Creating a Give Thanks Painting!

Hey, friends!

If you are looking for a fun painting project that encourages artists to consider the idea of giving thanks, then have I got one for you! I created this lesson for my friends at Prang and I used some specific supplies BUT this lesson can easily be adapted to what you have on hand. So, let's talk about it! For this lesson, I used:

* Prang's 9" X 12" canvas boards that come in a pack of 3 BUT 9" X 12" white paper would work as well! I prefer Mixed Media paper as it is thicker and can hold the paint. 

* Tempera paint is what I'm using in the video. Acrylic paint also works well on canvas although I would not recommend it for use with children. It stains clothing and dries quickly. If you plan to do this project on paper, then tempera paint, tempera cakes and watercolor would work well. If you'd like some tips and tricks on using tempera paint with children, check out this video here. And my recommended supplies for painting with children can be found here. 

* Ink-filled bingo daubers are legit my fave thing in the art room. You can buy daubers here. For more lessons using bingo daubers, I have tons here. 

* Paintbrushes and a cup of water.

* Chalk for drawing. Select a light color like yellow, peach or light blue that can easily be erased with a tissue if need be.

Now, one thing I was not expecting was how long it took the ink to dry on the panel before I could start painting. Just a heads up that you'll want to make sure that the ink is totally dry before painting as it could smear. 

However, if you are using the bingo dauber on paper, it will dry immediately. So you should be in good shape!

When I have done a similar lesson with students in the past, a few didn't understand the concept of making the letters stretch. The reason we do this is to create separate shapes that students can fill with color. You might want to make sure they have your stamp of approval before going over their chalk lines with ink. 

Okay, here's the lesson:

Have fun!

Now, stay tuned. I have a couple of variations of this lesson coming soon. Until then!

Looking for a fun drawing sheet instead? Here you go! 

And for another, look no further then here!

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4 Fun Lessons on Gratitude!

Hey, friends! 

I gathered together a handful of my favorite lessons for showing gratitude...always a fun thing to do ANY time of the year but especially terrific as we approach Thanksgiving.

So here you'll find a couple of lessons on creating faculty and staff portraits to surprise and thank those in your building, courtesy of your amazing artists!

For the other two lessons, I've got a daily doodle or a grati-doodle and a fun drawing activity that can be worked on by your early finishers. Did I mention I have a free download for you? Yep! Two, actually! So let's dive in!

First up, we have these modeling clay portraits! These were so much fun to create and made especially fancy with our Hobby Lobby metallic plates/frames! 

Now, the ONLY thing that was tough...connecting the students to the staff. Many of the kids have favorite teachers...and those teachers tend to be mighty popular. So I had to come up with a system where it was fair and where all the teachers and staff were chosen. To learn how we did it, you can check out the process here. 

Now the key for this: work small. On our first day, we covered our mat board with a solid color for the background and then began adding layers of clay for the face shape, neck and shoulders. I created a video to walk the artists through the process and you can find it here:

My students who finished early either helped their classmates OR...many of them wanted to make a self portrait! These were so fun. 

We even wrote about the faculty and staff members before hanging them all up for the display. To check that out, you can visit here. 

Now...I will say this: when we created these, we used modeling clay. Modeling clay never dries out, it always remains workable. That's not great for what we're going for here. Initially, I coated each piece with a hardening solution made by Crayola...that they no longer carry. So! Now, I would recommends something made by Mod Podge. They have a huge line of varnishes in a variety of finishes that would probably do the trick. The clay will ALWAYS be a little squishy. Just an FYI.

The lesson that inspired the clay portrait was this one! I had done a Gallery of Gratitude and it was a huge hit! It's much less prep and work...as you can see it involved the students drawing a portrait and writing up a statement about the person whose name the selected. 

For details on this lesson, I've got it all right here. 

Now if you are looking for some lessons that are a little less involved...you might be interested in these couple of FREE downloads! This one was created for my 3rd and 4th graders and can easily be used for a sub plan. So keep it in that sub tub, y'all!

If you are looking for a download that might be easier for your kindergarten through second grade students, I have that free download here!

And if you are looking for a continuing practice of gratitude by maybe doing a daily doodle (this is something fun just for you, if you like!), you can check out that process here.

Have a great week, friends!

