In progress…

This is my board right now and we have lots of new projects happening but they are all “in progress” so I promise I will post about each one when we are finished! 🙂

School Spirit Zentangles

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.

Watercolor Pumpkins

I saw these beautiful pumpkins at Angela Anderson’s blog and decided to recreate them with my fourth graders. They started by sketching the pumpkins with pencils and then tracing with sharpie. I gave them the option of drawing one large pumpkin or several overlapping pumpkins. Most of them chose to do just one big one. Then we filled them with zentangles but I reminded them before we started that step that we would be painting these. One of our goals is to show the highlights and shadows with the watercolor so they didn’t need to do super detailed tangles, just loose, open designs. The next step was to add the background. I just had them color green and blue – nothing detailed – so that the pumpkin would really pop. Next week we will paint them and I’ll update with pictures!

Warm & Cool Trees

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!

North Carolina Lighthouse Paintings

Fourth graders started these awesome lighthouse pictures today. We looked at some artists from North Carolina that paint seascapes and lighthouses and then looked at some of the famous lighthouses along the Outer Banks.

We started by drawing a few levels of waves and then they had to choose a lighthouse to draw. Then we added zentangle designs to the waves. Next week we will paint the sky and water. Debating on adding a ship. Last year we didn’t do the lighthouse but did 2 ships. I’ll probably let the kids decide.

I thought these two were already looking pretty awesome!

Tangled Up Zen

We are finally starting to finish the zentangles and they are turning out beautifully! Some examples:

Ready, Set, FUND RAISE!!!

So it begins, the annual march to make some extra money for my classroom. The actual fundraising will not start until Spring but the making of the artwork starts NOW! 🙂 I’m spreading it out this year in an attempt to not be quite so harried about it. First grade is going first and are working on their owl pictures. These turned out amazing last year and I had so many compliments from parents and staff that I thought it would make a great choice.

Check out some of the works in progress!

4th grade Zentangle Owls

Color Wheel Zen

Finally, the day has come for me to use a Zentangle! I discovered these beauties awhile back and even posted about wanting to do them, but now I have found a way to use them and add color. In discussing the art element of color with 3rd graders, I didn’t want to do the name color wheel that i’ve done before but I really didn’t have any other plan. As I was browsing Pinterest (a forgetful idea-hoarder’s dream?) I came across this beautiful picture, which led me to an artist’s flickr page. She makes artist trading cards and apparently this was one of them.

I wanted mine to come full circle instead of just going across the page. I tried letting the kids divide it up themselves, but most of them had too many sections and some people didn’t cross them on top of each other, so finally I just made copies of my original 6-section square. We looked at some examples of zentangles, showed them the original that I loved, and then we got started! I can’t wait to see how they all turn out!

Here’s my finished product. We had to take a break to work on some bookmarks for moms this past week so hopefully the color wheels will be finished by next week!