HEARTS

Well, it's still February so I'm going to post one of the Valentine's Day lessons I did my K/1 class.......I might also use this lesson in for Mother's Day with one of my other classes.  When Mother's Day comes around I like to look through the Valentine's lessons because I think us mommy's can never get too many cards with hearts on them:)

It's a non-original idea, but I'd never tried this version before.
1.  Put heart stickers on paper.
2. Paint over heart stickers.
3. Let dry (by the time we had the desks and tables cleaned up from the painting, they were dry enough), and peel off the stickers.

I had a helper the day before the lesson, so I also decided to blue tape the borders of the white paper to a board to give the finished painting that beautiful white frame around it.

So super simple!  I did have a couple students who needed extra help on the concept.  They were painting pictures around the hearts, even though I explained and demonstrated the whole process.  They needed extra encouragement and communication to paint directly over the stickers.

"Christmas Eve" Collages

"Christmas Eve" by Henri Matisse was our inspiration 

for these collages.  

They were done by 3rd graders:)

Here is the original, by Matisse.

Pinwheels for PEACE

Yea, this year my school participated in Pinwheels for Peace!!!

It was so worth the time and effort.

 

Next year I'll need to figure out a better way to attach our large, laminated pinwheels to the sticks.  Everyone of them came apart b/c the pin couldn't hold them together......  I've seen some schools use pipe cleaners and beads, maybe I'll try that method?

Check out the Pinwheels for Peace website gallery.  It's very inspiring!

What a great event - Big thanks to the 2 art teachers in Florida who 

started the project approx. 7 years ago.

P.S. Side Note - See the beautiful building in the 2nd photo?  That's our City Hall that was ruined in the earthquake we had in 2003.  It's finally being rebuilt, you can see scaffolding.  The quake happened on Dec. 21st and we're so thankful the kids were not in school.  One middle school was condemned after the quake.  Now it's been rebuilt and it's literally the safest building in the whole county 

to be, if (when) there's another earthquake.

Drippy Art

I've been wanting to do some type of "Pour Painting" ever seeing this video a while back.  I've been hesitant because I wasn't sure about using so much paint for a project that might not turn out well, and also wondering how to manage a class of students doing the "pour" art all at the same time.
So when last day of school came around, I had a number of old canvases that had been donated and a number of small bottles of acrylics paints and decided to let the kids go for it.
I loved watching them experiment with the colors and dripping the paint down the canvases, but if I ever do the project again, I'll do it on a different day rather than the last day of school.  Last day of school is too crazy already, and to add a crazy art lesson was too much for me.
I can share though that the project used less paint than I thought it would.  Just a little paint dripped a long ways.
I originally had a few different ideas for dripping the paint.  Using spoons, using syringes (that was messy joke!), but eventually I realized for the purpose of having 12 kids doing the project at the same time meant that they just had to pour the paints right out of the 2 oz. bottles.  Next time I'll plan farther in advance and get more cans of paint donated and we'll use spoons.

Father's Day "Heart Books"

These Heart Books were made by 1st graders.  (Note, I folded paper and drew half a heart on the fold for each child before the lesson because many of the 1st graders would have had a hard time drawing the half heart big enough for a book.  I also drew the half circles on the fold ahead of time.)

Step 1:  Kids cut both papers at the same time on the fold.  They also cut 3 half-circles on the fold too to create the holes for the yarn binding.

Step 2:  Thread yarn through the 3 holes and tie a know at the bottom.

Step 3:  Write and illustrate the book, "Why I Love You"

Being Foodies in the Art Room

Have you seen this book?  It's very entertaining.

My high school art students made their own versions of food "beings".  It was fun:)

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.

Food Play....

"Sniffy" the mole.

Friday was a "Play with Food" day.  Kids enjoyed it, so did I!

These were done by high school students.  

They loved looking through the book, Play With Your Food, by Joost Elffers.

The blonde on the left was named "Barbara Streisand"....Nope, I didn't ask?