Light and Dark

I like this easy lesson for reinforcing color values, light and dark.

Fold square paper in half 4 times to end up with 16 small squares.  Then choose 8 different colored crayons, and color two squares with each crayon.  One square should be colored dark, and the other square is colored light.....depending on time, we also talk about using colors that are "warm/cool", "complementary", "analogous", etc.  You can make this lesson as complicated, or easy as you prefer.

Blogger Shout Outs, Thanks!

Stylish Blogger award

Big Thanks to Jacquelien "Kids Artists" for a blogger award!  This makes me smile......
Here are the requirements to receive graciously and play along-

1. Link back to the person who awarded you
2. List 7 things about yourself
3. Pass the award along to 5 other blogs that I enjoy reading.

Seven things about myself...
My "guest room" in my house is also my "art room", it's a horrendous mess with sample art lessons piled high on every surface in the room including the bed.  I clean it before a guest comes, then it's a terrible mess again within 2 weeks.
I prefer to live in the country, but I want to be in big cities when on vacation.
I always have at least 3 students, who I think are better artists than myself. (No matter their age.)
I didn't like the taste of beer until I became pregnant and had my son.  Now I love having a beer with tacos, or any Mexican food for that matter.
I'm a cat person, always have been.
I easily get sucked into spending more time than I should looking at other blogs.
I love the way my students become themselves when doing art.

And now I'm going to pass along this award to the 5 blogs that I consider my "go to" sites when cruising bloggerville.  Keep in mind that these are at the top for this moment, could be a different list tomorrow...
1. Made by Joel -
This guy gets "Dad of the Day, Month, Year, Century..."  His kids are so lucky and so are we for his sharing of his constant cleverness.
2.  Mini Matisse -  Mrs. Hahn shares great ideas, and I enjoy what appears to be her much greater tech savvy than I have.
3.  Kids Artists - Jacquelien (I know you're saying it's rigged, isn't she the one who gave "you" the award?) is awesome in the amount of ideas she posts regularly.  I know that I better have time on my hands if I missed looking at her blog for a while because she's going to have a lot of new posts.  I like her blog so much, I was looking at it regularly even before I found out how to get in English.
4. Art Projects for Kids - Kathy Barbro is pro!  Her past life as a graphic artist serves her well, and it shows all over her blog.  Her lessons are varied and she too posts a lot with very interesting and "easy to implement" ideas.
5. And #5 is YOUR blog. If it's about doing arts and crafts with children.  I'm sure I've seen it, and I'm sure I've seen something that you've posted which I've copied and tucked away in a file to use in the future.  This file is huge, but just keeps on growing.

Mona Lisa Mural

My students were invited to create a large piece of art for the front window of our local art store called The Artery.  The Mona Lisa seemed appropriate, so we made her using the following steps.
1.  I divided a 8x10" drawing of Mona Lisa into 24 rectangles and gave each student one of the small rectangles.
2.  The students drew a 4x4 grid onto their small rectangle piece of the Mona Lisa drawing, and a 4x4 grid onto their white 9x12" construction paper.
3.  By using the grid method, the students drew their piece of the Mona Lisa onto their 9x12" paper, then traced drawing with black marker, erased grid lines, and colored shaped with colored pencils.
4. For interest, students were told to make their drawings "mostly" warm or cool colors.

Each student was given a small rectangle piece after the drawing below was cut into 24 rectangles.

 Then the student drew a small 4x4 grid on his/her piece.

 Then drew a 4x4 grid on 9x12" paper.

 Then enlarged their original piece by drawing on the grid.

 And colored.

 She looked like this before pieces were mounted on black background and hung in the window.

Soon..........I'll go stand out in the rain and get a picture of the final installation, hopefully.  (No idea why I didn't take a pic of it after we hung it up in the window?)
 

Freezer Paper Stencils

Decided to reminisce and show a project we did last summer..........t-shirt decorating using freezer paper stencils.  Big thanks to  I am Momma-Hear me Roar for her great tutorial on making them.
I started by giving kids pictures to trace onto freezer paper, then-
1. cut picture out of freezer paper
2. iron onto shirt
3. paint in stencil using fabric paint
4. let dry
5. peel off freezer paper
6. iron over the paint to set it

 Everyone loved their shirt!

Scribble Elephants

Big thanks to Carla Sondheim and her wonderful "Silly Workshops" for inspiring this lesson.

I braced my students big time before beginning this lesson, and if you try it, I suggest doing the same. 
I told them they were going to "try to make a controlled scribble (oxymoron).  Now try to make a controlled scribble of an Elephant, without drawing an elephant".
Steps:
1.  We pondered that concept together for a moment, then set about just scribbling on scratch paper. 
2.  We scribbled an "elephant" on scratch paper, beginning with the eye, and not lifting up the pencil.  Kids had a hard time not "drawing" and elephant, and just scribbling and elephant..............so that's why step 3 is important.
3.  We scribbled more elephants on scratch paper, without looking at the paper.  (Yes, now the elephants were finally looking like scribbles and not drawings!)
4.  We switch to good paper and sharpies, and scribbled elephant last time.

5. Added an eye to the elephant, then more black to various lines to make them thicker and stand out.

6. Colored in the shapes with colored pencil and markers. (My examples above.)

Thank you Flamson 6th grade artists!

Drawing Beanie Babies!

Who posted a while back about their students drawing stuffed animals?  I don't recall, but thanks for the idea!!!
Before drawing our Beanie Babies we first did some blind contour drawings of them by poking a paper plate on top of our pencils, so we couldn't see the drawing we were doing on the paper.  After a few of these practices, I then had the class really study the shadows of the stuffed animals and their goal was to get light and dark shadows in their drawing.
All the drawings turned out close to their models, except for the artistic licensing one of my students decided to take with poor Piglet.  (The "Piglet" was cute and intact, but the artist decided to render him a bit differently as you can see below.  The drawing was well received at the end of class.)

Thanks Beanie-Baby-Bunches to North Co. Christian High School art students!