"Hand Trees" for Earth Day

For Earth Day on April 22nd I decided to do this simple hand tree project. The children would first trace their forearm and hand for the tree trunk and branches using patterned scrapbook paper. Next 2 sheets of textured paper are created using combs and clipper guards with tempera paint. After these are dry, the children cut out simple leaf shapes to adorn their tree. One of the girls in my Kindergarten class said she "had" to do a background. Since this is a private afterschool art class I can and try to give the children more freedom and choices to express themselves. In this case I was so glad to have her create this rich and beautiful oil pastel background of rolling hills. I think the results are stunning (and much more creative than my original idea.) Thanks for reminding me about the creative process Tess- your work is Beautiful!

Laurel Burch Cat Faces

There are a number of wonderful Laurel Burch projects out there on the blogs. She has a great style for kids to enjoy and mimic since her art is so colorful, graphic and bold.

For this project, we are going to focus on the cat face. After following a simple direct line drawing lesson, the children will adorn their cat with a their choice of a variety of simple graphic shapes: stripes, swirls, triangles ect..all with oil pastel. As always, I will encourage the children to press hard with their oil pastels as it really makes the drawing POP! My daughter did this piece which takes on an almost Mexican Aztec art feel. For the final touch, simple geometric shapes are cut from solid color scrapbook paper or construction paper and glued to a black posterboard background.

Laurel Burch is always a favorite amongst the children and I'm really looking forward to many beautiful inspirations to post in the next few weeks.

Mixed-Up Hockney Inspired Portrait

I did this project some time ago with a couple of my 2nd and 3rd grade classes. I introduced them to artist David Hockney and his wonderful cubist style photography pieces. I particularly like Hockney's photo collage of his mother.

To create our inspired pieces, I took 5 close up pictures of each child's facial features. I ordered double prints so each child could put together a portrait of themself as well as a crazy mixed-up portrait using classmates features put together. It was a big hit and this piece in my house still gets a lot of laughs. The children love to try and name each of the boys in the picture.

Moonlit Frogs with Curling Tongues

My 2 groups of kindergarteners are big on personality. It is a great age to teach because they are so fun, silly and bold - just like their art. So I came up with this project with their humor specifically in mind.

After a direct line drawing lesson, they painted their frogs on lily pads. I didn't limit them to green, but most opted for it. We painted our backgrounds on a separte piece of board. We kept it simple - large moon, blue-green pond and midnight sky. Some children preferred a daytime scene. The frogs are cut out and glued to the background. But first they cut a long tongue from construction paper which they wrap around their finger to make it curl. This is slipped into a small slit that I cut on the frogs' mouths. As I expected, a few boys plan to create a fly for their frogs to catch.

Frogs in progress

Big Fat Hens

Patty at Deep Space Sparkle posted this art lesson a little while ago. I decided to try it out with my kindergarteners. After the clouds of chalk dust cleared, I was left with some pretty adorable hens. Since few of my students had ever used chalk pastel, I think it was a great opportunity for them to get the feel of this medium. The hens themsleves were first drawn in permanent marker and then the details colored in hard with oil pastels. Lastly, I told the children to use a light touch when using the side of the pastel rather than the tip to add color to the background. Despite my direction in choosing just one finger to blend the pastel with a circular motion, I was left with a lot of brightly colored hands. But what fun they had!

Sailboat Collage

Day 1

Tissue and Tempera Background and texture paper for sailboats

We live in a beach town where instead of "how's the weather?" you often hear, "how's the surf?" Many of my students spend a huge amount of time at and in the ocean. So I thought it would be nice for my 2nd and 3rd graders to create a colorful sailboat collage using some of the Eric Carle style techniques.

First, the sky is created using torn strips of tissue in sunset colors. These are decoupaged using a glue and water mixture. The ocean is created with blues and greens (tempera) and then "combed" over with a cardboard comb to create currents. The children will create a variety of colored textured paper using combs, cotton balls, bubble wrap ect. The following week they will cut out simple sailboat shapes from their textured papers. Lastly, with a small brush and white acrylic paint they can create white caps in their water. I think their parents will love to hang these up.

Elephant Collage Remix

I did the same Eric Carle inspired elephant collage project with my 2nd kindergarten class with a few changes. Instead of newspaper we used black construction paper with 3 different tints of gray. To create texture we used bubble wrap, cardboard and spikey rubber balls. For some added whimsy and color I have a butterfly punch that they can use with scraps of brightly colored textured paper.