Painted Paper Owls

 

1st graders made painted papers and then turned them into these awesome fall owls! I had paint containers with tempera paint with the colors, yellow, orange and brown. I had 2 yogurt cups with 2 pencils in each (so each table had 4 pencils total).

 First step was writing their name and class in the middle on the back of 2 sheets of 12x9 white thicker drawing paper(so when they cut stuff out their name is already on it!). I had students paint both papers with paint in order of my direction. Students had 2 minutes per color. First we stuck out paint brush in yellow to paint....5...4....3....2...1.. hold your paint brush up! Next color is....ORANGE, GO! Then another 2 minutes and so on. I explained it's okay to have the same paint brush in the colors as long as you go in my color order because it won't mess up the paint color! Then students put down their brush.

Then students brought papers to the drying rack and then rinsed brushes, cleaned tables and hands!

The next time when their two painted papers were dry we followed these steps. Pick one of the papers for the body. Cut the bottom two corners off. On your other sheet of paper cut out 2 triangles for the ears. Glue ears on top of body. I had brown rectangles of paper for the 'tummy' (5x7) and had triangle tracers to set on top and cut out. Glue on brown tummy. To trace eyes, just dump out the pencils from the yogurt containers and trace the yogurt containers onto slips of white paper for the eyes! Cut out and glue on. Use a black marker for the pupil of the eyes. For the feet, cut yellow construction paper rectangles (2x 5). I showed students how to draw a zigzag and cut out the triangles for the feet and beak. Glue on! Done!

 

 

 

Indian Corn with Kinders!

 We got into the November and fall mood with beautiful Indian Corn! We made these by doing finger painting dots! Each table had a container of 4 different colors of paint. By Miss Oetken controlling the ORDER and how long ("Wait for the signal to start and stop. Hold your finger in the air when you hear the signal to stop.Wait to hear the next color!") they were applying paint. With one finger,  holding it up to show they were ready (I always joke, only the nice fingers are invited to this party. No naughty fingers allowed!:) ), I could call out the color they were supposed dot onto the corn copy and make sure we weren't mixing all the colors-making sure everyone was on the same page using the correct technique. I kept telling them to "dot to dot to dot.." and demonstrated the motion. "Here's what I don't want to see,(using a blending motion back and forth). "Don't use your finger like a paint brush or it won't look like the kernels of corn we looked at. I"m looking for the dot to dot to dot to dot". I also

 

 encouraged students to use the same finger. "We are going in a color order where it won't hurt the color your same finger goes into next! It's ok today!" Next time, cut out the corn when dry.

For the husk to have some texture, all I did was peel back some cardboard (the top layer rips off and the middle is revealed to have some corrugated cardboard texture) and then cut them into squares to provide rubbing texture plates. Have students trace the husk template with a pencil on the brown paper. Slide the texture plate underneath the brown paper, then use the side of a brown crayon to rub on the brown paper to pick up the texture underneath! Finally cut out and glue the husk to the top of the bunch!

Help! Is Impasto Impossible!? Recipes?

HELP! We're studying Van Gogh and his heavy, thick, distinct, brushstrokes. I really want to make impasto for my students, scrape it on in a picture form, then paint over when dry. RECIPE?! HELP! What to use to make large amounts! Anyone out there with ideas? And it needs to be in expensive in large amounts:) Help soon!:)

Waving Monsters

I love this ryhming book that's all about cute and hilarious monsters called "Monster Munchies". The students roar with laughter and the pictures are great for inspiration for monster drawing since there are such a wide variety of color and different types of monsters. After the book I showed students how to make a "waving monster". First make a fist. Put the fist near the edge of your paper (hot dog style position of paper) and trace around with a crayon. Lift up and you'll see you have a "paw" or arm waving. Then draw a large wavy oval around the whole paper to create the monster. Fury? Slimy? Hairy? How many eyes does it have? Does it have eye lashes? Eye brows? Mouth? Teeth? Is it mean? A girl or boy? Legs? More arms? Give it some line and pattern. Color it in with bright crayons!



Primary Colors with Jasper Johns!

Jasper Johns famous painting

Kindergarteners studied the primary colors (red, blue and yellow) and made their own version of Jasper Johns masterpiece! We looked Jasper Johns and with the same colors of paint, we dipped forks into paint and make fork prints every-which-way to get the same effect!

Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!

Vroom Vroom, Pigeon at the wheel!

 I absolutely love the Mo Willems pigeon series. They are hilarious, easy reads, make kids laugh, but also learn. Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus imitates what children act like when they want something really bad. They pry, beg, and say just about anything hoping you'll grant their only wish! This books helps kids relate and laugh. He's begging to drive this bus that the bus driver left and he asks his audience, Can you watch my bus? Oh, and don't let the pigeon drive the bus!

We brainstormed what else could the pigeon dive? Different modes of transportation! We raised our hands and went around and came up with a huge list of different ideas. I made the hand out above. First color in the pigeon with the steering wheel. Then cut out. Glue your pigeon in the middle of the paper. Use a pencil to draw what the pigeon will drive. Color in with crayon! Where is the pigeon? Does it need a sky? Is it driving on the road? Trees? Is it a monster truck? WHere are the cars it's driving over?

just a pigeon driving down the road on a sunny day

Watch out! Pigeon driving a semi on the road!

pigeon driving a bus

deep sea diving in a summarine!

Chiaroscuro with Vermeer's "Girl with the Pearl Earring"

 

I posted this before (http://artasticartists.blogspot.com/search/label/Vermeer) , but I just wanted to show you amazing the students did on showing "chiaroscuro" (showing a bright light source and having deep dark shadow/contrast). First we did the step by step drawing together. Then traced over with glue. When dry the next time, I had the students follow me with how to apply color with the pastel. We worked color by color and were not allowed to shade with their finger until we were done. We made sure we barely applied the chalk pastel, therefore the other half would have a dark shadow and not much color. Then students made a small Model Magic earring, hot glued it in place (we went over glue gun safety!) with a dot, and then came back to their table where I had metallic medium and plastic brushes to paint their earring that was already attatched.

a handout I tweaked that talks about the history of Vermeer and the painting

A student going over the pencil drawing after we walked through it



painting metallic medium on the clay pearl earring