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A Bell-Ringer Idea: Calendar of Gratitude

On my list of Things That I Wish I Did Regularly are the following:

Journaling

Sketching

Gratitude-in'-ing ... or something

And I have MANY a reason why I've never really been able to stick with these habits (top of the list: laziness) UNTIL NOW...Allow me to introduce you to a little something I'm callin' my Calendar of Gratitude. My Cal-itude. My Gratit-dar. Okay, so it's a working title but hopefully you get the idea. Here's a lil video explaining it all:

Here's how it works: 

* You print out a calendar. If you google "free blank calendar", you'll find bunches. For example, here you go. 

* At the end of each day or perhaps the following, you sketch something you are grateful for: a beautiful sunset, fresh fruit, time with family, a cute cat, you get the idea.

* On the reverse, jot down your memory. 

and BOOM! you've just sketched, journaled and shown gratitude all in in under 10 minutes!

Not to mention, you now have a sweet little memory of your gratitude. I get so excited everytime I look at mine. Like happy little postage stamp-sized memories.

I'm also super into matcha right now. Anyone else? Currently I'm a matcha latte lady but hope to graduate up to straight matcha soon. 

Just a sentence or two in lieu of journaling. It does the trick!

Art teachers, I thought this might be great for those students who you see for a semester every day. I've never taught that age group so you'll have to forgive my ignorance...but I just thought it may be a great bell-ringer to get young artists in the mood and mindset. They could use their medium of choice...I have really enjoyed colored pencils for this. 

WANT MORE GRATITUDE PROJECT IDEAS?! 

I got you! Check out this FREE download for the elementary age students here. 

You can also find a lot of gratitude lessons in that post as well. 

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In the Art Room: Favorite Fall Art Lessons!

Hey, y'all! It's finally fall-ish feeling around here and I thought it would be the perfect time to share with you some of my very favorite fall art lessons! If you follow the links, most of these lessons include videos for you to use in your art makin' world. To kick it off, here is a fave fall lesson of mine: First Grade Woven Owls!

I love this weaving lesson so stickin' much! You can find all the details both in my fibers book or right here in my blog post! 

Here's another fun fall lesson that I did with my first graders but would be awesome with older grades too. This one involved learning about a contemporary artist, painting, collaging and printing. So much! Details here.

If you are looking to create something a little spooky with your kids, I KNOW they will love this van Gogh inspired haunted mansion lesson. 

Marker prints are my favorite! So easy, such little mess and so stinkin' pretty! You can find out all the details on this lesson right here. 

If you need a beautiful fall landscape lesson in your life, then here you go!

All of my students loved creating these Loud Mouth Monsters last year! It rated pretty high on the fave project list. You can find out more and see a video here. 

Of course giving thanks and showing gratitude is always perfect this time of year (and all times of the year, right?!). Here are my three favorite gratitude lessons!

Another fun fall printing lesson can be found here. Instead of creating the printing pans, you can always use Gelli-Plates! 

This lesson I have done with my students as young as first grade! They love it and the results are always stunning. More details here.

I hope these fall lessons leave you feeling inspired. Happy Fall, y'all!  

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In the Art Room: Everyday Heroes!

Teacher Appreciation Week was last week and I FINALLY managed to get the fourth grader's portraits of our faculty and staff up just in time. If you recall, we created these some time ago...but I'd been saving them as a surprise for the teachers and staff on Monday of appreciation week. So I sneaked in on Sunday and got 'em all hung. They were a huge hit!

 Our theme for our art show is Superheroes...so I thought that calling this The Everyday Superheroes of Johnson Elementary would be fitting. If you recall, I did a similar project to this a couple of years ago and we called it the Gallery of Gratitude. For that, we simply created drawings. This time around, we used modeling clay. More information here. 

Here's the video I created for my students (and all y'all) to help them learn the process of creating a portrait with modeling clay:

I got a lot of questions about this project so I'll try to answer them here. 

*How did the kids pick the person they were to create a portrait of?

I had them silently draw the person's name after the video. If they knew the person, then they could go to their seat and get started. If they did not know the person (maybe they are a newer student or perhaps they simply have not had interaction with that person to know them well), then they could stay seated on the floor. After everyone drew a name, they could chat amongst the other kids on the floor and either swap names or do a redraw.

