This is one of those projects that look simple but are filled with learning opportunities. Atmospheric perspective is creating the illusion of depth in a painting by simulating the effect atmosphere has on the color and detail of objects. Students began by mixing tints and shades of green to paint tall redwood trees. We began […]
Chalk pastels are notoriously messy but so worth it. For the past couple of weeks, we have been working on adobe houses with mountains using chalk pastels on dark blue paper. Since we have been buried in snow for several weeks now, setting these in a wintery setting seemed appropriate. I think some students decided […]
This was my first time to teach tessellations. Tessellations are single tiles repeated with no space in between. MC Escher used tessellations in his artwork, so we started out by looking at his work. Then we made our tiles. This part was a little tricky, but I like the method we used because it made […]
Ted Harrison was a Canadian artist who painted beautiful, simplified landscapes of the Yukon. I taught a Ted Harrison lesson several years ago, but I was inspired by Britt Curley to try a slightly different approach. The first time around, I used tempera paint and worked on 12X18 paper. Final lines were done with oil […]
Back in December (Yes, I am behind in posting!), we had a Christmas Workshop. It was a lot of fun, but the holidays kept me so busy, I am just now getting around to sharing the projects. For the main project, I decided to have students illustrate a partridge in a pear tree. We sang […]
This project combined drawing from life with some technical watercolor skills. Leaves are plentiful this time of year, so I brought a bag full for students to choose from. We drew with pencil. The older groups went over their lines with pencil. The younger groups went over their lines with black glue. While some detail […]
At least once a year, I try do do a mixed media collage. I think there is a lot of value in having students see how they can combine several small projects into one final piece. This project took three weeks to complete, but I think it was well worth it. There is a whole […]
I normally don’t do Day of the Dead projects, but I decided to give it a shot this year. We started by reading a cute book, The Dead Family Diaz. It was light and humorous with great illustrations. We started out by drawing our skulls on black paper with white oil pastel. We painted the […]
I wanted to start this session off with a project that is fun and not too difficult. This was just perfect! We started off by reading the book Arlo Needs Glasses by Barney Saltzberg. It tells the story of how Arlo can no longer play catch; the ball keeps hitting him in the face. Arlo […]
Coming up with a project for the last class of a session can be a challenge. Whatever we do has to be finished in that hour, and often there are some students who are still working on other projects. This little mixed media owl project was perfect! We drew the owls on blue paper and […]
Recent Comments