The popular Mexican holiday, Day of the Dead (or Dia de Los Muertos), gives us many opportunities for colorful art lessons combined with learning about another culture! True confession time.... when I moved from a small town in upstate New York to go to college in California, I had no idea what Day of the Dead was.... I had never even heard of it. I (wrongly!) assumed it was … [Read more...]
Oil Pastel Still Life Inspired by Vincent Van Gogh
Students will be surprised to learn that Van Gogh was not popular as an artist during his own lifetime.... a great example that the opinions of popular culture do not always prevail! This project usually takes 2-3 fifty minute sessions to finish, and the results are frame-worthy! Vocabulary: • Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) - Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh is one of the best … [Read more...]
Masterpiece Mosaics: a Collaborative Art Project for Grades K – 8
These colorful projects, which I call "Masterpiece Mosaics", were a collaborative effort by my students in grades K through middle school. Each grade level created their own copy of a famous painting - six masterpieces in all. These were really pretty easy to do, and super FUN! We're hoping they'll command a high price at our school auction in the spring! Check out the rest of … [Read more...]
Cezanne-Inspired Still Life – a Step Further!
I was so happy with the results that my Kinders had with our Cezanne-inspired still life paintings, that I wanted to take it a step further with my 1st grade classes.... As I showed my 1st graders some of Cezanne's still life paintings, we noticed that you could often see a dark edge around many of his shapes. So, this time after we finished "hiding the white paper" we used … [Read more...]
Cezanne-Inspired Still Life for K and Beyond
Today my Kinders learned about Impressionist artist Paul Cezanne, and painted a still life inspired by him. This lesson was so successful on so many levels! First, we talked about how Cezanne's father didn't encourage him in his art (he wanted him to be a banker or a lawyer), but he had a friend named Emil Zola who encouraged him to keep painting. Emil was a writer so the … [Read more...]