip. I wonder where she got that idea...?!
What's cuter than a side pony? Nothing, y'all. Absolutely nothing.
For my kindergarten and first grade kiddos, I took a different route. After cluing down the head and ears, these kids created their facial features in black paint.
I love the variety that they add to the self portrait mural. Cool glasses, bruh.
Love how this kindergartener created his spiked hair and glasses, so cute!
And there you have it! I can't wait to see what my third and fourth graders come up with to add to the mural. After this mural, we are on to creating realistic selfies as well. What are some of your fave self portrait lessons? If you need some ideas, I shared some here...but I'd love to hear some more! Lemme know below, y'all!
