Off with their heads!!!

I love these playing card self portraits so much! You can find examples of these all over the Internet on the art Ed blogs. They are always great and I decided to try my hand at them with my 5th graders. I believe I attempted this with some older kids many years ago when I taught middle school grades but these are turning out much better than I remember.  🙂

We used photo booth on the Mac to take their pictures – printed out two copies (unless they wanted to be a joker) and then they drew their own designs. I put up examples of playing cards to help them but they could do their own thing if they wanted. 

   
    
   

   
 

Here are some of the finished pieces!

   
    
    
   

Never Eat Soggy Waffles

Never Eat Soggy Waffles!

Great advice, right?! This was the wisdom one of my 4th graders shared with her class when they were trying to remember the order of the cardinal directions as we were drawing our compass roses.

The kids have done a great job designing and creating these with a compass and ruler. We have started painting them and will finish by mounting them to cut up road maps. 

I found this awesome lesson at Artisan des Arts! 🙂 

   
    
 

Folk Art Friskies

I’m looking forward to starting these precious folk art style black cats with my kinders next week.  We are getting in lots of practice with painting, lines, shapes, and colors this first quarter.  I found this lesson on Art Projects for Kids – check out her original post here.  It goes well with the Halloween season but if you don’t do holiday art, you could always do another animal or do it at a different time of year.  I’ve posted my step by step pictures and I’ll post their works of art (which are sure to be way cuter and filled with lots of personality) when we are finished.

  
   
    
 

Some finished products…

Most students had a difficult time with the border. They grasped the idea of a pattern but put in a ton of lines to create their blocks so it took them forever to color. I did learn to tell them to use their thumb as a spacer when creating them. That helped a little. 

   
    
    
   

Continual Line Drawing

I am so loving these continual line drawings of owls that my 3rd graders are working on. It is so hard for some of them to let go of perfection. They look at me like I am absolutely nuts when I tell them they can’t pick up their marker until they are completely finished with the drawing. Luckily, there is a great, short video on the original site for this project. It can be found here: megduerksen.com

The drawing goes quickly but the coloring will take awhile. This also seems to be a great way to squeeze every last drop of ink out of the markers for the year. 🙂 

   
         

  

   
      

Snowmen at Play

This is a fun project I came across on Artsonia by Blue Mountain Elementary students. I love the different perspective and that each picture can still be individualized.
I’ve shared pictures of the step by step process so far. We will share more when they are complete!

First Grade Foxes

I’m getting an early start on my Art to Remember projects this year and first graders are going first. For the last several years they made owls but I decided to switch it up this year with a different woodland creature. The foxes, just like the owls, are turning out precious and with such personality. Check them out so far…

UPDATED

April Free Draw Challenge!

Here is April’s free draw challenge.  I am attempting to upload a printable version… free draw challenge april

Draw Big or Go Home

The first graders did such a great job on their snow day self portraits, I decided to do this lesson I saw on Art Projects for Kids. It can difficult to get children to draw big sometimes, so really forcing the issue and giving them specific measurements and requirements helped. We followed APFK’s directions for the most part but I gave them options for a couple of variations as well.
In the first class, we discussed Chuck Close and his amazing paintings. Next we drew our pictures with pencil and then traced with Sharpies. That pretty much took up the whole class so next week we will paint them. I’ve already had kids asking if they have to paint their real skin color or if they could paint crazy colors. I really don’t care either way. Just looking at the drawings, I know they will be super cute and filled with personality!

UPDATE:

Free Draw Challenge: March

Here’s our St. Patrick’s Day-influenced Free Draw for March!

February Free Draw!

Well would you look at that!  TWO Free Draw posts in ONE day.  I am on FI-YAH!