We did self portraits last spring, but I really like to have students do one or two a year. It is so fun to see their progress. There was a little grumbling when I said we would be doing self portraits again, but I think they were all impressed with how much they had improved. […]
Last week we read The Magical Garden of Claude Monet by Laurence Anholt. While on a visit to Giverny, the main character, Julie, befriends Claude Monet and explores his beautiful gardens. We began our project by drawing the Japanese bridge made famous by Monet’s paintings. We used oil pastels to draw the bridge and create […]
Chalk pastel is so messy but so worth it! Last week we learned about Edgar Degas. We read Degas and the Little Dancer. Then we drew our ballerinas on colored paper with a light colored chalk pastel. Degas used diagonals a lot in his compositions. So, we created a diagonal floor line. Students were free […]
Our first project of the school year was based on John James Audubon. We began by reading The Boy Who Drew Birds. This book tells the story of John James Audubon and his fascination with birds. I found a great coloring book with line drawings of Audubon’s bird paintings. The line drawings in the coloring […]
So, I will admit that I was a little nervous about this workshop. Usually, I have a pretty good idea of how the projects will turn out. With this workshop, I really wasn’t sure. Could all the kids write their own story, fit it into 12 pages, illustrate, outline, and add color all in four […]
These owls were so fun to draw. We drew them with colored Sharpie. The one drawing rule was to not lift their pen off the paper the whole time they were drawing. Most students really found this challenging. They process creates lots of smaller, interesting shapes that they never would have drawn lifting their pen. […]
I LOVE how this project turned out! I recently went to a workshop in Santa Barbara, CA. One of the speakers was Gina Lee. She did a very similar whale project. I made a few adjustments to make this work for my workshops. I couldn’t be more pleased with how they turned out! We […]
A workshop on Mexican art wouldn’t be complete without a lesson on the Aztecs. We began by reading The Sad Night by Sally Schoffer Matthews. This is a longer story than I normally read in class. It gives a brief history of the Aztec civilization and then tells of their encounters and subsequent battles with […]
We did this clay project while we were doing our marigolds. We started out by painting square sheets of tag board for the background. Our goal was to create a subtle color change, gradually transitioning from one color to another. Then we got out the clay. For this project, we used Model Magic. This stuff […]
This was the first project for our Mexican Art workshop this summer. I knew this was going to be fun, bright, and cheery. But, I had no idea how absolutely stunning these would turn out! We started out by using sponges and tempera paint to create painted paper for our vases. Then we painted a […]
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