My Favorite Lovey-Dovey Lessons (Just in Time for Valentine's!)

Welcome back! It's been a minute (okay, several) since I last blogged and while I missed you all dearly, you guys: I needed a break! In all truth and honesty...a couple things have been going around here on the homefront that have kept me away. First of all, I'm just not feeling it this year. There, I have said it. I've actually said it quite a bit here. And I know this is normal, a season in the art teacherin' life, it's still frustrating. I'm not hopping out of bed with excitement about the day ahead. Sure I can fake it but...I know that it's not my normal, you know? I do think a large project I'm working on has been a contributing factor. I've worked on big projects while teaching before ('member this book?) But this new thing it's, well, bigger and unlike anything I've tried. So other things are starting to slide. Blogging and being completely present and excited in the art room. 

BUT Y'ALL DIDN'T COME HERE FOR ALL THIS, did you? Sorry, not sorry. We all need to overshare sometimes and you just happened to be a good listener. Thank you

Now, let's talk about projects that are perfect for this time of year: Valentines Day-ish lessons! Be sure and click on all the following links as MANY of them have videos for you to share in your art room with your students. Here we go:

Romero Britto-Inspired First Grade Hearts this lesson was a huge hit with my students and involved line and pattern review as well as some fun color exploration with tissue paper and paint sticks!

 Heart Prints with Kindergarten was such a fun way to share printmaking with kindergarten in a way where each student was successful! 

Foil Relief Heart from Kindergarten Printing Plate this was a fun way to do a cool project with our leftover printing plates. Kindergarten then painted the background in a rainbow review.

Robert Indiana Love Prints by First and Second Grade my kids love printmaking. We explored making a ton of prints on styrofoam plates before adding the paper letters on top.

Chris Uphues-Inspired Project for All Grades You'll definitely want to check this lesson out, it's perfect for a sub, comes with a video and free handouts!

James Goldcrown Hearts for All Another easy lesson and a quick one too...and one that introduces a contemporary artist. Win-win-WIN!

First Grade Woven Hearts with Stitched Edge We just finished up weaving in my art room and we just might be doing this next. 

This Our School Has Heart mural is a blog post with so many ideas! One for each grade level, be sure and check it out!

Valentine Animals for All my kids loved this project and I'm sure yours will too. All the videos and details here!

A Contemporary Artist Review! This one was one I did with my older students and it was a blast. We learned about four contemporary artists who use hearts in their work. Video included!

But wait, there's more! So many more Valentine's lesson ideas here. Hope you enjoy!

In the Art Room: Top 14 Favorite Valentine's Day Lessons

Well, hello lovies! In this blog post, I thought I'd share with you 14 of my very favorite Valentine's Day inspired lessons...perfect for these chilly and cold months. Let's let warm fuzzies abound in the art room! 

To find the lessons, just follow the link. Many of them have a video to share with your kids. Also...several of them are sub plan videos! Perfect if you have to take a day. I know I could use one. 

First up are these sweet Jim Dine-inspired heart sculptures created by my second graders. We used Celluclay and aluminum foil to make these beauties and the kids loved making them. 

Next up are these amazing LOVE prints created by my first graders. We chatted about Robert Indiana before diving into these. We had a whole lotta printmaking fun with this one. 

Last year, I did this lesson with my second graders. They were able to choose their own "kind" four letter word (we had: nice, kind, love, glow, hope, good, etc.) and used strips of paper to create the letters. Those turned out so fun. 

First grade artists created these huge Romero Britto-inspired hearts last year with bleeding tissue paper and paint sticks. We made these on huge 18" square sheets of paper. 

Speaking of first grade, here's a peak at what mine are working on right now...weaving! Heart weavings that we'll put together to create a faux quilt. This is one of my favorite lessons but mostly because I do love to teach weaving. 

Chris Uphues is one of my very favorite contemporary artists to share with my kids because 1. he's the nicest and 2. his artwork speaks to them. It's so happy! My students adored this lesson a couple years ago! 

If you need a quick one-day lesson that will introduce your kids to a new artist, you might want to try this one on for size. It's inspired by J. Goldcrown and all you need is black paper and chalk for amazing results. 

One year, we were inspired by Peter Anton's fake food sculptures to make some box of chocolates of our own. Third grade thought this was the coolest project ever. 

