Brown Bag Owl

I was asked to create a Fall art project for my son's Fall Party. I needed to keep the project under 30 minutes. I prepped a lot for this to speed up the project. I liked it so much that I had my students do this also.  I created another art project similar to this. You can see here. I used many of the same elements minus the sewing (yarn).

I started out the lesson by talking about characteristics of an owl (feathers, big eyes, wings). I first started with the texture. I love to do U's or V's to represent  feathers. Students used sharpies for this. I had the students do the front and the back. (My son's class skipped this part because it is a bit time consuming). Then I had students cut out a larger smile on the top of the bag. This helped
 create ears (even though owls ears only consist of holes).

I pre-cut a rectangle to help students with the size of the belly. Directions were to create a big rainbow and connect at the bottom. Students were to create a line design and a pattern with color. I had students use construction paper crayons for the color.

Then students traced circles and cut out the eyes and pupils.
Students created their beak. Open or closed beak - it was their choice.
I then demoed ways to create the feet/claws. Then students glued the items to the brown bag.

The owls were stuffed with paper and the top of the bag glued shut. I used a hot glue gun to glue the real leaves on. The leaves were prepped with a gloss spray for a sealer.

Hand Print Moose

 

This art project is one of my favorites. I have fallen in love with MOOSE. A teacher in my building had a pre-made bulletin board of a moose. I walked by it everyday last year and thought....what a cute moose. Of course when an art teacher sees something he or she likes ....a project is born. Two things I knew I wanted to do was handprints for antlers and painted paper .

 

Students created texture by drawing lines to create fur. Then students painted paper using watercolors. This project dealt with shapes. Paper was cut to a specific size for each body part. I wanted to help students with proportions. It is easier for my younger groups to have paper cut down to help with drawing to the size they need. 

 

6x7 painted brown (head) – cowbell shape

7x8 painted brown (body) - light bulb shape

4x7 painted brown (legs) – steak fries shape

(2) 3x4 painted brown (ears) - tear drop shape

 

3x6 painted yellow orange (nose) – rounded rectangle

4x4 painted yellow orange (belly) – flower petal shape

 

 

Students used construction paper crayons for the background. 

 

Playing around with PicCollage

 I thought I would share a few of my collages.

HundertwaSSer

 I taught a Hundertwasser lesson a few weeks ago. I saw  MANY examples on Pinterest and combined the parts that I liked. I loved the end results. I started out with the students using tempera paint (for adding texture) but the last few classes I had them use watercolors. I didn't like the thickness in the paper after the tempera paper dried.

 

SCRAP PAPER

I started sorting my scrap paper by color and putting the paper in small trash containers. I bought the trash containers at the Dollar Tree. I think the containers could be a bit bigger though. I saw this idea on Pinterest using cardboard folder holders and thought I NEED THIS. I think the cardboard folder holders were more for an individual scrap booking versus an art room.

After sorting the papers out I realized that I need to start utilizing this scrap paper and put a dent in it. After break I have only 9 weeks left and do not want a ton of scrap paper to start the upcoming school year.

SnOwMeN framed faces - Bulletin Board

 I recently took this bulletin board down. 

I thought I would share it.

Birds and Birch Trees

I am sure many of you have seen this art project on the web at Deep Space Sparkle. I really enjoyed this lesson because it offered a variety of techniques and materials. I first gave students a 12x18 piece of white drawing paper. Students folded the paper into 8 sections. Students drew different designs in each rectangle using crayons. Then students used water colors to paint the remainder of the rectangles. The painted paper was used for the birds.

I offered students the option to trace the birds or create their own. I created tracers for the birds in the handout below.

Winter Pine Trees

I found this lesson on Pinterest and it is from an art teacher blog, Artolazzi. I thought the project turned out so beautiful that I wanted to have my students do it to. I loved how they all turned out. I added 3-d O's to the lesson. The two trees that are in the foreground received 3-d O's. It makes the trees pop out from the other trees.

All these pictures I edited from my apps on my phone. However, I still had to go to ipiccy and picmonkey to add text. Need to find an app to add text. I am working on advancing my tech skills.

My dilema over buying paint.

My students just recently finished creating textured clay fish. My whole thought process was that I was not going to use glaze but buy several different colors of metallic paints. I was just going to go to the craft store with my 50% off coupon and buy a set of six. Well....that is what I thought but that is not what happened. There was not a set I could buy and each bottle was $3.99. I didn't want to spend the money so I waited until the next day to go take a  look in my cabinets. This is what I found.....

Acrylic glitter glaze medium. No it is not metallic paint but it is different than just the regular tempera or adding modge podge to shine up the ceramic projects. Did I mention the kids loved the colors too (BONUS)! I just used a little tempera and more of the glaze and created my own glitter paint and a variety of colors.

