Illustrated Quotes

This is an opportunity for the students to look for their favorite quote, and if they do not have one, to choose now.

What quote or phrase inspires you? How can you illustrate it?

I handed students working sheets to practice writing with pretty calligraphy, just print out alphabets found online using a light gray (lower down the resolution when printing) and ask the students to trace with pencils or calligraphy markers. Once they feel confident, they can practice writing their chosen quotes (if they do not have one, you can print out or project a bundle for them to choose) in a sketchbook or recycled paper. Once they are confident they can choose how to decorate their quote and move to their final paper (my middle school students are using watercolor sketchbooks, I found a local supplier selling large sketchbooks with great watercolor paper for 7 USD, a real deal), then worked on their illustration sketching with a pencil, then water coloring it. When the drawing was done, they wrote the quote with pretty calligraphy, using a pencil; we then used the ink mess to add color on that surface (use plastic folders and scribble randomly using markers, then add water with a spray bottle on top. Press on the surface where you want an ink mess). Let dry very well before tracing the quote with a marker.

Fruit Mosaics

This lesson plan can be adapted to any grade level and it is fantastic a fantastic way to exercise focus and spatial thinking skills.

Sketching with real fruit helps students to pay attention to detail and enhances observational skills

One class I brought real fruit for the students to sketch. I asked to take not on the imperfections and light as they drew, once outlined they colored with coloring pencils; this step is not needed to make a mosaic but I like to do projects focusing on different angles. Next class we outlined a fruit, could be the one we choose last class or another one; I asked them to make the fruit filling most of the paper in this case it was a A4 sized cardboard. Once all of the students have their fruit outlined, I explained the basics of mosaics, basically we work with squares the whole time until we come into a space where the square does not fit, in that space, we use a pencil to trace where exactly should we cut the paper to make it fit, then cut and stick. When the fruit was done, I asked them to use a contrasting color for the background and continue filling the space in the same manner.

This activity, be warned, demands a substantial amount of patience, which makes it a great activity for the students, have you noticed the more screen time, the less patience they have?

Here are some pictures, from my grade 3 students.

Enjoy!

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Kindness Art Projects Galore

During the month of November the school counselors and the art teachers worked together in an antibullying campaign at our school. Students made videos, art projects, educational posters and more to rise awareness on the cruel reality of bullying, and to teach them how we can be an upstanders and how we are responsible of our own school environment.

With younger students I focused on Kindness and what does it mean to be kind. We talked about the traits that good friends have, and throughout the month we talked about writing nice notes, saying hello or good morning, inviting classmates that are lonely to join us in playing, smiling to others and so on. Grade one students made a “BEE KIND” art project with flower vases, roses and bees. We made Ming vases for our flowers too, giving me an opportunity to talk about patterns and ask them to fill in the vase using them.

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Grade 2 Students worked with bringing phrases “alive” through a collage. They needed to write phrases such as “Kindness is….smiling often”, “Kindness is….. a friendly hello”, “Kindness is…..making someone smile” and so on. Once students chose one they used paper cuttings to assembled a collage, I used body templates to start with, then they could continue dressing them up and adding details.

Grade 3 students worked with Kindness Quotes and Calligraphy written in a marbled paper, some quotes like “Kindness is Free….Sprinkle it Everywhere” turned very popular….kids do like sprinkles don’t they?

We had been working on paper marbling so those were ready to go! You can find directions to paper marbling here.

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Grade 4 students wrote acrostic poems, I gave them a selection of words that resonated with the topic, and after choosing one, they went on to write their poems. We also used a marbling technique to decorate the borders, using less water in the pans and holding them carefully to dip them down one side at a time.

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Upper Elementary and Middle School worked in teams to make Anti Bullying educational posters using basic supplies (markers, scraps of paper, glue, scissors and tempera disks), I gave them a presentation about Bullying Facts and they were sent to work with their teams. These are some final products:

It was great to reach the target, all students thought, talked about and represented in an artistic way how we can be a good friend, how to be an upstander and not being mean to others.

