Clay Time....

We're beginning clay projects.  After experimenting with some other brands of air dry clay last year, I'm back to using Crayola Air Dry clay.  It's not so great, but I haven't found any other brand that's reasonably priced and better.

3rd graders are making these cute BUNNIES.  They're hollow in the middle so they can kind of be used as finger puppets too.

2nd graders are making CUPCAKE Boxes.  Next time I need to remember to give kids a ball of clay closer to the size of a golf ball than the size of an apricot for making the bottom of their cupcake.  The walls of clay were thicker than I prefer, hopefully they'll dry okay.

Lots of messy fun ----- a few kids were absent ----  that's one of my biggest challenges in being an art teacher.  So time consuming helping kids get caught up who've been absent.  In the past I worked at a large school, so it was virtually impossible to offer all the time necessary for all the absent kids.  Now I offer make-up arrangements for absent kids.

How do you deal with absent students from your art classes?  Would love to get your ideas.

Christmas Art 2012 - RoundUp!

Here are the art lessons I had fun sharing with my students during the month of December.  I teach at a Christian school and December is a very special month.

Kinder/1st Grade painted a starry night sky and pasted this poem on the bottom (ha, not really pasted, we used glue sticks.....do they even make that thick smelly white paste I used as a kid soooooo many years ago?)

A bright star lit the heavens

To light the Magi's way

To the baby in the manger

Who was born on Christmas day

Materials used:

white construction paper

blue and white tempera paint

q-tips for white stars

yellow construction paper stars

2nd Grade made poinsettia flowers and glued this poem at the bottom:

At Christmas as we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ

Let's keep in mind the truth of Christmas Day

It's our gift of love to others, in every way

Materials used:

construction paper

we also used scrapbook paper for added interest in the green leaves

glue & glitter

3rd/4th grade made these awesome Moulding Trees and you can find more info. here.

5th grade painted angels.

They drew in pencil, outlined with black crayon, and painted with watercolors.

And Lastly 6th grade made Mini Manger Silhouettes.

We used canvas and acrylics.  Students did a practice silhouette first on paper same size as canvas.

Colors & Shapes

Whew!!! Finally posting.......too many plates spinning these days, can you relate????

My 2nd graders did this lesson last week.  I thought it was successful and I love the clean simple aspect of the colors on black.

First I gave students this white paper which had these shapes already drawn on it.  (note * If I had the kids more than 40 min. twice/month, I'd have them draw their own shapes.)

Then the students cut and glued their white shapes on black background.

Next, the students chose various pieces of colored construction paper and cut out smaller and smaller circles and oval shapes. 

And here is the gorgeous quilt that I saw on Pinterest that inspired this lesson.

This amazing quilt was created by Carol, her artistry is admirable & you'll find her blog HARD TO LEAVE!

Summertime means ICE CREAM

I've been having fun doing ice cream art with my students..........
My 2nd/3rd Grade combo class each did an acrylic ice cream painting, then I put them onto a blue painted canvas for our auction last weekend.  The kids loved seeing their art mounted with together with their classmates!  Thanks to all my blogger friends for all the great auction art ideas.  I did a different project with every class and somehow can only find pictures of this one.  (Did I really not take pictures of the others?  At this time of the year, everything seems to be going at lightning speed and I have no idea if I took pics or not right now.)

And here are the Ice Cream painting my high schoolers did on canvas with acrylics.  The inspiration was Wayne Thiebaud.  First they painted a vibrant background, then the ice cream cone, and another background.  I tried to encourage them to leave a colored halo around the subject and some of the vibrant colors showing when painting the new background, but some got carried away and covered up all their original background colors.  Oh well, it was still a fun project.

This was 1st step, painting vibrant background.

Mother's Day Hands

Okay, how is it that I've been an art teacher for 9 years and this is the first time I've done an art lesson where the kids have to trace their hands?  Hmmm?
These cute Mother's Day cards were done by my grades 2/3 and boy did they have a hard time tracing their hands!  (Thank goodness I happened to have their lesson scheduled the day before a different lesson w/ my 1st grade students.  I had planned a different card, but they were still supposed to trace their hands.  NO WAY was that going to happen, I took the time that night to make heart templates for the 1st graders to use instead of the hand tracing.)

I saw this idea on Pinterest. It was a photo and the link went to Tumblr.com, then I couldn't find the original?  This always happens when I get into Tumblr, does anyone understand that site?

Inside the card, the classroom teacher had the students glue in their Mother's Day poems that they'd been writing.  I love the teachers I work with, they're so appreciative of my art lessons.  I am really blessed.

Negative shapes in art

Oops, where did I see this one?  Thinking it was MaryAnn Kohl, but I could be wrong?
Anywho, loved the lesson and the kids did too.  (Of course they did, can't say I've ever loved a lesson that the kids didn't like.)
I did this one with both Kinder and 2nd grade, not at the same time though.
After giving brief info. on the difference between positive and negative space in art, students were given 2 strips of blue tape approx. 6" long each.
Step one: kids tore tape and placed it on their paper
Step two: kinder kids drew many lines on their paper using colored markers, 2nd graders painted over tape and paper w/ watercolors.
Step three: peel off the tape.  ( I told kids to pretend they were slowly peeling off a band-aid from their best friend's knee and they needed to take it off slowly and carefully so it wouldn't hurt.)