Under the Sea Week: A Wrap Up!

Under the Sea Week was so much fun! If you missed any of the LIVE art classes from last week, they are now all up and on my YouTube channel! I add new videos there all the time, so be sure to subscribe! 

On Friday, We created a Mermaid and Poseidon and then did a cool printing trick in the background!

On Thursday, we had a blast drawing Sharks Eating Snacks!

Wednesday was big fun as we made Salt Dough Shoe Print Sea Turtles...a HUGE hit!

On Tuesday, we put our collage skills to good use by creating Coral Reef Relief Collages!

And on Monday we made Bubble Print Snorkelin' Selfies!

Be sure and tune in this week as we celebrate Pet Week! I go LIVE everyday at 11am CT on my Instagram and Facebook page!

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In the Art Room: Mad Scientist STEAM Lesson for First Grade!

 About three years ago, I did a project titled Mad Scientists. We focused a lot on color mixing and drawing three dimensional shapes. We even did some bubble printing. The end result looked like this:

And you can find all the lesson details here. 

And while I really did enjoy this lesson, along with my students, when I went to do it again this year, I decided to put a different spin on it...and include scientist self portraits!

 This was a lesson that took several days. I have 30 minute art classes with my first grade, twice a week. Here's how we broke it down:

Day #1: we watched two wonderful bubble videos. One explained the science of bubbles and the other showed GIANT bubbles being blown on a beach. We went to our seats and filled our construction paper with bubbles using chalk. I walked around the room with my Target Dollar Spot bubble gun and we took bubble dance breaks throughout the class. It was super fun.

 Day #2: We learned how to draw three dimensional beakers! Here's the video I used then and this year too. We drew in pencil first and then traced in Sharpie. Feel free to use it in your art teacherin' world:

Day #3: We read Mix It Up and learned how to use the primary colors to fill our bottles and create the secondary colors! Early finishers met me on the floor and we also read Mouse Paint. 

 Day #4: We drew ourselves as Mad Scientists!

Day #5: We traced our drawings in Sharpie and added color with construction paper crayons. Many were ready to start cutting out their portraits. 

 Day #6: We put it all together! Many kids wanted to add more bubbles when they were finished so after they collaged, they returned to bubble making. 

 I really love this new layer of this project...each one is so stinkin' amazing. 

 Next time, I'd love to share with them more about famous scientists. We spoke a lot about Einstein...but I do want to share more with them, especially female scientists. 

 We used so many different media and learned so many techniques in this project that it was so fun. 

You'll have to let me know if you give it a go! 

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In the Art Room: Britto-Style Selfies!

I have fur realz been slackin' on this bloggin' thing, y'all! My apologies...I've just become COMPLETELY OBSESSED with flipping my art room around. I know you've seen pics if you follow me here where I have been shamelessly oversharing. However, I'll be posing a pretty big reveal right here on Friday so be sure and wake yourself outta your turkey-day coma and pop back by.

I've also not shared new lessons here lately because I've actually been doing some "reruns" of projects from last year! I don't often do projects more than once (and usually not consecutively) but these selfies are for our Artome art show. They were such a hit last year when my fourth graders did them that I decided to bring it back. And I'm so glad I did, they turned out amazing...even if there were some whining about color-pencil-hand-fatigue! 

Here's the lesson video I created and we used:

The reason I decided to have every kiddo in the school create a self portrait is because I know that's what I would want if I were a parent: a kid created selfie! They are so sweet and fun. You can see what my first graders created here and my third graders made here. I'll be sure to post what kinder and second are working on as they finish them. 

 The kids were super proud of these...I love that with this lesson, the background serves as a way for them to show their interests. I'd also like to add just how much I'm noticing rainbows popping up in my students art work...I take full responsibility! 

Swoon!

 Now, I will say this: colored pencils...NOT.MY.FAVE. Ugh, y'all. The constant pencil sharpening buzz is enough to make me wanna stab my ears. Please tell me I'm not alone in this. 

 For that reason, I also give my students art sticks to add color. If you are not familiar, art sticks are colored pencils without the wood (heehee). Crayola makes them...but my FAVORITE are by Prisma Color. Of course, they cost one million trillion dollars but they are worth it and they last. We are down to the nubs in my room...hence the Artome fundraiser!

 Eyebrows on fleek, y'all. AND, yes, the S...she managed to get that Sharpied before I could convince her otherwise. Such a beautiful drawing of a beautiful girl. I love seeing the kids write JES...we have such a strong school pride!

 AND can I just point out that this sweet girl made the end of her hair into a paint brush that is painting her shirt?! LOVE! 

 But, back to colored pencils...for the longest time, when I would sharpen colored pencils (btw, do you say "color pencils" or "colored pencils"?) they'd break. Over and over until I was down to a tiny pencil. I used to think it was because the colored pencils were cheap (and that might very well be the case) but now I have a different theory. I blame...THE PENCIL SHARPENER. 

 If you join my FB LIVE chats (you can find them archived here...I go live every Wednesday at 8pm CST), then you've heard my theory on this. A couple of years ago, I splurged and purchased a $50 Exacto electric sharpener. And it's a loud pencil eater. When my mom came to visit recently, she brought me my old Panasonic faux wood, 5 lbs workhorse of a sharpener. Y'all, this thing is BANANAS. It will sharpen anything without breaking it and leaves the pencils FRIGHTENINGLY sharp. Like, I had to establish a rule: Y'all don't have to come up to me and show me how sharp your pencil is every time you sharpen it. I know. It's sharp.

