Self Portraits

I did this project a few years ago with Grade 5 and I love it because it combines art and ICT together. However, there is a significant amount of prep work that goes into it so if you are dealing with a large number of students make sure that you are prepping for it way in advance. For me, I had only 18 students at the time.

Materials required:
- laptops for students
- photographs of students
- A3 paper
- oil pastels

Duration: 2 lessons of 60 minutes each

Prep work for first lesson: take photos of students with different facial expressions as this would add variety to the finished piece. Do this at least a week in advance so that you have time to take pictures of any students who are absent. Upload all student photos in a folder onto the laptops that they will be using and check the internet connection in the classroom.

1. The lesson objective was to learn how to manipulate photos online. As soon as my students received their laptops, I asked them to locate their own photo and rename it with their first and last name.
2. Students open up a browser, in my case it was Google Chrome and log onto www.fotoflexer.com 
3. Experiment with the different photo effects and apply a black and white effect to their picture.
4. Save picture to desktop and this is the end of the first lesson.

Prep work for second lesson: Print all student manipulated photos on A3 paper.

1. Students will use oil pastels to colour in their photos so demonstrate to students how they can use tones of colour and how they can create a patterned background.
What do you think of the results?

Food for thought - could this lesson tie in with colour theory? Perhaps we could have students relate their expressions to warm and cool colours? I'd be happy to hear your thoughts!

Painted Paper

It's always a good idea to keep a stock of hand painted paper in the art room. It comes in handy for collage projects, especially those with an Eric Carle theme. It is super messy and be prepared to have insufficient drying racks, but oh my, the kids LOVE it! 

I made painted paper with Grade 1 but the idea is flexible and can be changed to suit all age groups.

Materials required:
- A4 paper
- paints
- large paint brushes
- stamping & texture making tools

Duration: 1 lesson of 80 minutes

I followed the complete instructions by Patty Palmer on Deep Space Sparkle. Thank you so much for your guidance! I even did the set-up exactly the way she did including the demonstration so the whole process went smoothly. The only thing I did differently was to let the kids paint two papers simultaneously.

The steps are simple. First the kids paint a base colour. Second they make patterns with a brush. Third, they use texture tools to make patterns.

Step 3: Students using a variety of texture tools

Don't the finished papers look gorgeous?

Wayne Theibaud cakes

I love this project for many reasons. It promotes observational drawing, it develops the skills to create tones and the kids get so excited to draw their favourite dessert!

I did this with Grade 3 but it can easily be adapted for any grade level.

Materials required:
- A3 black cardstock
- handouts for students showing a variety of cupcakes, pies, ice creams, etc.
- oil pastels
- pencils & erasers

Duration: 1 lesson of 80 minutes

1. The learning objective for this lesson was to become familiar with the works of artist Wayne Theibaud, to identify highlights and shadows and eventually to realistically draw any dessert showing highlights and shadows.
2. I started off the lesson with a short video about the artist. While watching the video, I asked students to look for the answers to two questions:
- What did he paint?
- Why were his paintings famous?
The students were absolutely amazed at how his application of thick oil paints mimicked the actual frosting of a cake.
3. Then I showed them more images of his work, asking them to figure out what else made his paintings look realistic. This made them recognize the use of tones to create highlights and shadows.
4. For my demonstration, I showed students how to draw a cake/cupcake, creating tones of light and dark colours with oil pastel, blending and layering two tones together & choosing the appropriate colours for highlights and shadows.
5. The students began by selecting either a cake, cupcake, pie or ice cream which they enjoyed and then followed my demonstration. I gave a step-by-step drawing guide for my low ability students to use and a variety of cake designs to extend the high ability students.

Left: Handout for low ability students
Right: Handout for high ability students

6. Here are some of the works in progress:

Don't the finished pieces look gorgeous?

Mixed Media Monet Waterlilies

As an extension to my previous Monet inspired waterlilies, I decided to do another version of the project to strengthen student knowledge about the artist. This is a quick, no prep lesson that delivers beautiful results at the end. Thank you Kathy Barbro for the idea!

