With Valentines Day (and the '100th Day of School') just around the corner, I thought I’d post this heart-themed version of my 'Mixing 100 Colors’ lesson! Mixing the colors and then painting hearts requires a little longer attention span, so I’ve found that 4th grade and up does best with this version. But younger students can also do this if they just work a little larger and … [Read more...]
Volunteering as an Art Educator
Opportunities abound for volunteering as an Art Educator! If you've got a little extra free time this summer, why not take advantage of this chance to share your expertise with others in your community? This summer, I'm teaching Art classes for the elderly residents at a local retirement home.... a completely new experience for me! With new experiences come new challenges, … [Read more...]
Create Your Own Color Wheel
Why purchase pre-mixed paint colors when students can learn to mix their own colors for more variety and more interesting results? Making a color wheel teaches students how to mix the colors they want while learning the basics of color theory! For a printable 7 page pdf of this project (including my color wheel template), please visit my Teachers Pay Teachers store! You will … [Read more...]
Shadow Tracing
Shadow tracing is a great way to get outside on a bright sunny day, explore positive and negative space, and have some fun with color at the same time. Shadow tracing is low stress for students (2nd grade and up) and has minimal prep for teachers. Students can usually finish one of these paintings in a single class period, or you may want to let them do a few tracings the … [Read more...]
Painting with Impressionism – “After Monet”
We began our lesson by looking at examples of Monet's paintings in an old Monet art calendar. I chose his painting of Antibes for us to "copy" and hung it up where everyone could see it. Then I explained to my 1st graders that art students sometimes copy a famous painting in order to learn from it, and that it's okay to do that as long as you give the original artist proper … [Read more...]
Blossoming “Popcorn Trees”
Spring has sprung, and to celebrate, our Kinders painted trees blossoming with flowers made of popcorn! This lesson reinforces the color mixing skills we've been working on all year, as well as teaches a basic technique for drawing/painting trees. Adding popcorn also gives the opportunity to talk about the concept of "mixed media". And who doesn't love … [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...]
Snowmen with Tempera
Cropping and a unique point of view make this "not your everyday snowman"! I first saw this composition idea on Art Projects for Kids (done with oil pastels - original link no longer works!) and then on Deep Space Sparkle (done with tempera paint). I used this lesson to teach my first graders about cropping and the 3/4 view portrait. They loved it when I told them the … [Read more...]