 When I found another Panasonic faux wood sharpener at the thrift store the other day, y'all better believe I scooped it up. So, long story short: if you are tired of your colored pencils breaking in your sharpener, don't blame the pencil...get you a vintage Panasonic sharpener. I just did a quick search on ebay and here she is: 

That being said, do you have a fave colored pencil brand? A long time ago, Ticonderoga made a colored pencil and they were AMAZING. They never broke, the colors were bonkers and creamy. I found them on a clearance aisle at on office store years ago and they were my everything. Sadly, they no longer make them...and I've just been using what I've got since.

 And I kinda made a promise to myself to never EVER order any more. I have 8 tables in my art room with two large trays of colored pencils at each table. I recently had a former student volunteer and she organized all of my EXTRA colored pencils by color...the idea being that my students can go there and get whatever colors that their table tray might not have. Here's what my EXTRA colored pencils look like: 

 Yeah, I'm pretty much set for life. Unless I have either a beaver or a termite infestation, I'll be sittin' pretty with these bad boys for quite some time before I need to reorder.

However, if there is one brand that you think would be worth ordering...despite my clear over abundance, I'd love to hear!

 But, back to the lesson. My kiddos worked on these for about 2-3 one hour sessions. We drew with the video one day, added patterns and designs and traced with Sharpie the next and then spent the rest of time coloring. And coloring. And coloring.

 Oh look, rainbows!

 And more rainbows....ahem. 

 I cannot wait to see these framed at the Artome art show...I'll share with you when the show rolls around!

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In the Art Room: Royal First Graders!

Well hello there! My Royal First Graders and I are thrilled to have you drop by and visit. These sweet kiddos have been working super hard on their 9" X 12" selfies for our upcoming Artome Art Show! 

If this project looks familiar, that's because I've shared it before on this here blog! You can find additional information about this project here and here.

I realize that I've never shared a video of this process which might make it easier to understand. It's a project with plenty of steps...which is easy for me to break down in my 30 minute class time. Because I see my younger students for 30 minutes, I don't often make instructional videos for them. However, I did create one just for you! Here you go:

I also got a lot of questions about this project on Instagram, namely how do I teach color mixing for skin tones. So I thought I'd film myself explaining that to my students. I also wrote a blog post about that process which you can find here. 

For our Artome art show, which is a fundraiser, I always love to have the kids create self-portraits. Every parent LOVES a self-portrait! They sell really well. This fall, when I had the art show looming, I was really sweating coming up with 5 new selfie lessons. It was then that my husband said, "were the ones from last year successful? Then just do them again!" I don't know why I always feel the need to reinvent the wheel. The self portrait lessons we did last year were all so well received. So, I'm doin' 'em all again. Only the kindergarten lesson is getting a reboot. Here's what my third grade is creating:

And here is what my fourth grade is up to:

Everyone is super excited with their hard work.

 Especially my Royal Firsties! 

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In the Art Room: Super Hero Selfies in Second Grade

Here they come to save the day! Second grade selfies are on their way, y'all. I've been sharing with you the self portrait projects my students have been creating for their Artome art show. So far, you've seen my Royal First Grade, the third graders' abstract self portraits inspired by Sandra Silbertzweig and the fourth graders Romero Britto-inspired selfies. For second grade, I decided to do a take on this fourth grade lesson from last year. The kids LOVED creating these super hero versions of themselves so I just had to share this lesson. Here is a video of my fourth grade's lesson:

Like I said, I did alter this lesson quite a bit to fit the needs of my wee second graders. Lemme tell you how we made them.

I see my second graders for 30 minutes, twice a week. So this here lesson is broken down into bite sized bits. 

On day one we: chatted about Vincent van Gogh and Starry Night. We spoke about creating movement and texture in our sky with line, shape and color. Using florescent oil pastel (my favorites are these), we created an evening sky. The following art class, we used watercolor in a cool cool palette to paint our skies. 

The following class, we chatted about cityscapes and silhouettes. I found that there are plenty of images of city silhouettes online if you just do a quick google search. I printed off several and placed them on tables as idea sheets. We used watered down black tempera paint and small brushes to create our cityscape. Larger brushes were used to fill in the silhouette. I watered the paint down a pinch as I find that it makes the paint have more viscosity. 

 

By the way, as y'all know, we ALWAYS have those early finishers. For my early friends, I had a wide variety of super hero idea sheets available. I tasked the kids to start sketching ideas for their superhero selfie if they happened to finish early.

 After the silhouettes were painted, I cut up a TON of Post-It notes into tiny pieces for the kids to use as windows. I thought they were a great color for windows. The kids glued those onto their buildings and resumed their super hero sketches.

By the third week, the kids had completed their oil pastel sky, watercolor painting, silhouette city making and window collage. We were ready for the best part: our super heroes! Since the kids had been practice sketching for a couple of days, they were feeling really confident about diving into this final phase of their masterpiece.

 To insure that their heroes would be a good size, I asked that the kids trace a circle for their heads. From there, we chatted about using shapes to create out bodies: rectangles for the torso and shapes for the arms and legs. 

We also talked about masks, capes and symbols. When the kids were finished with their super hero, they traced them in Sharpie. Before coloring, we chatted about finding our skin tone. We also talked about limiting our color palette to three colors for our super hero costume. Checking out Superman, Spiderman and Ironman really helped them understand the idea of a limited palette. 

Once complete, the super heroes were cut out VERY CAREFULLY before being glued into the cityscape masterpiece. The kids were so thrilled with their hard work... cannot wait to see them in a frame at our art show! I'll let you know how they look and how the art show goes. Until then!

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