My Favorite Lessons for Home-Based Art Education!

Hey, y'all! I'm about to share some of my fave home-based learning projects but...this is just the tip of the iceberg! I have a TON of art lesssons on my YouTube channel for you and your artists to explore. Be sure and subscribe as I'll be adding many more!

Currently, we as educators find ourselves in the most unusual of situations: away from our students for an unforeseeable amount of time and wanting to still connect, teach and create. If you are like me then your district has requested that you attempt to do just that with home-based learning. Because this is unchartered territory, the idea of teaching remotely is confusing, daunting and overwhelming. Where to even start? 

I've been putting some serious thought into this topic for the last couple of days as I create fun art activities for my students to do at home. I'll be sharing them all right here (for free, of course!) but in the meantime, I wanted to share with you the home-based art lessons I plan to use. Each of these lessons, videos and PDFs are FREE for you and your students can use right now. Feel free to include in your take-home packets or modify to fit your student's needs. Let's begin with this Monochromatic Self-Portrait lesson that is appropriate for kindergarten on up!

Just click for the video! Because many students may not have markers at home, you might suggest crayons for them to add color. 

This Colorful Village lesson was one that all of my students loved! I did it with my first through fourth graders and it was a huge hit. In case students don't have paint at home, markers and crayons can be used. Without those supplies, this could simply be a great drawing task for them to work on creating three-dimensional buildings. Here's the video:

These colorful houses were so fun to create!

My fourth graders always loved this Romero Britto-inspired self-portrait project. I do think that younger children would love it too. 

Again, consider suggesting students swap out supplies used for what they have on hand at home.

Chris Uphues is easily my student's favorite artist! And can you blame them for loving him so much, his work is just so full of joy! You can check out the entire lesson here. 

The link to this blog post also includes free downloadable PDFs!

Introduce your students to both James Rizzi and Vincent van Gogh with this fun lesson. Click the link for free handouts! Here's the video:

Of course, if you want to get kids creating, then you could always have them create their own sketchbook! I plan to create a video to show kids how to create one easily. In the meantime, they could use the Sketchbook Decoder Sheets found here to personalize their sketchbooks! 

If these look kinda familiar, we have done a similar project with my Getting to Know You sculptures. That project is also one that could be done at home with improvised materials!

Times like these could get you down...but we can't let it! So why not have students create drawings of people, places and things that they are grateful for? Click here for two free PDFs!

If you are required to send home a packet as we were in my district, you might consider downloading and printing out this sheet and including a circle sticker. These can be found at the dollar store. Children could access a telling of The Dot on YouTube and create their own work of art in the frame!

If your students have access to paper, scissors and glue, this easy Greg Mike-inspired project would be a blast for them! 

Without access to construction paper, students could simply use the paper that they have on hand.

A lesson that is always a hit with my students is making this pop-out star. They love creating the patterns and then writing about themselves. Again, think of an alternative set of supplies for students to use so they can create at home.

Alright, y'all! Stay tuned as I have much more to come. I hope that gives you and all the young artists out there a fun place to start!

Printingmaking Made Easy!

Since I've spent the last couple of weeks in Printmaking Land with my second and third graders, I thought I'd share everything I know about printmaking in the elementary art room! I started to record a podcast episode which quickly turned into TWO podcast episodes. There's a lot to printmaking in the elementary art room but none of it is scary, difficult or even all that messy! My kids love it and so do I. So I'll be sharing both podcast episodes here as well as my favorite lessons. Be sure and click the link as it will take you directly to the lessons which often feature a video for you and your students!

In the first episode in this series, I focus a lot on printing with Styrofoam sheets. They are a great alternative to having small children carve into linoleum or wood blocks (lord, I can see the lawsuit now!) and can produce beautiful results. Here's everything I could think of about printing with Styrofoam sheets!

My favorite tip is to have kids use ink pens when incising the lines into the foam. I have them use a blue pen first and a black pen second. This ensures that they'll incise the lines deeply enough by doing it twice. When I see the black ink pen, I know they've traced their lines not once but twice. 

