In the Art Room: Romero Britto Inspired Selfies by Fourth

Hey, kids! I'm just back from a FABULOUS conference in Texas that was seriously a whirlwind of fun. I'll be certain to share that experience with you soon but before I do, I thought I'd let you in on how that Romero Britto-inspired selfie project went down. In a word(s): colorfully amazing! 

I've been sharing with you a ton of self portrait projects of late as that's what I'm sending away to be framed for our Artome art show. In case you missed, check out the Royal First Grade Self-Portraits, Second Grade Super Hero Selfies and the Third Grader's Sandra Silbertzweig Portraits. 

I wanted my fourth graders to learn how to draw a face with correct proportions but with a playful and colorful twist that reflects their personality and interests. And that's how I settled on this Romero Britto-inspired lesson. Complete video'ed lesson here: 

 By the way, I update my videos multiple times weekly...if you wanna stay up to date, subscribe here. 

The video provides a quick introduction to Britto and his work, just enough to give them a taste for how colorful and pattern-y his work is. 

The kids really respond well to learning about contemporary artists and pop art seems to be their fave. 

This project took us 3 one hour classes to complete. The students used 9" X 12" sheets of drawing paper as that is what the Artome framing format allows. On our first day, we watched the first third of the video. We drew our faces along with the video, traced over our final drawings in Sharpie (I gave the kids plenty of time to return to their seats with mirrors and alter their drawings to their liking) and used lines to break up the background. Here's what we had after day one:

The following art class, we watched the middle portion of the video where I chat about pattern. I really wanted the kids to create patterns that reflected their interests. I did provide idea sheets of simple patterns like the ones Britto uses. After 30 minutes, we watched the final portion of the video and had just enough time to explore color. Here are the results after the second day:

By the third day, we'd watched all of the video and knew what we had to do to complete our masterpiece. I really thought this would be a two-day project...but with all of the details the kids created, it lasted a pinch longer. 

 We used both colored pencils and Prismacolor Art Stix (a class favorite for their vibrancy) to color. Art Stix are like the lead of colored pencils in oil pastel from. They are richer in color than your average colored pencil. I talk about them somewhere in this clip:

Sorry, not sure when, but I know they are in this clip somewhere!

 The kids and I both were really pleased with their hard work. So often, older kids struggle with self-portraits as they want them to look "just right". Doing a self-portrait in a guided drawing format really relieved stress and insured that all selfies looked fabulous. 

You know that the 10 year old crowd can sometimes be tough to please...but this one was a crowd-pleaser. 

Even my students who sometimes struggle with fine motor skills or sticking with projects for long periods of time shined in this lesson.

You know they feel good about themselves with the "too cool for school" fourthies give you hugs at the end of art class. 

 My favorite comment: I never knew I could draw like this!

I'm shipping all of these out to Artome tomorrow and our art show is at the start of December. I'll be certain to let you know how that goes. This will be our first Artome show...I'm really excited!

Y'all know we do a HUGE end of the year art show where everything that every kid has made is hung up. I'm super stoked that for this show, I don't have to hang a thing!

I hope y'all have a fabulous week leading up to Turkey Day! I'll be in and out on this here blog with lots to share...so, during your break from stuffing runs, be sure to drop on by. 

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!

In the Art Room: Royal First Graders

Brace yourself. You're in for an overload of First Grade Fantastical Cuteness in the form of Royal Self-Portraits!

Like, riiiiiight?! I can't even, y'all. These selfies are so sweet it's like a lollypop dipped in Fruity Pebbles dipped in milk chocolate and covered in sprinkles (guess who has a strong sweet tooth? GUESS). My fab-o first grade artists completed these just in time for me to get them shipped off to Artome for their frames. And I'm so excited for these are totally frame-worthy. 

I don't often repeat projects but when I was dreaming up a self-portrait unit for all of my classes, I knew I wanted to give this lesson another go-round. I did have to alter the lesson quite a bit as the format of the Artome frames is half the size what I usually have my students work. Lemme tell you how we created these bad boys, er, royal dudes and dudettes. 

I'll break the lesson down for y'all...keep in mind that my classes are 30 minutes in length. This project took us about two weeks to complete. On the first day, the kids were given a 9" X 12" sheet of white paper and tasked to paint that paper the color of them. Before doing so, we read this great book:

In the book, a young girl paints portraits of her friends mixing up their unique skin color. The kids were given brown, black, white, red and yellow paint. We chatted about tints, shades and mixing up a variety of flesh tones. The kids painted their sheet of paper their unique skin tone. 