Design your own Gingerbread House

Students love to design, for this class I (early December) I asked them to design their own Gingerbread House.

I gave them a few guidelines:

• Use a ruler, this way wobbly designs look well done and professional. Shapes could be as simple as they liked, but I asked them to make sure they were straight.
• Use perspective, I reminded them of 3 sections in our landscapes, we have the background (usually the top of the paper or the sides), the middle ground (usually the center of the paper or between the center and the sides) and the front ground (found at the bottom of the paper or the center). Depending on their design, they should add 3 different sections, variating sizes to give the illusion of deepness.

I always remind to the students to sketch lightly so there are no erasing marks. Once the design was completed, they outlined with a permanent marker (ink, sharpie). I then gave them time to have fun with watercolors, my students are still learning and experimenting with them, I can see they are learning to adjust the right water to paint ratio and to control this runny medium as they go.

Some designs were very creative, I had a pirate boat (all made out of Ginger), a futuristic looking lake house, a House inside a water globe, a design transformed into a puzzle and so much more.

Have fun!

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Adorable Snowmen for the little ones

My students always get excited when I tell them it is time to make Christmas art projects. I like to start early so I have the finished work decorating around on time.

This year I had lots of A4 light brown cardboard, so I decided to paint snowmen there instead of the usual light blue cardboard, and asked my Grade 2 students to use the white tempera paint to paint a hill (or a flat ground) followed by one or more snowman, with two or more “bumps”. Once that is completed, they can add snowflakes with paint and/or stamp white dots using Q-tips (earbuds). My students LOVE to splash white paint on top of their artwork but this year my Grade 2 classes are quite big and I decided we would stamp snow instead. Let dry.

Next class I handed brown and black markers to add eyes, mouth and arms, I told them to keep it quite simple this time, so they look cute, “today less is more”, they then could choose buttons from a container and some sparky snowflakes I found at a craft store, and glue them up with white glue. Once they finished that part they came to the front table where I had orange paint and added a nose, then took their work to the drying racks. It was a quick and simple project to put together, and the snowmen turned out really cute!

Enjoy.

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Landscape collages

This project was inspired by http://www.thatartistwoman.org there are great projects in there for art teachers. Thank you Gail!

We started by dividing our paper in 3 sections, then I handed the students blue and green tempera paint. They needed to paint the sky with blue, the hill with green and then the waterfront with a mix of those two colors. Students could make a flat landscape or a hill shaped view. Once it dried out, they painted in clouds and bushes if desired, and then, they added houses and water / sky objects using paper cuttings from leftover paper prints and patterned paper as well as old newsprints. I handed prints of different shaped buildings, water objects and birds for inspiration, but they were also encouraged to come up with new ideas. The important lesson here was, objects that are closer to the viewer are bigger and those further are much smaller. I asked them to use at least 3 different sizes of buildings and place them in the right “spot”. The optical illusion is great only if we have small (tiny) buildings or houses on the back of the hill (near the top) and much larger objects closer to us (the bottom of the land, near the waterfront). Once the glue dried up, they used oil pastels (white, green or blue) to add waves and markers to add windows and additional details to their artwork. They turned out very colorful and looked great exhibited in the windows!

Enjoy!

Cave Art (Art History Level 1)

This is the very beginning of Art History, for Grade 1 Students.

I introduce students to the very basics of Cave Art using a power point with actual pictures of this form of Art. We talk about how did people live back then, and then we discuss how could they paint without brushes, paint stores and canvases or paper. Why do we paint to start with? This is a very vivid discussion, that leads to explaining that we do Art to express ourselves, how do we feel at a particular moment, or how do we feel about a particular situation. We paint for the sake of creating something beautiful, as well for the sake of changing something (activism). We create art to tell a story as well, which is why (most likely) cavemen painted on the walls of caves.
We also talked about using what is around in nature to paint. I demonstrated this by rubbing soil and a leaf on a white piece of paper. Students noticed that we can use nature’s pigments to color something. Back then, they found pigments in minerals, plants, fruits and even animal’s blood.

