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.

Winter Scene: Drawing and Painting lesson

Looking for an easy drawing and painting lesson with a high success rate? Try this one. Even in California, most kids equate January with cold weather. I talk about how snowflakes flutter down from the sky and land in the folds of trees, forming clumps of snow. In first grade, we stick to the lovely aspects of snow. I don't mention how hard it is to dig out from under five feet of compacted snow. To prove that snow is indeed lovely, I have lots of beautiful calendar pictures of hand.

For each student, you will need:

• 1 sheet of 12" x 18" blue construction paper

• 1 black oil pastel and 1 brown oil pastel

• shared tray of watered down (just a bit) of white tempera paint and brushes

• small container of red tempera paint (shared)

Instructions:

Drawing the tree. I discuss how the trunk is thick on the bottom and as the tree grows and gets higher, the branches get small and thinner. I encourage the kids to think of the tree as an upside down "Y". I demonstrate how to add branches with the oil pastel, concentrating on making the branches narrower as they grow away from the trunk.
Next, have the student's create "bark" by using either the black or brown oil pastel.

Adding the snow. With a small paintbrush, have the students paint big swathes of white paint across the bottom of the paper, going right over the tree trunk. The kids can go up as high as they want, making sure that at least half of the tree is exposed. Next, have the student's paint small clumps of "snow" in the pockets of the tree branches.

Adding a red highlight. I ask the kids to paint something red on their picture. It could be a scarf for a snowman, a red fox, a cardinal, whatever they want. I resist the urge to show them a sample, because this tends to sway them into what to paint. Have the kids use their imaginations as much as possible. Although, if Ashley draws a fox, you can bet the girl next to her will as well. That's just the way it goes!

Now for the FUN part...adding snowflakes. My technique for splatter painting is to use a medium sized brush, dipped in white paint. Then, holding it about 2" above the painting, tap with a finger. Many art teachers use toothbrushes, but I find the spray is too small and can be difficult for little fingers to manage.
Just a big dollop of white paint and a good tap should yield enough snowflakes to satisfy first graders.

Art Shows

Been quite busy the past few weeks organizing art shows, thus, the lack of new posts. Sorry! My last show is tonight but I couldn't wait to upload a few pictures from the Foothill show last week. Thanks to Colton's mom, Janey (shown left) who always does a fantastic job of hanging the art. Thanks, Janey!
Also, congratulations to the students whose art I chose for the Goleta Union School District art show in May. I'll post the art and names later this weekend....Now more art show pics.

Eric Carle Inspired Fish Art Lesson

Eric Carle Fish
Very same as the owls, except use a fish template (see "Barns and Farms" below). This is one project that the children often chose not to use a template. If that's the case, encourage them to cut big! They tend to cut too small when creating their won fish.

Eric Carle Inspired Owl Art Lesson

Slightly less time consuming than Barns and Farms, Owls take only two classes to complete. Follow the instructions for Day One: Getting messy (see below). For day two, I use Owl templates. You can create your own. Draw a simplified owl, then trace the parts onto cardboard or tag board. The kids can use the templates or not. I encourage the kids to add a night sky, branches, rocks, etc.
(The owls were created by Mrs. Biondo's 3rd grade class in 2005)

Watercolor Rainforest Art Lesson

The fourth graders took a creative journey to the Rainforest and learned how to draw many of it's inhabitants. We studied how snakes wind themselves around trees, how sloths hang upside down and what lurks in the shallow waters.

The students were free to draw whichever animal they pleased except for birds (we already had that lesson!). The first step was drawing the animal in pencil, adding porportional leaves, vines, trees and flowers then outlining all pencil lines with a black waterproof marker.

Once the pencil lines were erased, students either colored their animal with prismacolor markers or painted them in watercolor. Here were my guide lines: anything small, use markers. Anything big, use watercolors. I handed out palettes of liquid watercolors. They are ready to use and easy to apply. Most students colored their animals with markers and painted their backgrounds with watercolors.

The artwork in this post is from Mr. Montgomery's 4th grade class at Foothill School.

The art lesson was inspired by "An All Encompassing RainForest" by art teacher Cheryl Crumpecker, Arts and Activities Magazine March/07 issue

Collage Snowman Kindergarten Art Lesson

My kindergarten class had a terrific time creating their collage snowmen. It's a very simple lesson to do with this age group. You'll need two 30 minute sessions:

First session:
Cut small pieces of tissue paper into small pieces (violet, blue, pink and any other cool colors) and arrange on trays. Set tray in the middle of table for each group of kids. Demonstrate how to apply tissue paper to 9 x 11 white or light blue paper using liquid starch and a small brush. Encourage the kids to add tissue paper even to the edges-they can be trimmed later.

Second session: Put out a few colors of tempera paint (white, light blue, red, orange, black) and demonstrate how the kids might draw a snowmen. They have their own ideas, so I usually don't force them to stick with the three-circle theory!
Final detail: hand out a few sequins or snowflake shaped sequins to add on with white glue.

Results: Totally charming!


Foothill School Mrs. Feeley and Mrs. Scott's K class

Rouault Inspired Royalty Painting

Searching through more archived photos, I thought I would post another one of my favorites. This art project is adapted from one the Arts Attack video art lessons. The main goal of this lesson is to teach the "double-loading" technique. As the students dip their paintbrushes first in one color, then another, a special affect is created. Georges Rouault was a master at creating light in his paintings. Many of his pieces look like stain-glass, which is the affect we are trying to achieve.

I hand out "face" playing cards to each student and then teach them how to approach drawing the top half of the card. We start with a very small brush and black tempera paint mixed with a bit of water. No pencils, erasers or markers...straight in with the paint! At first, the kids freak out, but then after I show them how to start with the head, then the hair, profile and then shoulders, they get to see that it's just a matter of lines. Of course, I always stress that they can make no mistakes and whatever happens, is exclusively theirs alone.

By the end of the first lesson, most kids are ready to move onto the second stage.

I put out 6 paint colors that will blend nicely with one another and when mixed, will form a new color. (red, blue, yellow, purple, white and green)

The students paint each section of their work a different color, focusing on creating layers of paint with their brush. I tell them to look for the two colors when they apply their double loaded brush to the page. The colors shouldn't be mixed.

The final step is to repaint the black lines.
This is a very impressive project and surprisingly enough, only takes two one-hour lessons to complete

. (artwork by Foothill and Mountain View 5th grade students 2006)

I would be interested if anyone out there has seen any another art lesson inspired by Rouault...send me a link!