Mosaic Trees

Another idea found on Pinterest........ Loretta Grayson is the artist who inspired this lesson, I love her colorful art.  See lots here and more info. about her here.

The original on Pinterest were small square paintings that looked like they were done on canvas w/ acrylics, but after reading Loretta's blog - she uses a wonderful combination of pastels and paint, etc.  Because of resources, I decided instead to do the project as a paper mosaic.  It took 2 sessions, and I think they turned out great.
Steps:
1. cover 8x8" tagboard w/ mosaic paper squares
2. draw circle on 4x4" paper, cover w/ mosaic squares on opposite side, then cut out circle.
3. draw black tree branches and glue onto circle, then glue onto background.

These were done by 5th/6th graders:)

Cleaning up........

It's almost end of March, and still, I'm reminding students proper clean-up techniques.  Who am I kidding, they're kids, of course they still needs reminders.

P.S. Do you use these palettes too?  I'm not a fan b/c they're hard to clean, but I also hate using disposable stuff like small condiment cups, wax paper palettes, etc.  Tried pill boxes once, but I bought the circular kind which were impossible to clean.  Saw them at the $1 store so I couldn't resist, I bought 8 of them:(

What's your FAVORITE paint palette for 20+ kids?

ScratchArt

Have been wanting to do a scratch-art lesson for ages, and finally tried it.  My high school students enjoyed it a lot.  I got the idea of starting with a face from Nena at  The Painted Apple.  Her students create marvelous work and I'm so glad she shares it in her blog!

I gave the students magazines and calendars and told them that their subject had to be an animal or a person.  I also showed them my example which was a frog.  Not surprisingly, all of them chose animals.  Then I made a color photocopy of the animal.  They cut
Here are the steps we took:
1.  Draw the whole animal in pencil on scratch paper.  This is the practice drawing.
2. I made color copies of each animal and students cut out ONLY the face of the animal and glued it onto their scratchboard.  (By the way, I was surprised to find that my small local art supply shop sold 24"x36" sheets of scratchboard for $3.00 ea.  I really didn't want to take the time to have the students make their own.)  (Also, by the way, you don't have to make color copies of animals.  I did so because I didn't want the originals ruined by having face cut out.)
3.  Students used edge of paperclip, or toothpick, or side of scissors to scratch the animal and background.  They chose their preferred tool.

Kinder Socks

(Good gracious!  I found these socks pics and wrote this post.....AND just realized that I already posted this lesson not long ago.  Geeesh, oh well it really was a FUN lesson, so here it is again.)

Big Thanks to Laugh Paint Create and Mrs. Knight's Smartest Artists  for sharing their lessons inspired by the book, A Pair of Socks by Stuart J. Murphy & Illustrated by one of my favorites, Lois Ehlert.

My kinders loved the book and loved making their own "Matching Socks".  They also surprised me with how well they were able to make two identical socks with the same designs.

Robert Indiana Sign

This time I decided that students could choose their own 4 letters to highlight in their project inspired by the work of Robert Indiana.  

Students love learning about the iconic "LOVE" below.  The balance of the blue and green.  The slant of the "O".  The way the red letters are all connected to each other without any seams between them.  And the interesting relationship of the "L", "V", and "E" whereas they all touch the edge of the piece, yet the "O" doesn't touch the edge.  Some say the "O" is meant to represent fragility or instability as it looks like it can roll off the picture at any moment.  In opposition the other three letters are solidly placed.

The steps were:

1.  Make 4 big letters on 4 white pieces of paper that were 4.5"x4.5" each.

2.  Collage over the letters with magazine pictures.

3. Glue background construction paper color blocks on 9"x9" paper.

4.  Glue collaged letters onto color blocks.

These were done by beginning High School art students, but it's such a simple lesson younger kids could do it too.

Doodle Fish

Art Project Girl found a great page in an old art book that had a simple doodle drawing of fish, and I'm grateful she shared it here.  Simple always grabs my attention!

Step 1: Loopy doodle ( I told the students no more than 8 loops on the page....you know what would've happened without the limit.)

 

Step 2:  Add tails and face, then color.

Here are the "Doodle Fish" created by 4th graders.