These rainy spring days have really got me daydreaming of summer. This bright citrus project seemed appropriate, very bright and sunny. I brought an assortment of sliced citrus fruits to class and let each student choose one. Students drew from observation in pencil, then outlined in black crayon. I think students were surprised at the […]
This project combined drawing from life with some technical watercolor skills. Leaves are plentiful this time of year, so I brought a bag full for students to choose from. We drew with pencil. The older groups went over their lines with pencil. The younger groups went over their lines with black glue. While some detail […]
We spent the last two classes of this session learning about Matisse and painting apples inspired by his “Apples on a Table.” Our focus on this project was on mixing colors and creating shadows and highlights. We discussed how Matisse distorted the perspective intentionally as part of his composition. Before we drew the apples, we […]
We did this clay project while we were doing our marigolds. We started out by painting square sheets of tag board for the background. Our goal was to create a subtle color change, gradually transitioning from one color to another. Then we got out the clay. For this project, we used Model Magic. This stuff […]
I love how these Chinese Vases turned out! There was a lot of skills packed into this short project. We started out by looking at pictures of Chinese vases for inspiration and talking about symmetry and pattern. Students drew their vase shape, cut it out and painted a pattern of their choice in blue watercolor. […]
I has been awhile since my 6th grade and up class did any drawing from life. I decided to have them work on contour drawings of shoes. We warmed up by doing blind contour drawings. This is when you draw an object while looking at the object the whole time and never looking at your […]
I haven’t posted much on my 6th grade and up group in awhile. They have been hard at work on their sunflower paintings. These were painted with acrylic on canvas boards. Painting with acrylic is a big change from the tempera that we normally use. I really wanted them to experiment with using glazes with […]
This week all my classes learned about Vincent Van Gogh, specifically his painting of sunflowers. In the K-5th grade classes, we started by reading Camille and the Sunflowers by Laurence Anholt. I brought in a large bouquet of sunflowers for inspiration. Students closely observed the flowers and then drew them using oil pastel. We then […]
I was recently given a huge box of beautiful pears. I brought a bag in to serve as a simple still life for those who finished their blue paintings early. This project taught both contour drawing from observation and adding shading and highlights. Students drew with black crayon, painted with tempera paint, and finally added […]
Last week was the final class of this session. Everyone completed their fall still life. I am so glad I kept their projects one more week. Even just 20 more minutes of work made such a difference in the finished pieces. I was worried that some students would not want to work on their projects […]
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