Winter Trees

Fourth grade artists have just finished these beautiful winter tree landscapes.  They used bits of masking tape to create their white trees, then painted some deep blue watercolor paint over the top, adding a sprinkle of salt for texture.  The really fun part?  Rubbing off the salt and gently peeling the tape away to reveal the sparkling white trees!  The final flourish – shadows on the trees and white stars and a moon, painted with acrylic paint.

See more of this project on our ARTSONIA site!

      

This project was inspired by Art Projects For Kids – see it HERE.

Lemon Juice Froggies

Third graders recently completed these sweet little watercolor frogs – perfect to celebrate the spring frogs that are peeping outside the art room door!

Their watercolor froggies were painted on a background that was brushed with blue watercolor and dabbed with paper towel for some nice texture.

Dots were added to the frogs with lemon juice that was dropped on the frogs and blotted with tissue; this left a lighter “frog spot”.  Interestingly – we used two brands of green watercolor, and one brand would not “blot”…so we improvised and painted on white spots with tempera paint too.

Our final step was to add a lily pad and flower border.

The Blob Project

Georgetown’s 5th grade artists are completing this beautiful project – and I’m liking it!  As the school year winds down, I look for ways to use up opened materials and odd-shaped leftover paper,  AND ways to keep my antsy summer-break-ready students engaged.  The Blob Project worked beautifully!

First we used up some old watercolors, creating paint blobs and spatters on some long 6″ x 36″ heavy drawing paper, also left from another project.  We reviewed warm and cool colors, put on some nice slow music, and the room was amazingly quiet as students dripped and spattered their paints.

During the next class, we used black tempera paint thinned with a little water to create flowers, butterflies, and swirls.  The watercolor blobs were our inspiration, and my 5th graders enjoyed just painting and letting the blobs guide their choices.  The results – beautiful!

 

This project is adapted from an old Arts And Activities Magazine article, shown here.

Cutest. Ladybug. Project. Ever.

My first grade artists are finishing up this fun ladybug multi-media project.  We did it all…drew, painted, cut paper, glued…and read some great ladybug stories, including the classic The Very Grouchy Ladybug. I was amazed at the cool facts we learned about ladybugs along the way – here are some of the things my first graders told ME about ladybugs:

* they roll into a ball and “play dead” so birds won’t eat them

* really stinky orange stuff oozes out of their knees so they don’t taste good to other bugs

* they sleep under leaves all winter long and come back out in the spring

* they like to eat aphids, yum!

  

Cutting ladybugs from construction paper and adding details with a large marker.  The eyes are a round white sticker with the center cut out with a paper punch.  My kids loved peeling the sticker off and placing the eyes in just the right spot.

Adding cut paper flowers – yellow background and blue sky has been painted with water color.

Finished ladybugs.  I love that they are all different – each has their own little ladybug personality.  Cutest. Ladybug. Project. Ever!

This project was inspired by this image from shutterstock.

 

 

 

 

Winter Pine Trees

Mr. VandenBerg’s Third Graders are finishing up a watercolor project.  They created a beautiful background for their trees by brushing cool colors on a 9×12 sheet of watercolor paper and sprinkling the wet paper with salt.  When they rubbed the dry salt away during the next class, it was amazing to see the different textures created by the salt.

After practicing their brushstrokes, the class painted gorgeous pine trees with India ink.

Pine Tree Pine Tree

Kindergarten Pattern Flowers

My kinders had fun experimenting with pattern this week.  They cut out a large circle with a dot pre-printed in the center….then practiced painting “top, bottom, side, side” to create a beautiful pattern.  The art room was very quiet as they all whispered “top, bottom, side, side” while they painted!  While the flowers dried, they created a very tall stem and leaves and colored those with more patterns.  Finally – a bit of glue, and our pattern flowers were ready to hang and admire!

Kindergarten Pattern Flowers Kindergarten Pattern Flowers

I think the “top, bottom, side, side” part of this project is from an old Arts & Activities lesson- I added the flower stem to extend the pattern play into a 50 minute art session for my kinders.