In the Art Room: Guided Drawing, Part 2

In light of yesterday's post, I thought I'd share a follow-up blog post. One reason I find most folks argue against guided drawing is the following:

It is too restrictive.
It leads kids to believe that there is only one way to draw.
It puts too much pressure on the kids.

AND I AGREE...if guided drawing is a tool used incorrectly in the art room, it can be all of those things. So I thought I'd share some tips and tricks that I use in my art room that eliminates the pressure, the restrictiveness and the notion that there is only one way to create.

I tell the kids that we are all unique and our artwork should reflect that. 
We have a little pep talk before drawing: each of us is unique and that's a wonderful thing. We are all going to hear the same directions...and each of our artist's brains are going to hear and translate those directions differently...and our artwork will reflect that. 

I tell the kids that if I had wanted copies of artwork, I would have just MADE copies. But I want to see their artistry, their work of unique art. 

I call our Guided Drawings, Practice Drawings. 
I tell the kids that this drawing that we are doing together is just practice, not perfect. If they aren't happy with their drawing, DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT, IT'S JUST PRACTICE...and you can do another one next art class. This eliminates the pressure of trying to be perfect (and how is?!).

I also tell the kids that they are not to throw away that drawing. If they do decide to redo their drawing the following art class, they are to use their initial drawing as their guide...and keep it. Take it home, color it, give it to mama, give it to me. But the trashcan is NOT an option. 

I've also noticed that by the time the second art class rolls around, most kids have forgotten what little thing bothered them and are happy with their drawings.

ALSO...having kids practice on dry erase boards as they draw along with you makes a big difference. Then they can take that drawing to their seat and copy from that onto a piece of paper. 

When we draw on the floor, we either use pencils with no erasers or Sharpies. I don't want the kiddos to use their art time erasing holes in their paper. 

We talk about Beautiful Oops! 
What a great time to talk about all the endless options you can do if you draw something unexpected. It's a happy accident. Let's see where it takes you!

WE KEEP IT SUPER SILLY...
And that really helps release the pressure the kids may feel. I recently recorded myself teaching my kindergarten how to draw Roy G. Biv. If you are interested, you can see how I try to keep it silly, fun and light for the kids. 

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DIY: Roy G. Biv Costume!

As y'all might recall from my last post, my kindergarten is in the middle of what I'm calling Rainbow Bootcamp. We've been learning the order of the colors in the rainbow in many ways...always kicking off our lesson with my very favorite They Might be Giants song Roy G. Biv. 

Well, next week is Spirit Week for our Scholastic Book Fair at our school. What that means is each day this week, we are dressing up in accordance with the theme for the book fair. The theme is Enchanted Forest...which has made for some very interesting dress up days. One of them being "Dress like a Gnome or a Fairy Day". Now. At first I was like "wait, whut?! What in the world am I supposed to dress like on that day?!" 

Oh. Duh.

Making this costume was so easy that I thought I'd share the process. The supplies I picked up at the craft store where:

• Martha Stewart plates at Michaels! Those were used to create my prism wand. I sandwiched a dowel rod between two plates with some hot glue and viola!
• Dowel rod
• Fabric for the beard
• Quilter's batting for the beard
• Elastic or a ribbon to tie the beard
• Poster board for the hat
• Sparkle rainbow adhesive foam for the hat

Lemme tell you, I was not looking forward to making the prism...I initially had a foam block and a lot of glitter in my cart. But when I saw those Martha Stewart plates, I thought those would be so much easier to assemble! Also...I started out with sparkle ribbon for the hat. But each roll was $5 and that was getting expensive. Turns out the adhesive glitter foam was much better and, at only a $1 a sheet, much cheaper. 

I'll keep you posted on how the kiddos react! Oh! AND for the rest of the outfit: overalls and top from Forever21; socks from Sock It to Me; clear boots from my bestie!

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What the Art Teacher Wore #204

Hey there, friends! I come to you just as excited as this photo from Monday because...it's a three day weekend. Here's to staying in my pj's all weekend, watching The Office for the umpteenth time and working on all the projectzzzz. I hope you all are livin' it up and partyin' hard like me!

To kick off the week, I wore my needle felted Kandinsky inspired dress to inspire my third graders as they started painting their plates for our Circle Loom Weaving unit. I've got several weaving videos on my YouTube channel if you are interested in bringing fibers to your art room. Just search my playlist Fibers!

Many of my grades are kicking off the year with fiber arts projects like sewing, weaving and fiber applications. I'm so excited about that, here's just a peak. MANY more details to come, I pinkie swear! Of course, I share tons of sneak peeks here. 

 On Tuesday I got all set to teach some of my classes about landscapes. They are getting ready to do my Tree Weaving project which means they gotta paint a landscape first. 