Soil and a leaf rubbed on paper

We then talked about identifying basic shapes in objects we want to draw. I showed them how to identify rectangles, triangles and circles to outline a simple animal. I then handed outlines of cavemen hunting and animals (a quick google search away) and asked my students to draw a story on their cave wall (light brown colored cardboard). Students this age can be very creative. Last but not least, we talked about coloring neatly and outlining a drawing (we used colored pencils for coloring and markers for outlining) to make it look finished and neat. We also “signed” our work by tracing our hands on the back of the paper.

Enjoy!

NOTAN: Dark and Light Balance

As part of our Japanese Art Unit, we talked about the Japanese concept of NOTAN. The translation is “dark and light balance”, and we discussed how an artwork can be enhanced by properly balancing the light and the dark colors in a painting. We made paper NOTANS using scissors and colored paper. Students were asked to design their own notans and to draw on all 4 sides of the paper.

STEP 1. Take the colored paper square, place it on top of a larger piece of white cardboard and mark the location of the corners (using a pencil) on the cardboard where you will glue your Notan once you finish. This small marks will help you align your paper as you work on the sides.

STEP 2. Design simple drawings, these can be abstract or you can follow a theme of objects and drawings. I asked my students to use all four sides of the paper. Some didn’t forgot and made two only as you can see in the pictures, but most used all four sides.

STEP 3. Cut out one side at a time, don’t forget to add a second cutting inside the cut you just made, and stick to the cardboard as you go, the first (largest) cut is glued outside and the second cutting (smaller) goes back inside, this will make more sense as you star working on it.. Make sure you align with the marks you traced using a pencil and re-aligning the colored paper as you go.

STEP 4. Make sure all is glued up properly, check for “flappy” pieces of paper and stick them so it looks like ONE piece of paper. The center paper (where you cut the shapes from) is aligned and glued up at the end.

Eric Carle inspired CNY rats

We made this cute rats during Chinese New Year season, with Kindergarten and Grade 1.

We started by painting a white piece of cardboard with gray, pink and yellow.

I divided the page onto three sections, the first one taking 3/4 of the paper, and the left 1/4  I divided in two (you can bring up some math and ask what portion of the paper represents each of the small squares!)

I then asked students to paint the largest piece with gray, and the other two with pink and yellow.  It is perfectly fine that they paint unevenly and roughly, we need texture!

Once the paper was dry, I asked them to make one BIG circle and one smaller circle on the gray paper, and then 4 triangles wherever they could fit them in the leftover space.  Then we made two big ears on the pink paper and a small nose. Lastly, they made slices of cheese. Cut out and stick on a background paper, let them choose the color they think will enhance their posters. I usually tell students to be careful when sticking their paper and to make sure it looks like one piece of paper, not 2. It shouldn’t be “flappy” or they will ruin the visual impact or “trick” of this artwork.

Once it is well glued on the paper (I always have to check and send them back to fix here and there) we used permanent markers (sharpies or any alcohol based marker) to add fingers, whiskers and eyes. Not pictured here: They added HAPPY NEW YEAR! too.

Enjoy!

Big Cats in the Jungle

Students got a lesson about big cats, some of its distinctive characteristics and fun facts. Then they choose one to sketch (lion, cheetah, puma, panther, tiger, lynx) and I directed the sketch to grade 3 students. Older classes can make their own sketches using real pictures.  Using visual finders (lesson here) gives unique results.

Once they were happy with their sketches, they outlined using a black crayon (stripes, rosettes, spots and eyes were outlined and colored with the crayon too). They then proceeded to watercolor.  Once the paint was dry, they cut out some leafs (flowers and even fruit) to add to the paintings, and finally they added shades and detail using oil pastels to  enhance both their animals and the leafs. Emphasize the use of lighter and darker colors for this.  We used dark brown and black where we needed some shading, and white and light yellow where we wanted to add light.

While working on this lesson, we talked lots about the needs of wild cats, their habitat and endangered animals, we talked about what we can do to keep them safe or contribute somehow to their well being.  Using less plastics, not wasting food and planting more trees were common comments between grade 3 students.