The following day, on that sheet of painted paper, the kids traced a head template in the middle of the paper and added two vertical lines for the neck. This was done independently and in pencil. Once complete, the kids met with me on the floor for a little guided drawing. We chatted about the proportions of the face and facial features. We drew together in oil pastel. When using oil pastel, I always stress to the kids to use black last and never to wipe their paper as it can smear the pastel. That was completed on our second day.

During our third art class, we cut our portraits away from the painted paper and glued it to a new sheet of 9" X 12" paper. We had a nice chat about painting hair: mixing the right color and creating texture. Once the hair was painted, the kids put those on the drying rack and worked on their crowns. For that, we used gold painted papers and crown templates. I had cut pieces of metallic paper (I found some metallic origami paper to be just the thing!) and the kids added jewels to their crown. I did chat with them about symmetry and balance when it came to the placement of the jewels. It's always good to pack as much educational punch into those lessons as we can!

Our fourth day, crowns were attached to heads and clothing was created. For our clothes, the kids were given a rectangle for their shirt and two squares for their sleeves. These were decorated with my favorite florescent oil pastels (really, where have these BEEN all my life?!) and attached at the bottom of the paper. 

Finally came the background! We used Crayola's water soluble oil pastels for that. The kids could use either warm or cool colors for the background before adding water to paint. 

Ta-da! You might have noticed that some of my fancier friends added coffee filters for a ruffly collar to their shirt, sparkly earrings and more jewels. They really had a lot of fun getting all kinds of royal for their selfies. 

Finally, they had to come up with a title for their piece. "Princess Cutie Cute" will forever go down in history as my favorite title for these precious masterpieces. I cannot wait to see them framed and in our Artome art show! Love to hear about your favorite self-portrait projects, y'all!

In the Art Room: Bebo Birds!

Earlier this week I shared with y'all a new video series I'm creating for my students called Field Trip! Our first 'trip was to hang out with folk artist and musician Bebo. Some of my classes took that virtual field trip this week and really enjoyed it. I am in the process of creating videos to accompany the field trip...and today, I'm excited to share with you the first one: Bebo Birds!

This project is geared toward my first grade artists. I really want them to explore textured mark-making. That will be our focus for the first day of this lesson. On the second day, we'll learn the difference between organic and geometric shapes. My goal is to teach the children that you can create anything with shapes. Keeping it simple will insure confidence and success for the kids...at least that's the plan. Of course, I'll keep you posted and share their masterpieces with you. In case you missed out on our field trip adventure, here's our 'trip to meet and create with the artist Bebo!

Such a fun guy and so giving with his time. I felt very lucky to have that opportunity to meet him and share his awesomeness with my kids. 

One piece of his that really struck me were these birds. I loved how fun they were. I also really loved the texture, the pattern and the use of shapes. I knew my first grade kids would not only enjoy looking at Bebo's work but also creating their own version of these Bebo birds. Here's our lesson:

I'm excited to work on more Bebo-inspired lessons in the future. I've got a lovely week off for Thanksgiving break and I'm thrilled to say we aren't going anywhere! I'll be traveling to Texas this week for their conference, which I'm stoked about (!!) however, I am a complete homebody so staying put for a while and working on my pile o' projects sounds like my kind of break. 

Love to know if you make Bebo Birds! 

In the Art Room: Sandra Silbertzweig Inspired Portraits by Third Grade

A couple of weeks ago, I shared with y'all a video I created for my third graders. The video (seen below) introduced my kids to the colorful work of Sandra Silbertzweig and allowed them to explore creating a colorful and abstract self portrait. This lesson is currently  one of my faves! Check out how stunning these beauties turned out. All of my students are currently creating a wide variety of self portraits for our Artome fundraiser...and I daresay, these just might be my faves. 

For this project, we used:

* 9" X 12" black or dark blue construction paper. I would have loved to make these bigger but that is the size of the Artome frames.

* Black glue or black puffy paint. There are a couple of ways to create black glue. My friend Ginger creates black glue with a mixture of Elmer's All Purpose glue and India Ink. I created mine with a one part mixture of paint to two parts glue. The key is to use Elmer's All Purpose, not the school grade stuff as it's runny. Also, I had some students use black puffy paint which worked great. Another alternative is to use glue on black paper as it dries clear and will leave behind a kind of transparent line that the dark paper can show through. 

* Chalk. I'm a big fan of Koss Brand chalk which can be found on Amazon. It's pricey but GREAT. 