 I was feeling all sorts of prepared. We partnered up and looked at the landscapes in those clear plastic sleeves. The kids had to work together to find the horizon line, the back-, middle- and foreground. It was a GREAT pre-assessment. Then we went over the vocabulary and corrected our mistakes. I chatted about scale, perspective and atmosphere. We were just getting ready to paint when the fire alarm went off.

C'est la vie. After being outside for 10 minutes, we were hot, bothered and not ready to paint. So with our short class, we each took our turn playing the Clean Up Drums instead. More on the Monet Dress here. 

Many years ago, my husband scored me a drum set for my art room. I haven't pulled it out of the storage closet in a couple of years...but decided to this year. It's our Clean Up Drums...an incentive for awesome behavior. One student is picked at the end of class to play a fill. I teach all the kids how to play a fill so that when it's their turn to play, they'll know. On our first intro do, we each get our chance to learn and play a fill...it's a lot of fun. 

 My fourth graders are gearing up to sew. Once class is stitching emoji pillows and they are SO EXCITED. I had to wear my needle felted emoji dress for the occasion. 

Teaching sewing means teaching good sewing habits. I created color coded sewing kits for each table. The kits include a color coded needle book (the felt piece with the button) and a color coded felt backed magnet for pins. I'll keep you posted on their progress!

 Another fourth grade class is stitching pizza pillows! So OF COURSE I managed to leave all of their supplies at home. SMH. They were great and the rolled with our alternative project instead...sewing next time!

Third graders from Monday had a bonus art class on our half day Friday. I was excited to see the patterns they added to their plates in just 30 minutes!

Since my younger students have really been focusing on line, I have been introducing them to the work of Kandinsky...which means I got to end my week on a Kandinsky note too. Hope y'all have a long and relaxing weekend! 

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Art Teacherin' 101, Episode 43: QUIET CRITTERS!

 I've been teaching for many a year and it's always just been my assumption that kindergarten is loud. Like REALLY loud. It wasn't until recently, when I popped into a kindergarten classroom, that I noticed that they aren't ALWAYS this way. I walked into this room and they were working...calmly. Quietly. Like, frighteningly so. As if they were up to no good or plotting the next time they were coming to art and going to drive me bonkers with their incessant jib-jab. When I asked the teacher why they were so quiet, she was all, "what do you mean? They're working. They always work this way." 

SAY WHAT NOW?!

Not long after that, @art_with_mia who I love and follow on Instagram, shared that she recently started using something called Quiet Critters in her art room. Now I've heard of teachers using stuffed animals as quiet incentives before...but these small sparkly pompoms seemed like an easier alternative. With the noise level in my art room with kindergarten on the rise, I was determined to give it a shot. And, you guyz, IT WORKS.

If you read my last post, you know that I've named each of these critters after an artist. Every other art class, I'm introducing that artist to the kids. This one is Andy (Warhol). When a student earns a critter, I simply place them in their table caddy. I do think this would work with slightly older grades...but my older kids already use the clip system (which is what the clothes pins are all about. You can read about that here.) Since it works for them, I'm not about to reinvent the wheel, you know. However, I'm super stoked to find something that works for my wee ones, yay! Finally, I can hear myself think! 

Do you use something like this in your art room? I'd love to hear how it goes!

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In the Art Room: Kindergarten Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Painting

 Hello, friends! If you saw my post earlier this week, I said I'd be sharing a follow-up lesson to our Jasper Johns-inspired alphabet paintings. Here's a peak at that project:

 And the video lesson!

I see my kindergarteners for 40 minutes, once a week. I knew they'd zip through the alphabet painting...so I shared with them a super fun Chicka Chicka Boom Boom video from YouTube and challenged them to make a painting of upper and lower case letters. This resulted in beautiful black and white paintings of letters. We piled them on to the drying rack and were done for the day...two masterpieces complete!

 Once the ink is dry from the bingo daubers, my students are going to "hug" their letters with water soluble markers. Then they'll add just water right over their marker lines for this fabulous result!

 Another alternative to having them paint over their lines is simply spray them with water! Once class only had moments left so we did this trick and, while I like the other result better, these still look great. Just a tip: when spraying with water, less is best. The colors will bleed if given time.

And there you have it, two great literacy projects for kindergarten in one! 

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In the Art Room: Kindergarten Mo Willems Pigeons!

 Need a fast -n- fabulous kindergarten lesson? You might wanna try these Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus creations on for size. In the following video, I demonstrate using a bingo dauber. I know you might not have those to try using either a black oil pastel or a Sharpie instead. This was a two-day lesson for my 40 minute kindergarten art classes. Here you go:

Super fun and easy, didn't I tell you? I love doing guided drawing every now and again with my students. They LOVE it and are always excited by their results. Kindergarten is especially great at just "going with the flow" and not worrying about being "perfect"...but there are always some kids who do stress. That's why, before doing a guided drawing, we always chat about how we are unique people which means we are unique artists who create uniquely! We also love to give a shout out to Barney's book Beautiful Oops.