 * What about the people that didn't get their names drawn? Who did their portraits?

I had some kids who I learned were VERY fast at creating these mini portraits. And they loved creating them. So for those early finishers, I'd have them create a second or even a third portrait...or help those who were having trouble with their portraits.

 * What supplies did you use? Does modeling clay dry?

We used modeling clay from the craft stores...I found that some could be hard and some easy to manipulate. If they clay was hard, I simply told the kids to warm it up in their hands (see the video). I really found that all the modeling clay we used worked well. We used matte board cut to 3" squares as our base. Modeling clay NEVER sets so I added a varnish to the top to seal and protect it. For that, I used Crayola's Model Magic Glaze. The "frames" are actually plates from Hobby Lobby!

* How did you do the written portion? 

I didn't...the classroom teacher's handled that for me! I sent them an email letting them know what we were up to and asking if they could help me out. Not only did they talk to the kids about the written portion and have them write it up, they also had them type them! A parent volunteer then added them to the fancy paper frames. 

 * How long will this stay up?

I'd love to leave it up until the start of next school year...but I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to take it down before school's out for the summer. I'll be passing these back to the teachers and staff. 

 I think that about covers the questions I've been asked. My students loved making these so much that I followed their portraits up with a self portrait project of the same nature. They look so adorable for our art show!

 Were there tears on Monday morning? Y'all better believe it! This is one of the most favorite projects that I've done...it means so much to everyone involved!

 I loved reading the kind things our students had to say. Each and every person working in my school is so well loved!

 I'll definitely be doing this project again. I'd love to hear if you've done something similar!

Have a great week, superheroes! 

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Gallery of Gratitude, Part 1

Hey, y'all! I am so excited with how these kid-created portraits of the faculty and staff at my school are turning out, I thought I'd share. This is just Part 1 of the Gallery of Gratitude posts...I'll be sure and post again once these are on display.

In case you missed the first post about our Gallery of Gratitude, you can check it out here. This idea is not a new one at my school...you can see our Gallery of Gratitude from a couple years ago here. 

 Two of my fourth grade classes got their portraits complete. They did such a great job and I have so much left over modeling clay that I think I'm going to have them create self portraits next week. They've become pros at this and have really loved creating them. Here's the lesson video I created and used:

Here are the supplies we are using:

* Modeling or plasticine clay. No one brand is better than another. I have just been purchasing whatever is cheap at the craft store.

* Model Magic Glaze. Here's the thing: modeling clay always stays soft. These portraits will be on display for a while in my school...so I knew I'd want them to be protected with a hard varnish. This "glaze" works really well at becoming super hard. I think ModPodge might work pretty good...but this stuff is a lot harder than that. 

* Plates from Hobby Lobby. So our "frames" are actually plates from Hobby Lobby! You can probably find them online. 

* Matte board. I cut ours down into 4" squares.

 Day #1: It took us some time to cover the entire background, create a skin color and add the head, ears, neck and nose. That took us an hour, believe it or not. Chatting about the project and watching the video took some of the time too.

Day #2: We really made progress. Almost all of the kids finished their portraits...some were super close! I thought I'd share what their works in progress look like.

Biggest bit of advice: HAVE PHOTOS! The kids really studied the photos, matching outfits, hairstyles, glasses and more. My sweet buddy the bookkeeper printed off yearbook photos and each student was able to use one as a reference. I plan to hang these photos near the clay creations when on display.

 And now, forgive me while I share a ton of these cute clay portraits!

 When we take these down, they'll be gifted to the teachers, faculty and staff. The kids will also write a message of gratitude about that person to be hung with their portrait. I'll post about that in Part 2!

 In the background, the kids were asked to add something that "said" something about that person. Here's a portrait of a kindergarten teacher. 

 Those are books behind our library assistant!

 And music notes behind our music teacher!

 I am loving the giant earrings and the cherries in this portrait. 

 This teacher plays guitar in his class. The glaze was just put on so it will dry clear, not milky like you see.

 One of our custodians is also our school D.J. Here he is, outside on field day with his baseball cap on backwards spinning records.

 This background, love!

 Incredible attention to detail! This one makes me so happy!

 Artistic license was taken with hair color here and I'm loving it. 

More to come, y'all! I had to share our amazing progress!

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