Agate Watercolor Paintings

Kindergarteners, 1st graders, and 2nd graders were inspired by the incredible watercolor paintings in the book Agate. They immediately noticed how the animals were sparkly and shimmery - and not the right colors! Agate taught us that not only are we all special, but that art can be unique!

To create paintings inspired by Agate, each student received a piece of 9x12 tag board. I set up stations with liquid watercolors at each table and after a quick demonstration, the students were free to go to each station and mix colors. They could focus on just making agate colors, or create an animal they had in mind.

The next time classes met, they used watercolor crayons to add emphasis and details to the paintings. They sure are wonderful!

More Collage Owls

This fourth grade class came in after 5th graders had been embellishing clay masks with feathers - and found inspiration in the left-overs circulating around the room! So we struck a deal - if they worked with paper first, I would bring out special feathers! We talked about the importance of covering the background of the collage and they agreed with the terms :)

This student wore a special shirt to art class, I had to share!

Kindergarten Tiny Seed

My cooperating teacher challenged me to plan a lesson for kindergarten that integrated with their curriculum. For two weeks they were studying plants and seeds, and I decided to use this book as inspiration!

We started with 12x18 tag board, on which we painted our flowers. We used big brushes to give it a textured effect, and experimented with mixing colors. The next week we added line designs with construction paper crayons. Then we cut it out and glued it onto a blue piece of paper. It became a great end-of-the-year assessment for these kindergarteners.

This one was particularly striking. Unfortunately she was called out of art class and was not able to finish.

When the next kindergarten class came in, they were bustling with excitement because they had a cage full of butterfly cocoons that they were waiting to hatch! So I suggested we paint butterflies as well, and use sparkly gold paint to create monarch butterfly patterns. They did not cut out their paintings because they were a week behind, but I don't think they needed too! This class excelled at filling up the entire space with paint.

3rd Grade Colored Pencil Owls

I had intended for 3rd graders to also embark on creating owl collages, but the schedule shortens their art class time. So instead we created colored pencil owl drawings! They also learned about Matthew Cusick and reviewed owl facts, but were given a demonstration on blending colored pencils. As long as the drawing had the parts of the owl (wings, eyes, beak, and talons,) they were free to be expressive with color!

4th Grade Collage Owls

4th graders studied artist Matthew Cusick for this lesson. They also reviewed facts about owls and used their art eyes to observe the qualities of owls - many noticed how their "down" (owl feathers) are multiple colors and seem to be arranged in patterns!

After a brief demonstration on handling materials, they were ready to start. We used 9x12 tag board and a variety of construction papers and tissue papers to finish the collages. Students had about 3 class periods to work on the collage, then the school year ended! Next year I will plan for more time, or encourage using large pieces first. (I encouraged them to rip small pieces to look like feathers!)

Pastel Graffiti Drawing

I created this lesson for 6 middle school art classes, all containing a range of students from 6th -8th grade. Drawing from various graffiti style lettering lessons on the web, this lesson focuses on using chalk pastel.

On the first day I introduced the project. Students practiced graffiti letters on white paper and then used pencil on black paper for the first design. On the second day I introduced glue, which students used to trace the pencil line. The next day, students added chalk pastels. Emphasis was on showing space with the letters (through perspective and overlapping) and blending colors. I think they turned out great! Students worked on them for about 5 days total. I sprayed them with fixative outside but you might choose to laminate them instead.