Y'all know I had to wear my Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus dress! 

 Each little squawky bird was so different, funny and cute. 

 After reading the book, this was as far as we managed to get. I've gotten a lot of questions on where to find bingo daubers and what to fill them with. I got mine from my art supply catalogs but I've also seen them on the Oriental Trading website. I fill mine with India ink...I don't use any particular brand as all the India ink I've ever purchased has been fine. 

 My go-to oil pastel for projects like this are Sargent's florescent brand. They GIVE ME LIFE. I love how creamy, bright and bold they are. And so do the kids. 

 As for watercolor, you'll see in my video how I set up my trays. Every two kids gets a sponge, a non-spill cup of water (art supply catalogs!!) and my Crayola Mixing Colors watercolor paint. I always order: magenta, red, red-orange, yellow, green, turquoise, blue, blue-violet and purple. 

 I cannot wait to get these hung in the halls!

 I've also been asked a lot recently about what kind of paper we use. I ALWAYS order 80lbs paper and we use it for EVERYTHING. It can take a lot of art: paint, watercolor, collage, you name it. This paper is strong stuff. 

We called these our Party Pigeons...I like how hard some pigeons partied! 

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In the Art Room: Top 15 Fave Valentine's Day Lessons!

After winter break, I always find myself in the mood to start Valentines-y/Warm-Fuzzy/Lovey-Dovey projects with the kids. When doing a little searching on my blog last night, I discovered that I've done 15 Valentine's-themed lessons over the years. I had no idea I'd done so many! I thought I'd share them with you today. May of the links back to the original post will include an instructional video. Please let me know if you do any of these lessons, I'd love to see what you and your kiddos create!

Robert Indiana Love Prints! Believe it or not, my sweet FIRST GRADERS created these a couple years ago! It was a great lesson for printmaking and definitely one I will be doing again. If you don't have printing ink, you might want to check out this blog post where I'll show you how to print with paper and markers!

James Rizzi Love Birds!  Who doesn't love James Rizzi?! These birds are based on some of his work and is a great tie-in if you've already taught Rizzi and his fun cityscape works.

 Recycled Hearts!  Last year, I had a stock pile of messy-mats from our months of painting. We used them to make these two fun works of art (see below also) and they were such a hit! What a great way to review the warm colors, pattern and line.

So much sweetness!

Chris Uphues Hearts! If y'all don't know who Chris Uphues is, then you need to! He's one of my fave dudes to follow on Instagram. His artwork is so fun, so happy and so kid-friendly. They had a blast creating these happy hearts inspired by him.

J Goldcrown Hearts! If you need a quick one day project, I would recommend this one for sure! You can introduce your students to another street artist, J Goldcrown, and have them work in chalk! This is a great project for just about all levels. 

Sculpture Hearts! Last year, I introduced my second graders to Celluclay with this project. I have 30 minute art classes with these kiddos so we had to hustle! We spent one day covering our foil hear in clay, two days painting and the last day stringing beads. These were one of my favorite projects for Valentine's day!

 My Heart Has Wings! If you want to do a feel-good project with your faculty and staff, might I recommend this one? We did it on a PD day and it was so much fun. Of course, this would be a great project for kids as well.

Candy Heart Sculptures! My fourth graders created these candy hearts last year and they had a blast. We used plaster strips which created a super hard surface for the candy. We even made giant candy boxes to display them in!

 Woven Hearts! Every year, first grade does a paper weaving and every year we do something a little new. Last year, they nailed the weaving part so well, I thought I'd introduce them to simple sewing. They did great and I loved hanging them up like a quilt.

Candy Heart Drawings! When my fourth grade early finishers were done with their candy heart sculptures, I had them move on to a drawing of their candy hearts with oil pastel.

Britto Mural! A few years ago, I had to be out for a couple of weeks for jury duty. While I was gone, I had my students work on the parts of this Britto-inspired mural. It was great because then there was a fun masterpiece to hang in the hall when I returned. You can check out the instructional videos in the link.

Valentine Animals! My kindergarten kiddos created these fun animals last year. I created an instructional video for each one which you can find by clicking on the link. 

Collaborative Heart Mural! Collaborative pieces are a lot of fun this time of year. If you follow the link, you'll see which grades created what for this huge collaborative pieces that still hangs in our front office.

Peter Anton Box of Chocolates! This might have been a kid-favorite as it involved using EVERYONE'S favorite art supply: puffy paint! Check out how we made the faux candies and boxes by following the link.

What are your favorite projects this time of year? Love to hear! 

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