 This project took us two plus art classes to complete. On the first day, we watched the video, learned about Sandra and did a little guided drawing. If you watch the video, you'll see I left the drawing portion open to many levels of drawing alternatives. Once the drawing was complete, the kids traced their lines in glue. From there, if time allowed, we watched a bit more of the video as a kind of sneak peak to the following week. 

The real fun came with the chalk. In the video, I really stress how to use the chalk properly...and we do a whole lot of chatting about analogous colors. I really felt like this lesson was a wonderful exploration of color theory. 

 Here is how each table of four children was set up: a laminated colorwheel that I found online and two bowls of chalk, one warm, the other cold. Students were to use the colorwheel as I did in the video. Many of them took the time to pair up and lay all of their chalk out on the wheel. This way, they could easily see what colors were available to use. I love that they were so into picking the correct colors for this project. 

After the second day, several kids were not finished. This was fine with me...I mean, look at those results! The following art class, as they wrapped up their drawing, we chatted about how their artwork was going to be hung like work in a museum. I had them get a notecard and create a label for their work. On their label, they were to write:

Artists Name
Title
Medium
Process or Description

The information from this card will be used as both an assessment and also info for their Artome paperwork. 

 Once all pieces were complete, I blew off the excess dust and sprayed them liberally with Aqua Net. I did that three times to insure the chalk particles were attached. I'm hoping hey remain as vibrant and colorful when they are framed. 

Because of our small format, I decided to opt out of having the kids add designs to their work. I had a feeling it might have gotten a little muddy if we did. If the pieces had been of larger format, I think that would have worked well. 

I'm so looking forward to this winter art show. All of the kids have been creating beautiful works of art! I'll be sharing the work of my other grades soon. 

Until then, have a bright and colorful weekend!

In the Art Room: #K12ArtChat Tonight!

 Hey, y'all! I'm so excited to be hosting tonight's Twitter chat with the #K12ArtChat kids. We'll be starting this evening at 8:30pm CST and I do hope you'll join the fun. If you've never joined in on a chat before, hold on to your hats! They are so much fun. Here are some tips for you:

If you've never joined the fun of a Twitter chat, here are a couple of things you should know:

*  To join the chat, simply search #k12artchat in the search bar. Starting at 8:30 pm, you'll see the chatter starting with questions from me. To chat a preview of the questions, just scroll downeth. 

* To add to the conversation, begin your tweet with the hashtag #k12artchat and an A for "answer" and the number of the question you are responding to. For example, "#k12artchat A1: I first discovered my love for art at summer camp!" 

* Know your abbreviations. Because of the limited amount of characters, folks will often respond with abbreviations which can be a little confusing. Just think of it like reading a text and the shortened words will make sense. 

* Hold on to your seats: these chats are often only 45 minutes in length. With a half dozen questions and a bunch of folks responding, it can get VERY busy. My first time joining in on a chat involved me just taking it all in. Relax and enjoy the ride.

Another reason I'm thrilled to host the chat is because I'm one of the keynote speakers for the TAEA conference next week! The theme of the conference is Passion and that's one thing I do love to chat about. While at the conference, I'll be talking about my journey of finding my creative and teaching passions. I'll also be leading a needle felting class of 75 folks AND doing a fun Q & A session. All of those things will go down on Saturday at the conference. I can't wait to meet my Texas friends!

 I love hearing about the passion-seeking journey of others. You can share that and more via Facebook or Twitter. 

It's also not too late to submit any questions you might have for me! I'll do my very best to answer them at the conference. And, if you see me there, please be sure and say hello! I love to chat with fellow crazy art teachers (note: we're ALL crazy!) and you know I'm never shy about taking a selfie. So be sure you snag me and say hello!

Until then, I look forward to chatting with all y'all this evening! See you at 8:30 pm CST. 

In the Art Room: My Favorite Tool in the Art Room

In lieu of my usual Art Teacherin' 101, I thought I'd share with y'all a wee video I created with The Art of Ed involving one of my favorite tools in the art room: my Time Timer! 

I use this thing like crazy in my art room. I use it to break up my instructional time, keep students accountable and keep me on schedule. You can hear me chat about more ways to use the Timer here:

I even have a small Timer Timer that I use at home! I have a bad habit of wasting time (in second grade, on my report card, my teacher marked me as being a "Poor Time Manager"...I remember asking my mom what that meant and she replied, "You are a lollygagger." I blame my day-dreamy Pisces nature). It helps me not to get tasks completed within a timeframe that I can check at a glance. 

I'm sure a timer on my phone would work as well...but I just love having these big visuals both in my home and my art room. 

Love to hear how y'all keep track of time in your art teacherin' world!