Fall Trees from Extreme Perspective

It's always good to look at things from a different perspective.

The 3rd grade class got to draw these cool trees. It's a great study of texture, color and perspective. We used oil pastels and talked about how ordinary things can look completely different from an extreme perspective.

Spider Webs

About half of the 4th grade class was done with their maps so I took this opportunity to teach them how to draw webs. We talked about how the webs are like roads for the spiders so they need to all connect. It's time consuming to draw, but just think about how long it must take a spider to make it.

Van Gogh Sunflowers

After three classes the 1st grade class finished these lovely versions of Van Gogh's Sunflowers.

The background was done in tempera paint, the vase was done with oil pastels and the flowers were made with watercolors. They handled the mixed media with ease.

Primary Colors

My K2 class learned about the primary colors in class. Using blue, red and yellow tissue paper they glued the pieces onto watercolor paper with an outline of a leaf they did. When the paper overlaps the primary colors make new colors. After drying the students cut them out and added the veins to the leaf.

Below you can see them hard at work on the next lesson on Wassily Kandinsky.

Owls in Chalk Pastel

Who thought that there were so many ways to draw an owl? The 5th graders as usual delighted me with the results. The students at each group table got b&w samples of about five different owls. I got them started by directing them on the eyes first. Once they had the eyes we moved on to the texture of the feathers. It's fun to work with the chalk pastels when showing feathers. The student could use their fingers to blend the pastels to add softness to the feathers.  I also asked them to mostly work in black and then just add two more colors.

Black Cats

The 3rd graders had fun following along with me drawing a face of a cat. We started with pencil then traced the lines with black oil pastel. A little more color was added before washing the whole paper with black watercolor paint. Great one for Halloween!

Maps of Fantasy Lands

This was one of my favorites!!! I gave the 4th graders a list of names of fantasy lands to choose from.  Then using that name and a list of required items to represent on the map they were free to transport us to this fantasy land. It would be tough to choose if I want to visit Puppy City or Candy Land. They both look like a lot of fun.

I might not want to go to Deadly Valley though.

Here is a great detail of Crystal World.

Contour Sneakers

I've done this project with the 7th grade for years now. However I've changed one thing each time. The sneakers are still drawn in pencil first then finished off in thin black marker with contour lines.

The background has been changed each year.

This time the students used cut pieces of "cheap" colored tissue paper. I say "cheap" because it the only kind that will make the color of the paper run when you add water. I love the way the contrast of the blurry colors work with the black and white sneaker. These could be ads for a magazine.