Summer Plans

I had my last day of teaching art yesterday, capped off with a frustrating bout of laryngitis. The kids were so funny. I could only whisper, so they would whisper right back. Too cute. Some were very concerned that I might not talk again. Given the quiet classrooms, I might keep my voice to myself a few days longer!

It was also my last day at Mountain View School, where I have taught for the past five years. It has been a wonderful school to work at, so supportive of the art program and very accommodating to me. Saying good-bye to the children was hard but Santa Barbara/Goleta is a very close-knit community and I know I'll see many of them again.

One of the benefits of working at only one school is that now I'll have the time to develop their art program a bit more. I'll also have more time for this blog, which means more lessons, more tips and more interaction with you guys...fellow art nuts!

Starting next week, I'll have free days so that means more blog posts. Here are some things to look forward to:

• Ceramic Mural Tutorials...all the details about making the beautiful ceramic murals that I have done in the past four years.
• Native American Art lessons
• Elephant Art Lessons
• Outlaws and Gunslingers Lessons
• Chameleons and Iguanas Art Lessons
• More management tips and so much more.

I'll be travelling back to Prince Edward Island the end of July for three weeks with my family and will close down the site for a few weeks. I'll be eating lobsters and playing lots of golf and won't be thinking too much of paint and pastels!

In August, Deep Space Sparkle will be getting a new "make-over". Darcy at Graphically Designing will be doing the transformation and I simply cannot wait to see what ideas she has up her creative sleeve.

So those are basically my intentions for the next few months...at least as far as Deep Space Sparkle goes! Hope you all have a wonderful and restful summer. Don't go away. I'll be right here getting you all set for next September!

Colorwheel Bouquet Art Lesson

Here's a fun way to teach the color-wheel and use up your end-of-the-year paper scraps.

What you'll need:

Pre-cut rectangles of the Primary and Secondary colors

12" x 18" white paper

Glue stick, pencil and scissors

Scraps of warm and cool colors (I have these separated into 2 boxes)

Small square of gray paper

small plastic dish or lid for tracing

Step One:

Using a poster or other visual aid, discuss the color wheel and how/why colors are arranged. Having worked with colors the whole year, most kids are very familiar with the formulas for making secondary colors.

Place the primary colored rectangles on the student's desks and show how to cut into a petal. Glue the three petals onto a piece of white paper with the yellow petal pointing to the top.

Step Two:

Repeat steps for creating petals for the secondary colors.

Step Three:

This is the fun part. I tell my students they are going on a treasure hunt for colors to place in between their petals. I fill two boxes with cool color scraps (greens, blues, painted paper scraps, etc.) and one warm color box. The children are responsible for searching through the box to find the perfect red-orange or blue-green. If they are having trouble understanding this concept (which some of my Kinders were) then we brought over their flower to the scrap box and tried out different scraps.

Step Four:

Using a small round container, trace a circle from the gray paper and place in the center. Then, if you have time, ask the children to make stems and leaves.

Kinder Results!

Van Gogh Sunflowers Art Lesson

A perennial favorite...what student can go through elementary school without completing his own version of Van Gogh's Sunflowers?

I usually do a collection of Sunflowers in oil pastel, but decide to try out a tempera paint version instead.

Here's what we did:

Using an oil pastel, students drew a vase, table line and the flower centers. I demonstrated this step first and gave all sorts of examples to encourage students to create a vase and flowers unique to them.

Then, students painted the "tables" in one color and the background in another color. For simplicity, I set out two colors. You may not choose to limit the kids this way, though.

This usually marked the end of our first lesson (approx. 45 minutes). For the next step, I set out an assortment of paints and demonstrated how to blend paint using the double-load technique. (dip paint brush first in one color and then another. Mix directly onto paper).

After painting the leaves and petals, children painted their vase and added shadows and hi-lights. Some children added shadows to the table as well. For a final flourish, the children opted to outline their lines with black or white paint or not at all. I left that decision up to them.

Second and Third Grade Results:

Castles in Watercolor and Marker

My fourth grade students completed these fantastic castles today. I followed the instructions and template technique from my "Architecture Made Easy" PDF Lesson Plan but changed the medium. Instead of colored pencils, I suggested the students use colored markers for the small sections of the castle (windows, flags, banners, doors, etc) and liquid watercolors for the background and castle itself.

I really like the subtle nature of the watercolors and it takes much less time to finish. Always a plus this time of year!

Fourth Grade Results!

Goleta Union School District Art Show

Celebrating 25 artists from Mountain View and Brandon Schools. Congratulations to all my students for a creative and engaging year!

Focal Point Fish

Composition is hard. How do you know when a picture "looks" right? That's what I asked my fourth graders today. We talked about what grabbed our attention and how our eyes travelled around the page. I used student art to demonstrate compositions that were effective. Creating a balanced picture was our goal. Fish were our subject and a special concoction of magic paint was our medium.

Here's what we did:

• Draw a tropical fish (I used my handouts from my Watercolor PDF) using a waterproof marker (we used Sharpies). I told the kids to draw as many fish as they would like but to arrange the fish to create a balanced picture. Of course, some kids couldn't be persuaded to draw more than one fish, but that was fine by me.
• Using a blend of Mod-Podge, glitter watercolor paint and a splash of concentrated watercolor paint, the kids chose one color to paint their background.
• After the background, the kids painted their fish.

This lesson took 2-45 minute sessions. Only a few didn't finish.

Fourth grade results!

Keith Haring Art Project

I thought I'd revisit this lesson from a few years ago. It's a perfect lesson to get you through an end-of-the-year slump. 5th graders love the graffiti nature of this project. To expedite completion, use a smaller size paper.

Fifth and Sixth grade students love Keith Haring! They are inspired by the simplicity of his action figures and influenced from his break dancing and graffiti like-art.
As a teacher, I love this lesson. I pass out a container full of prisma-color markers and let the kids go wild! I only have a few tips for this type of lesson. Practice drawing the Keith Haring figure first and then tell the kids to color in their figures with a solid color.
We brainstormed over backgrounds, but mostly I wanted the kids to come up with their own. We spoke about color and energy, but really, the kids got it.