Materials required:
- A3 paper
- oil pastels
- dark blue & light blue ink
- pencils & erasers

Duration: 1 lesson of 80 minutes

1. The objective for this lesson was to understand the meaning of 'perspective' and finally to draw waterlilies showing perspective.
2. In order to get them to understand the concept of perspective, I showed them two images of Monet's water lily paintings and asked them to look at both the images and predict what 'perspective' means. I also told them that both his paintings showed perspective so they had to find all the similarities between the two images. Of course they said things like reflections, blue colour, etc. but eventually through questioning and probing, they figured it out. For real life application of the concept, I then asked them to look outside our classroom window and find anything that seemed far away and something that seemed closer to them. 
3. To create a water lily painting showing perspective, this meant that the kids had to draw large sized waterlilies at the bottom of their page (foreground), medium sized waterlilies in the middle of the page and small sized waterlilies at the top of their page (background). So I did a demonstration on:
- how to draw a water lily. I showed them how to draw large, medium and small ones and even varied the petal shapes for variety. I gave the low ability students a step-by-step drawing guide added support.
- applying the oil pastels by mixing and layering colours
- applying light and dark blue inks for the water

Oil pastel application complete

...and the ink application starts!

Enjoy the results!

Warm and Cool grid painting

During the first semester, Grade 2 students learn about colour theory. This includes primary, secondary, warm & cool colours. This lesson includes a mini lesson and a final painting, both based on warm & cool colours. While it allows students to gain solid theoretical knowledge while also producing a beautiful piece of artwork, the only drawback is that it's very time consuming. If you are trying this out with a higher grade level then perhaps it won't be.

Materials required for the mini lesson:
- old magazines
- glue
-
Duration: 1 lesson of 80 minutes

The mini lesson:
1. I displayed an image of the colour wheel and explained to students that we will be learning about a new group of colours - warm & cool colours. I divided the colour wheel in half and asked students to guess which half was warm. Of course they picked out yellow because they said it looked like the sun and the sun makes them feel so hot! They related it to life in Dubai where its hot and sunny pretty much all year round. Then we brainstormed more real life objects which could be warm such as autumn, bananas, apples, lemons, oranges. We did the same for cool colours. I also explained to the students that colours have feelings and emotions so we related each colour to a particular emotion. For example, red makes us feel angry but it is also the colour of love on Valentine's Day.
2. For the activity, I followed Kathy Barbro's complete instructions here on making a warm and cool collage. Thank you Kathy Barbro - you have saved my life again! 
3. During the lesson, my students would often come across a colour that they would not know and would ask me "Miss, is this warm or cool". In a situation like that, instead of just giving them the answer, I would always ask "Does it look more reddish/yellowish to you or more on the blueish/greenish side?" That way, I got them to figure it out for themselves.

The inspiration for the main painting came from here. Thank you so much Rett Grayson for the idea.

Materials required for the main activity:
- pre-drawn grid and circle on an A3 sheet cut into a square
-  watercolours
- brushes, water pots
- pencils, erasers
- black markers

Duration: 4 lessons of 80 minutes each

The main activity:
1. To recap the warm and cool colours learned in the mini lesson, I divided the class in two groups. One group was warm and the other was cool. Everyone in the warm group had to talk to their partner and make a list of all the warm colours they could think of. The same was for the cool group. Feedback to whole class.
2. In the original image, there are trees in the middle of the circle. However, I wanted a simpler theme so I chose leaves. I had an image on the board of different kinds of leaves and students drew one or more leaves inside their circle.
3. Next, students decided which part of their painting (inside the circle or outside) did they want to keep warm, and which part cool.
4. Each student had a box of watercolours and I demonstrated how they could mix various tones of each colour group for a more sophisticated painting. My lower abilities tended to use the colours straight out of the box. They began painting and this was the end of the first lesson.
5. Students continued to paint during the next 3 lessons as this is the part that takes the longest. The final part is to colour in the leaves with a black marker when it's all dry. Don't they look beautiful?
Thank you to my co-teacher Maggie for helping me edit the photos!