If you are like me, you do long art lessons...and then need a shorter one to pick up momentum again. I think my students might be the same way. This lesson is a quicker with beautiful results. Here's what we did with the paper after we cut the hearts how: filled them with a video of tissue paper!

And here's what we did with the hearts we cut out. So cute, right? 

This lesson is similar to the first I shared except that there are wings added with plaster. I'm thinking of doing this lesson with my third graders super soon...just need to work out the specifics...but I'm sure they will love it. Video details and more here. 

Need a sub plan? I did this Romero Britto inspired collaborative with my kids when I was out on jury duty. Lesson and video right here. 

Need something big and happy to spread the love? My kids EACH contributed to the Our School has Heart mural. Visit this post to see what each different grade level created for this mural from embroidery to painting to sculpture and needle felting! 

My fourth graders tackled this lesson a couple years ago right after they finished the following sculpture lesson...

Boy did we have a ball with this lesson! A super fun sculpture project for the kiddos. 

This lesson I created a little while back for my kindergarten and first graders. We loved the printed hearts and the fun guided drawing animals. Video lessons for each critter. 

Looking for a fun way to introduce your kids to four contemporary artists who use hearts in their work? This video lesson just might be for you!

Oh! And if you are looking for something to do with your faculty and staff to bring the love, you might want to check out these our Clay Hearts with Wings...a huge hit with my coworkers. Video too!

Okay, y'all...that was WAY more than 14 projects so have fun! 

21 Art Lessons with the Theme of Love!

Who's ready to kick off this new year with a whole lotta love, color and bright, fun lessons? BUT who's also not done any real thinkin' about said lessons?! If you said ME to both of those questions than I gotta tell ya, YOU AND ME BOTH. Luckily, I've done a whole lotta love lessons over the years and put all 21 of 'em right here in this blog post. If you follow the links to these, you'll find videos for most and lesson details for ll of them. Have fun creating!

Learn how to draw each of these cuties in these how to draw videos, found here! 

Kindergarten tried their hand at printing with this project and had such a blast! 

These relief hearts by kindergarten were a hit and definitely a lesson I hope to repeat soon! 

Of course, you can't celebrate all things love and Valentines-y without sharing the work of Chris Uphues with your students! We've done a couple lessons inspired by him. This one is a collage and printing project. 

This lesson has always been a hit on my blog with other art teachers and my students. In fact, I created this lesson as a sub plan so it's been a hit with my subs too! You can find all the details and video here.

My students created this HUGE collaborative mural inspired buy Britto. Lesson video here!

First grade created these huge Britto-inspired hearts with bingo daubers, bleeding tissue paper and paint sticks. Lesson details here. 

Ready to tackle printmaking with your students? Here's a lesson I've done a couple of years now with my second graders: Robert Indiana-inspired LOVE prints! 

I created these hearts with wings with foil, Celluclay and plaster strips! They are super simple to make. More here. 

Inspired by those hearts, I created a lesson for my second graders to make these! 

A couple of years ago, I did a professional development with the faculty and staff at my school. We created these My Heart Has Wings sculptures. Details here. 

Here was a fun lesson where we were able to use our messy mats as apart of our masterpiece! Not only that but this project provided two heart-tastic pieces for the price of one. These...

And these!

If you are looking to have your students create a large collaborative piece, you can see what each grade level worked on to make this piece here. 

Looking for a quick lesson that introduces students to three contemporary artists who used love and hearts as their theme? Check out this blog post with a video lesson! 

James Rizzi is always a fun artist to share with your students. We loved creating these love birds!

Here's another lesson we do just about every year in first grade: these woven and stitched hearts! All the lesson details can be found here. I created a variation of this lesson recently where students weave together strips of paper in their skin tones. You can find it here. 

These candy hearts were created by my fourth graders and we used plaster strips to create them. It was so fun to see these all come together and display them in a large candy heart box! Lesson details here. 

Early finishers of the candy hearts lesson moved onto this project when they were finished! 

Wow, did the third graders have a blast with this one! We made plaster chocolates that looked good enough to eat! All the lesson details here. 

Need a quick lesson with a contemporary artist inspiration? Try this JGoldcrown lesson on for size!