This project was actually done in the fall, but I was having some technical issues with my website. I think I have that all worked out now and wanted to share more details about this project. I initially thought I would only teach this to the advanced group. However, after trying out an adapted way […]
For the last couple of weeks, we have been working on drawing and painting tropical fish. The older students worked in pencil and Sharpie, drawing from detailed illustrations of fish. The younger group used black oil pastel and drew from simple, stylized illustrations of fish. Both groups used liquid watercolor for the water, adding salt […]
I taught this project to a group of adults in December. That project really turned out great, so I decided to teach it to my K-6 classes. I can’t believe how well they did! Even my very youngest students (several 5 yr olds) did an amazing job. This project included so much: watercolor techniques (wet […]
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 […]
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 […]
I have tried this project at home using different mediums and was never quite happy with it. I finally decided to try it with liquid watercolor and oil pastels and knew this was going to be a winner. Controlling liquid watercolor with all the details was a challenge, but the oil pastel really helped. We […]
My busy K-2nd grade group did these watercolor resist birds today. We used oil pastels to draw the birds and add pattern. Then we painted the birds with liquid watercolor. This was a sweet ending to our five week session.
I love how these clipper ships turned out! The drawing of the ships was a bit more technical than our usual projects, and watercolor is much more difficult to handle than most people think. Even with those challenges, both classes did a fabulous job! I guided them through the drawing of the boat but allowed […]
I hope these Van Gogh inspired flowers bring some sunshine to this cloudy fall day. They finished last week, and they were definitely worth waiting for. We talked about shadows this week, and I was able to convince some of them to add some shadows. The shadows create a sense of light and warmth to […]
This week all my classes learned about Vincent Van Gogh, specifically his painting of sunflowers. In the K-5th grade classes, we started by reading Camille and the Sunflowers by Laurence Anholt. I brought in a large bouquet of sunflowers for inspiration. Students closely observed the flowers and then drew them using oil pastel. We then […]
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