Kandinsky inspired abstract art

During our unit on printmaking, my kindergarten students learned to do a simple print using found objects. Here is the image that inspired me. Since they had done another Kandinsky project with me before, they already had an idea about the artist and his work.

Materials required:
- found objects such as plastic forks, rulers, sponges. Basically anything that can be dipped in paint to create marks
- black paint
- markers
- A4 paper
 
Duration: 2 lessons of 40 minutes each

1. I started of by recapping the work of Kandinsky laying special emphasis on his abstract paintings and getting the students to understand the meaning of abstract as well as the components of abstract art such as line, shape and colour.
2. We identified the different lines and shapes found in his work for example, wavy lines, straight lines, semi-circles, triangles, etc.
3. Next I gave them a demonstration. I took a fork, dipped it in paint and on a piece of white A4 paper, I started to make a variety of lines such as broken, diagonal, wavy. You get the picture, right?
4. I made sure to mention to the kids that they were free to experiment with as many found objects as they could to create different types of lines, marks and shapes. Then left it to dry on the racks and this was the end of the first lesson.
5. In the next lesson, we named all the shapes we could find in Kandinsky's work and brainstormed some more shapes of out own. I gave out their work and students used markers to colour in the spaces between the lines or simply draw new shapes. All done!

Kandinsky Circles

If you are in search of a quick, easy, no mess project then this is it! Kinders were learning about shapes and so I decided to do a project inspired by Kandinsky's concentric circles, but with a slight twist! 

This is another popular topic for art teachers and there are many different variations to it. I hope my version adds to the collection of ideas.

Materials required:
- markers
- square paper. I was able to cut two squares from an A4 sheet
- black markers
- rulers, pencils, erasers

Duration: 1 lesson of 40 minutes

1. After talking about the artist and showing examples of this work, we talked in great detail about his concentric circles painting in terms of colour, shape and size. I explained to the students that they would each design their own square and later, I would put them all together to create one big piece of art.
2. I gave out the square sheets of paper and had the students fold it into half, and half again. With a ruler and pencil, they traced over the folded lines.
3. Now, instead of drawing a large circle and smaller circles with it, I had the students think of another shape such as a diamond, square, triangle, heart, etc. and draw concentric versions of that instead.
4. Students coloured in with markers and I encouraged them to use bright, vibrant colours. I had to demonstrate this on the board as some students ended up making "mistakes". Oh well, it all looks great in the end!
5. Outline with a black marker.

Finished piece by one student

All of them put together

Let me know how yours turned out!

Aboriginal Art

During their unit on Australia, Kinders learned about a variety of Australian animals and their habitats. For any teacher, this is a great opportunity to link art and social studies together. 

Materials required: 
- small, square shaped sponges 
- Q tips
- laminated animal templates 
- blu tac
- paint in shades of brown & earth tones
- A3 black cardstock
- A3 beige coloured construction paper

Duration: 1 class of 80 minutes

1. I started off the lesson by questioning students about what they already knew about Australia. Then I briefly explained to them that the local people of Australia create a special kind of art called Aboriginal art. I showed them many visual examples of Aboriginal paintings and got them to pick out the similarities between them all. They came up with the intended answers such as they all have dots, patterns, animals & signs.
2. Next,  I gave them all a demonstration. Take piece of A3 and tear off any two sides. Some students might struggle with this but the idea here is just to give the overall painting a more rugged, handmade look. the more uneven the tearing, the better. Now take some blu tac and stick down the laminated animal template on the paper. I had already stuck small balls of blu tac on each template which saved time in the classroom. Of course students are free to choose where they want to stick it and in which direction.
3. Dip a sponge into brown paint and stamp around the template. Keep the stamping lighter as you move out toward the edges.
4. Carefully remove the template off the paper (make sure your hands are clean for this!). With a Q-tip, make dots in various colours inside the animal. I kept out orange, white, red and ochre.
5. Stick onto black cardstock.

Two examples of the finished pieces

Extension: If I had more time, I would have liked the students to include signs and symbols in their work; and the high abilities could also write a story about their animals and use symbols to visually depict it. Perhaps this could be done if it was a higher grade level?

Some symbols that students could work from

How has your Aboriginal art project turned out?