In this episode, I talk a lot about supplies and set up. Here's a visual! My second graders are doing a rainbow roll in this photo. Notice the dollops of ink at the top of the tray where they are to dip their brayer, not roll through the ink. Then, in the space below, they are to roll their brayer up and down only (so as not to mix the colors) to cover the brayer before rolling it onto their printing plate. Messy mats are used to help keep the table clean. Students also place all of their prints on the messy mat during clean up (without stacking them as they will stick together) and slide the entire mat onto our drying rack. Then we toss our printing plates in one sink, brayers and trays in another for me to do a quick wash after school.

In the episode, I also mention printing on newspapers, painted papers, wrapping paper, metallic papers and much more. The results are stunning!

 

In the follow-up episode, I talk about printing in 30-minute classes. On the first day, we do a single color print like these third-grade robots you see here. The following art class, we do a rainbow roll like you saw above. 

 On our third day of printing, we spend a hot minute adding more designs to our printing plates before doing a reduction print. The kids were fascinated by this process. 

And on the last day, we make these! Never throw away those printing plates or simply send them home. You can make such cool works of art with them with inexpensive foil sheets, steel wool and spray paint. Take a listen to find out how!

 Third Grade Cities! This lesson was a hit as the kids were allowed to swap cities to create some diversity in their finished piece. The complete lesson in the link!

Winter Portraits by Second Grade  Need a fun way to introduce printmaking and patterns?  Check out this self-portrait project!

Egyptian God Portraits Fourth grade students used their knowledge of Egyptian gods and symbols to print the designs in the background of these portraits. 

Positive Four Letter Word Collages with Prints! This is a lesson I return to year after year and seem to change and tweek each time. You can see alternatives to this lesson here. 

Gelatin Prints  I don't do this kind of printing anymore with homemade gelatin printing plates for a couple of reasons: I don't like using the gelatin (it's an animal product that I'm not comfortable using) and it's labor-intensive. BUT the results! There are recipes for making your own more permanent printing plates that don't seem to be difficult at all. I found several on YouTube. 

 Sushi Collage with Gelli-Plate Prints I do have a class set of Gelli-Plates and we love them. The best thing to do is just let your kids go crazy exploring different methods of printing on the surface with stencils and texture and color. In the end, you'll have a fun stack of papers like you see below that can then be used to create collages like you see above!

 If you would like a video to walk you through more of these processes, be sure and check out this blog post! 

Collagraph Prints are ones created by adding things to a surface. This is different that the Styrofoam prints which are a subtractive kind of printing. Collagraphs are additive. My fourth graders created these prints a couple years ago in celebration of dot day!  

That project was very similar to one I did just last year with my kindergarten friends! We used foam hearts from the Dollar Tree as the base and sticky-backed foam stickers for the design. You can see the complete lesson here. 

 We collaged our completed hearts for these sweet masterpieces.

We then wrapped our lesson by wrapping our hearts and doing a little burnishing as I mentioned at the start of this blog post! I hope that gives you a bunch of ideas for printmaking in your art room and removes any fear that you may have! Happy Printing!

Art Teacherin' Extravaganza!

Hey, y'all! If you follow me on Instagram or you have signed up for my email newsletter, then you've heard the big news: I'm throwing an Art Teacherin' Extravaganza! I'll be sharing more details here but if you just wanna jump on board and reserve your spot, go ahead and do so here!

 I've been working on putting together this experience for the last couple of months although, to be honest, it's been on my mind for years! So often there are not professional development opportunities for art teachers or when we do have them, they don't offer what it is we really need and want: hands-on creating! Here's a little more:

But, really and truly, the real reason I created this extravaganza is that I want to see you. I want to spend time with you. I know in my bones...IN.MY.BONES...how lonely teaching art can be. I spent the first ten years of my teaching career carrying around that shadow of loneliness. I know I've chatted about it at length on my podcast which you can hear here:



Knowing of my experience with loneliness, I wanted to carve out a time for you and me this summer to spend time together, meet other like-minded folks, make new friends and, best of all, create! Here's where the extravaganza will be held:

Montgomery Bell State Park has so much to offer! There's canoeing, fishing, hiking, swimming, horseback riding and much more. This might just be a great little vacation for you and your family this summer. While you are hanging with me, they could explore the park and all that is has to offer. Not to mention that Nashville is just 45 minutes away and is a buzz with stuff to do! For those attending, I'll be creating a list of my favorite things to share with you soon so you can plan your trip!

