April 28, 2014

Art Lesson - Owls in Charcoal


Today the children in my class worked on owls using chalk pastels and charcoal. We started with the huge eyes and then added the feathers, trying to use a variety of strokes to create the soft texture. We used fingers and cotton swabs to blend the colors together. Whooooo is ready for art?

April 21, 2014

Art Lesson - Sea Turtle Watercolor


Inspired by the lovely painting "Go For a Swim" by Jennifer Mercede.

Today I spoke with my class about the parts of a sea turtle and how the front flippers are different from the back. We looked at photos of turtles and noticed the different sizes of circles that make up the segments on the body (large for the shell, medium for legs, small for head). 

We used purple-toned oil pastels to outline the body and shell segments, then colored in scribbles of yellow, orange, and pink tones inside the circles. We also used yellow oil pastels to make a "wiggly grid" in the ocean water to give the water movement. I spoke about the sunlight filtering through the water makes colorful reflections on the turtle.

We used green and teal watercolors for the turtle's body and blue for the ocean water. 
I just love how colorful they are!

April 9, 2014

Art Lesson - Bird on a Wire



I spoke to the class today about warm and cool colors to create our colorful "Bird on a Wire" paintings.

First, we divided colors into warm (red, orange, yellow) and cool (green, blue, purple). Then, I told the children we were going to move the GREEN to the warm side.

We took one piece of water color paper and painted it with our warm colors + green. Abstract shapes filled the paper to the edges. I told the children to try not to overlap colors, but to cover all of the white on the paper. Using thick watercolor is important because I wanted the paper to dry quickly.

We set aside the warm colored pages to dry. Then, we used a second page of water color paper and painted it with blues and purples in horizontal areas. When this was finished, we used black to create some "wires" across the page. We put this page aside to dry.

Taking the warm paper again which was now dry, we flipped it over to draw on the back. I showed the class how to create simple bird shapes. Circle head, pear-shaped body (with heavy bottom), triangles for beach and tail. They drew the birds with sharpie markers on the back of the warm colored papers and then cut them out.

When the background was dry, I showed the class how to place the birds so that they looked like they are sitting on the wire. We used glue sticks to stick the birds down, making sure the bottom of the pear sits on a wire.

Sweet tweets!