NUTCRACKERS

I found an art lesson a few years back on artsonia and I switched it up a bit. This lesson is one of my favorites to do around the holidays. I have students use construction paper crayons, black sharpies, colored pencils, and gold paint.

 I have the black paper cut to 12x12 and the peach or tan cut to 6x9. I have the face tracers pre-made for the students to trace and cut out. I do step by step drawings of facial features and the uniform.

FLAMINGO Collage

  I did this project at the start of the school year. I saw a picture on Pinterest and I wanted my students to do a similar version of the painting. Students could decide to draw their own contour of the bird or could trace using the tracers I made. I also had pictures I printed off. This was before I received my Smart Board. Now I do not print out handouts anymore. I just put the images on the Smart Board. So much easier plus I save paper and time.

 I had students use newsprint for the head and body and newspaper for the beak.

Now time to splatter!!! The students really enjoyed this part. I taped newspaper to the wall and placed newspaper on the floor. I had different shades/colors of pink for students to use. 

 Some students used large googly eyes. The googly eyes really looked cute. I am not a huge fan of googly eyes but sometimes they do make a project look better.

Pumpkins! Pumpkins!

I'm BACK!!! My goal this year was to post once a week and I have not made that goal. It has been a busy first quarter plus my hard drive failed and I lost everything on my computer:( However, I finally got my computer fixed and am back to blogging.

A few weeks into the start of school I was surprised with a smart board entering my room. I have been busy trying to learn the software and create lessons. I am super excited! I have to say at first I was not. I didn't want to have to learn another new technology and felt overwhelmed at the beginning of the year. I am happy to say now I enjoy using the smart board and my students LOVE it.

Every year at Thanksgiving my school has a Thanksgiving lunch on the last day before break. We all eat in the gym and I am responsible for the table decorations. This year the students are making pumpkins out of paper lunch bags and painted paper. I think they turned out beautiful.

Contour Plant Drawing

Contour Plant Drawing with DESIGNS and PATTERNS

 

 

 

This is one of my favorite assignments I do for High School art. First students need to draw the contour of the plant and pot. The pot then needs to be broken up into at least three sections in the front. After that students are to create pattern designs in every area. Designs switch when it enters a new section. An example is in the stem area. The stems are broken up by the leaves being in front. This creates sections in the stem. Each section is a differt design pattern. I also like to focus on contrast. Students need to think about thick and thin lines, straight or curvy lines, black and white, and other unique designs that create contrast. The background needs to be a continous pattern. I use sharpies for this assignment. 

BIRDHOUSE COLLAGE

COLLAGE #2

 

 

The students really enjoyed using all of the fun materials.

• First I had students paint the background paper (9x24) using blue watercolors and the rubbing alcohol technique. This technique is used by applying rubbing alcohol to the wet paint using a dropper.
•  Next the students worked on their birdhouses. I created birdhouse tracers that they could choose from. The birdhouses were traced onto scrapbook paper. The students enjoyed this. I seldom buy scrapbook paper to use in art projects. I just may start buying more.
• The students designed their birdhouse on the backside of the scrapbook paper.
• Then it was time for the FUN part. Students used buttons, scrap paper, mosaic pieces, wood pieces, and whatever else I could find in my room.
• Then construction paper pieces. This included the grass, the wooded post, and the flowers.
• Last but not least our cotton balls for clouds.

Have you ever used 3-d O's? This is how I had the students attach their birdhouses to the paper.

I did this project a few different ways this past week. On Fridays I travel to another building to teach two classes. I teach ART on the CART there. I do paint with the students (on Friday classes) but when I have the students paint we have  to head down to the cafeteria. For this project I did not  have them paint. I just used blue construction paper.

Flower and Vase Collage

COLLAGE

 

 

 

My elementary students are focusing on creating a collage out of a variety of materials. The background is a crayon resist using watercolors. The table cloth is from a sample book of curtains. If you know anyone that can get you these samples take them up on it. I have tons of these book samples. The border is made of scrapbooking paper. The vase is construction paper and construction paper crayons. The flowers are made out of construction paper and buttons.

 

 



 

Birds with Patterns and Designs

Teacher Example

All summer long the only work I did for school was pin on Pinterest. I noticed that I was pinning a lot of bird ideas. You will be seeing a lot of birds this year. I started the students off by drawing the bird. I do a lot of step by step procedures. First the students drew an egg shape for the body of the bird. Then a beak and a tail. I then moved on to the wing and belly. The eye was last. I had the students draw a large eye. After that the students drew patterns and designs inside the bird. Next a black sharpie. Students went over their pencils lines in black. Then I have them erase the pencil lines. COLOR SCHEME!!!! Students could only pick 5 colors for their bird color. The colors were also incorporated in the background. I am so impressed with the background. I think it adds something special to the work.

I couldn't wait to post so right now I only have two student projects to show you. I think my students did a fabulous job!