The Inn at the park has a very limited amount of rooms set aside for attendees. However, there are a ton of hotels just five miles down the road in the town of Dickson. I included a list of those hotels here. I'd recommend getting in on Thursday night so you are ready for everything on Friday morning. I'm working on creating a Facebook group for attendees to chat with friends and meet potential roomies to lower the accommodation costs.

 

I tried my best to think of every question you may have but I am sure I've forgotten something. So feel free to drop me a line! You can email me at artteacherin101@gmail.com. Love to hear from you and, hopefully, see you real soon!

In the Art Room: Marker Hacks in the Art Room!

Hey, y'all! Today I'm sharing my very favorite marker hacks! In this post, I'll be sharing my favorite lessons involving these hacks but be sure and listen to the podcast episode where I share even more details. Be sure to click on the link and visit the posts I'm sharing...these are free lessons and many of them include a video as well as free handouts for you and your students! Here's the podcast episode:

James Rizzi meets Van Gogh Cities! This project was a huge hit with my third and fourth grade students. What I loved is that my students had a chance to explore painting but without the mess! I did this project near the end of the year when we were completely out of watercolor paint. Did you know that you can use markers as watercolor paint?! All you do is color and add water! I loved the technique so much I did it for the next lesson too.

 Chris Uphues Hearts! This lesson began as a sub plan and quickly became a kid and teacher favorite! I know many of you have done this one in your art rooms and it makes me so happy. Again, we outlined the hearts in marker and then used paint to "wake up" the marker and turn it into paint. 

 Marker Prints! In the podcast episode I mention printing with markers and it being a little tricky when you dampen the paper. I had totally forgotten about the photo I shared above...last year we used baby wipes instead of a sponge and water and it proved to be great at getting the paper just damp enough to pull a print. You can hear more about this in the episode and definitely check out more in the link!

 I mean, how fun is that?!

 Color Diffusing Coffee Filters! I think many of us know about this hack BUT...did you know...that after your students are done coloring their filter they should LEAVE THEM ON A STYROFOAM PLATE when you spray with water and allow to dry. Why? So that the marvelous marker color stays on the filter and doesn't drain out and get on the surface below. Hear more about that in the podcast episode. 

 We attached these using paperclips and hung them in the windows of our school for Dot Day!

 Self Portraits in Kimonos! Here is another use for those coffee filters! This lesson was a kid favorite and look how precious they are! More details in the link. 

 Children's Day! These color diffusing fish came from our sponsor, Roylco. I love using color diffusing papers with markers and these were a huge hit! 

 We used permanent markers for details we wished to remain and waterbased markers for ones we wanted to spread. We also used watercolor paint for more pops of color. Notice how the fish is on a plastic bag...this is how the fish dried as well so that the color would remain on the fish!

 Again, we hung these in our large bank of windows and they looked so beautiful. 

 To attach one to the other, I used paperclips. I also used paper clips to attach the fish to the ceiling tiles. 

 Making Marker Juice! What to do with all of those dried out markers?! Make Marker Juice! Now in the podcast, I share an easy way (as seen above) and the hard, better results, way. We used these paints to create a background for our "Ain't Gonna Paint No More" self portraits. 

My kindergarteners had a big time making these!

 Foil-Covered Printing Plates! What to do with printing plates once printmaking is complete? Cover them with foil and make a new work of art! I don't talk about permanent markers in the podcast but I did want to share the projects we've done with them here. Permanent markers are great for many reasons but one is when coloring over foil. They make the most beautiful shimmery effect. 

 Dot Day Sparkle! Check out this beauty! These were made with Styrofoam plates, foil and permanent marker. 

 Foil Relief! When weaving one year, my students were stressed about the amount of waste yarn we were throwing away. We decided to keep it and then create with it! Check out the blog post for details.  

Speaking of not wasting a thing, we also do something similar with our printing plates! Follow this link for more. 

I hope you learned a fun and new marker hack today!