Merry Christmas from SoCal!

It certainly doesn't feel like Christmas here with a temperature of  81*( But I'm definitely not complaining) 

Wishing you all a Wonderful day and much happiness in the New Year!

Snowmen Collages

my example

Or I guess I should say snowpeople.  :)  I was admittedly overly ambitious to think the children could easily complete all the steps to create these collages in an hour and 15 minutes. In order to do so, it required me to become equal parts art teacher and drill sergeant. We first used liquid watercolor and salt to create our winter sky backgrounds. I had some Sax blue glitter watercolor which was fun for the kids to use and made their skies sparkle. The birch trees were created by scraping black acrylic paint across posterboard scraps using cardboard pieces. While these dried, the children made their snowpeople with chalk pastels on blue construction paper. At this point I brought out my hair dryer to hurry along the drying process. The snowpeople were cut out and the birch trees cut into strips. I encouraged the kids to vary the width of their trees to make them appear closer and further away. And last, they glued down all the elements. If we had more time, I would have had them add some cast shadows to their birch trees and maybe some extra snowfall. I will definitely try this project again at a more relaxed pace.

Wishing you all a Very Merry Christmas! Enjoy your time spent with family and friends!

Whimsical Winter Animals

My two Winter Holiday Art Fun classes revisited a couple favorite lessons with these tint and shade rabbits and foxes with watercolor skies. They have a wonderful illustrative quality which would make them perfect to accompany a short story or a poem. Both groups followed direct line drawing lessons to create their rabbits and foxes and shaded them with chalk pastels. Animals were cut out and glued to winter backgrounds.

Artwork by children 5 - 10

Notice Andie's addition of a very fancy pair of earrings

 Sweet fox by a sweet girl - Jenna, 5

I love how Ian chose to use every color offered,
creating a gorgeous watercolor sky

Sheep in the Snow

 Sami, 5

 Presley, 5

 Grace, 6

Jenna, 10

I'm finally getting to some seasonal art projects this month. The temperature has dropped into the 50's this week. For SoCal residents, this could be considered bitter cold. Although I know the rest of the country is dealing with "real" frigid weather right now. 

The children created their sheep on brown and blue construction paper with chalk pastels. They followed a direct line drawing lesson and used both the tip and the side of their pastels to create texture. I encouraged them to use a little smudged charcoal to create shadow and depth. On a separate piece of board I offered blue, black and purple liquid watercolors to create a wintertime sky. After this was dry they created snow using the backs of their brushes dipped in white acrylic.Sheep were then cut out and glued to their backgrounds.