"Zen Shorts" Inspired

This artist wanted a horizontal format

Some chose to omit the panda and keep it simple with the cherry blossom tree

This artist (9) turned Stillwater into a female

A BIG thanks to Erica from Art Project Girl for her post about the magical book, "Zen Shorts" by John J. Muth. Also thanks to Anna at Imagine, Explore, Create for her idea of using chalk pastel background for the straw blown ink cherry blossom trees. I thought the results were wonderful.

After Erica's recommendation, I purchased a used but flawless hardback copy from Amazon. The three stories the Giant Panda, Stillwater tells his three neighbor children have roots in Zen Buddhist literature that have been passed along for centuries. Muth's beautiful watercolor illustrations have earned him a Caldecot Honor. This book really is a gem.

The children first used chalk pastel (blending with their fingers) to create their sky. They then painted a moon in white acrylic. Some watered down black tempera was dropped along the side of their page and blown with a straw to create branches for their cherry blossoms. Once dry, they dipped a pencil eraser in white and red to create blossoms. On a separate paper we drew a simple panda that was colored with markers and colored pencils and cut out and glued to their background. I will do a revised version of this project with my Children's Book Art camp in a few weeks.

Kimmy Cantrell Inspired Salt Dough Masks

This mask was painted black first, and then gone over in metallics and brights

Key accented head

I have done cardboard masks inspired by the work of sculptor, Kimmy Cantrell. I had seen some wonderful clay masks at Mrspicasso's Art Room. I thought I'd give it a try with salt dough with my Messy Art Fun camp. After creating a face base we formed bold facial features using small pieces of dough. We used bits of hardware like Cantrell to accent our faces. We baked them until hard and painted them with acrylics. A final coat of Mod Podge gave them a nice glossy finish. These were a lot of fun to create.

Designer Cats and Expressive Dogs

Here are some glue and chalk pastel cats from my pre K thru 2nd graders

My younger students in Animal Art Fun used a photo of "Dylan" (below) from the SPCA of Northern Nevada to create their expressive dog drawings in oil pastel. I love all their individual and creative interpretations.

Yeah, I was adopted!- who couldn't love this face? :)

More Painted Pandas

This artist is not quite 5 years old

Beautiful Charlie!

Here are some of the wonderful pandas from my K-2nd graders.

Like my older students, they used oil pastel for the eyes and bamboo, acrylic for the pandas and watercolor for the background.

Fauvist Dog Portraits

Anneliese

Sabrina

Genyss

Rachel

Jillian

Wolfe (Yes, it says Wu Tang Clan)

This artist is a true original :)

Corrina

Abby

Shelby

I've done my fair share of commissioned dog portraits. They are straightforward and detailed pastels. But I really love the expressive pet portraits of artists like Carrie Jacobson.

My sister-in-law is on the board of directors for the SPCA of Northern Nevada (Reno's only no-kill animal shelter.) I thought it would be great to use my student's artwork towards a fundraising purpose or at the very least, compose prints of their art into a poster to give to the shelter. So my 4th-6th graders used a very cute terrier-mix, Sebastian (one of the shelter's adoptable dogs), as their model. They were encouraged to use analogous colors (colors that sit next to each other on the color wheel) to paint their pooch. We talked about trying to emulate Jacobson's expressive brush strokes. I think each painting has great personality. Well done all of you!

Paper Bag African Elephants

The above pieces were created by pre-K thru 2nd graders

(same background with a side view elephant )

Sharpie on paper bag

I've been working on an elephant art project that might suit my younger children more than the smaller format ink elephants. These are created using a paper grocery bag. I have used brown bags to create walruses in the past. I thought the wrinkly texture would work well with elephants as well. After drawing their animal and outlining in Sharpie, paint over with watered down gray. This step could be omitted as African elephants take on the reddish brown color of the soil that they wallow in. Lines can be darkened again with Sharpie before the elephant is cut out. The paper is gently crumpled and flattened out several times to mimic the wonderful wrinkly texture of the animal. A colorful savanna landscape is painted with acrylics or tempera and finally some oil pastel Acacia or "umbrella" trees are drawn in oil pastel.

Below are a from modified lesson from my 4th-6th graders

I think these elephants came out amazingly well considering we had just 40 minutes to complete the whole project at the end of our art camp. Half the class was finishing up other work, while the other half was ready to keep creating. (40 minutes is a bit too long for "free draw"). I had originally intended these elephants to be drawn in washable maker and gone over in water to create an ink effect. (As seen in my Indian Elephant post). But since we were crushed for time, the children shaded their elephants in charcoal or colored pencil instead. The African landscapes were done in chalk pastel.