My first graders have been learning about outerspace so I thought I would jump in and have some fun with foreshortening with some astronaut portraits. I made a step by step for how to draw. I think we will use oil pastels or crayons along with paint (mostly for the background.)
I’ll add more photos once we finish! 🚀👨🏽🚀🛸🌝☄️🌎
Third graders will be starting to hone their cursive writing technique next week in art class. The kids are always so excited about learning to write cursive. Last year I tried a cursive writing project with them for Dia de Los Muertos. It was pretty difficult so I thought I would try something less so this time.
After some practice with letters and their names, we will be making name bugs. A few of the kids noticed mine the couple of days and are pretty excited about getting started.
Here is mine, step by step and I’ll be sure to share their when complete!
Finished!
Here are a few of the kids’ in progress:
Collin 
Aria
Ciara
Noel
Kindergarten learned about texture while creating these beautiful, bright, and colorful cacti. I found this lesson at Jamestown Elementary who created them with her 5th graders but I thought my Kinders would really appreciate this project as well. They did a great job, really.
We started with a directed drawing of the pot and the cacti and then reviewed patterns and filled in our pots with different designs. We colored the actual cactus with regular crayons and then used payons (watercolor crayons) to color the background. The last day was spent painting over the background with water.
Check ’em out!
Here I am checking out the cactus garden room at the Biltmore House in Asheville, NC this weekend! I thought of my Kinders as soon as I saw them.
Here’s some more colorful cacti! I love them all!
Just a few pics of the NOrth Carolina projects we are working on! Love them all!
First graders are getting in on the Dia de Los Muertos fun with their monarch paintings. We drew with sharpies, colored with crayon, and will be painting next week with watercolors!
Instead of a directed drawing, I decided to just show them quickly how I draw a butterfly and then let them go for it.
UPDATE:
A couple of the classes have painted their flowers this week and they are so pretty.
These beautiful landscapes were inspired by the lesson over at Apex Elementary Art. We switched it up a little to incorporate all three regions of North Carolina – the mountains, Piedmont, and the coastal plains. NC history is the focal point in 4th grade social studies so this is one of those perfectly aligned cross-curricular projects.
We sketched everything out with pencil first and then traced with a black crayon. Next week we will start painting with those nice translucent tempera paints.
I can’t wait to see their final products. I’ll update again when we are finished!
Update! We started painting this week and they are looking fabulous! Man, where did those awesome painting skills come from. (They came from me 😉 ) can’t wait to see the finished products!
I want to share every single one of these! They all look great. I am so proud of how well they are painting and experimenting a little with color and design.
UPDATE!
These gorgeous paintings are finished and hanging in the foyer of the school. They really pop against that brick wall!
My second graders love learning about Salvador Dali and looking at pictures of him and his artwork. He’s so crazy and cooky, it’s right up their alley. We also learn about blending and intermediate colors, and analogous color schemes with this crayon resist project.
Back in October I posted about all of our Art to Remember projects. Fifth. Graders are starting this week on their zentangle paw prints. They are looking great and are coming up with some nice backgrounds to make them different from their neighbors.
They started by sketching out the paw print with pencil and then adding the lines in the background. Next, they traced everything with Sharpies as well as added the zentangles inside the paw. They finished them up by using school colors to color in the vivid background.
Most are still in progress but a few have already finished.
A fellow art teacher made these with her students last year and though she is braver than I and let them paint the whole thing, we did paint the background. It was a directed drawing and then we colored the smaller parts and painted the sky. They have turned out so cute and as always, each little reindeer has it’s own personality!
This project was inspired by a photo I found on pinterest. Initially it was a dead-end photo but the artist reached out to me and so now I know who this awesome piece of art belongs to and she even has a tutorial on her own site for how to go about making hers. Here’s the link: a shoebox of photographs: A Tree Grows (and a paper crane update)
http://rettg.blogspot.com.au/2011/01/tree-grows-and-paper-crane-update.html
This project works perfectly to discuss warm and cool colors with my third graders. It also created a great opportunity to practice using rulers and a compass.
These pictures are my examples step by step. I’ll add pictures of their work when we are finished!
tinyartroom 