Winter Wonders Art Class at The Clayground

What a GREAT first day on winter! The Winter Wonders Art Class was a huge success! 17 young art students filled The Clayground with creative joy while creating winter landscapes on canvas.

The 7-9 year old group created a collages scenes using techniques such as paint scraping, tissue collage, and paper layering. The older group made up of 10-12 year old students applied impasto techniques combined with drawing and painting skills to complete their landscapes. The older group also learned the art of repousse' in order to emboss aluminum into the shape of Christmas ornaments that were embellished with burlap and ribbon.

The best part? The feeling of joy I have for the opportunity to connect and work with students in my home town that share a common love for the arts is. LOVE! Thank You, Rebecca!

Cuddly, Adorable Polar Bears

So my 10 year old daughter saw the Polar Bear Project designed for my son's second grade class and she begged to do it, too. Here are some adorable, cuddly examples of both 2nd grade and 5th grade Polar Bears!

5th grade

5th grade

2nd grade Polar Bear Collage

I found this lesson on the ARTventurous blog and just new it would be perfect for 2nd grade. I approached this lesson by following this step-by-step polar bear head drawing found on Art Lessons for Kids website. I used pencil on black paper for the drawing. Once done, I cut out the drawing and used black crayon to outline and fill in the black details. After that I used white chalk pastels to fill in the white fur over the black construction paper and around the crayon details. If I accidentalyl got white chalk on the black crayon is was easy to cover back over with the crayon. Once finished with the white details, I blended the chalk to smooth out harsh lines. Then I tore a piece of white construction paper for the snow background and glued it to a blue piece of blue 9" X 12" construction paper. Lastly, I used the chalk to fill the background with snowflakes!

5th grade positive and negative snowman collage

I LOVE winter art, I do! There are so many fun and engaging projects to take on but when I have 1 hour with 30 kids I have to be selective with the projects and methods for a successful lesson. This positive negative space snowman collage is simple. Materials consist of 12 X 18 black paper, 9X12 white, cream and gray paper. The rest of the collage papers are recycled tid bits that I keep around the house. Sharpie details for eyes and nose and voila, a striking winter artwork!

5th Grade Pointillism Tree

This is the second go- around with this art project. This time, we used brand name q-tips, quality paint and an eraser to draw invisible sections for tree leaves and fallen leaves. I just LOVE how every tree turned out!

Winter Wonders Art Classes at The Clayground

I am SO thrilled to host another art session at The Clayground in Winters. Last month I piloted an art class on the day of Halloween and it was a blast!

For December I designed projects geared for two age ranges and will offer a session for each group.

Here are the examples for each class. Click this link for the 7-9 sign or click this link for the 10-12 sign up- It should be fun!

Pointillism Trees completed!

These fall trees turned out pretty good for 2nd grade. Things I would do differently would be to have kids use their eraser to draw a designated space around trunk and base for leaves. I would also make sure paint is high quality tempera or acrylic to be to rich, dense color. Oh! And high quality q-tips as well because they keep their shape for consistent leaf points. 

Name skeleton

I saw this idea on Pinterest and thought I'd give it a try with my daughters 5th grade class the day before Halloween. This project was the perfect challenge for this age range! This lesson took about 1 1/2 hours total. I reviewed cutting along a fold with a simple heart shape. Then I had kiddos draw a stick figure and thicken it with lines going around the stick. That's about it!

These symmetric beauties turned out FAB! Great Job, room 25!

Art Classes at The Clayground!

Rebecca, my friend and owner of stage Clayground in Winters asked if I wanted to teach art classes at her shop. I decided to give it a shot and taught a Spooky and Festive art lesson in a 2-hour class on Halloween.

The class was made up of 6 9-10 year old budding artists that created Spooky landscapes and festive name skeletons.

Think I may host some Winter themed session in December! Stay tuned!

Name Skeleton

This project was PERFECT for the Friday before Halloween. Cutting out a name along a fold proved to be quite challenging. Add in the mystery of what their skeleton would look like created the perfect hook. These will be finished Monday morning and should look great!

Fall Pointillism Tree -2nd grade

I decided to try out a cute pointillism fall tree for my next session with second grade this week. Will use tempera and q-tips following a directed tree drawing. Will  update with pics next week!

The Great Wave Parody

It's been a while since we started this project but in case you forgot- here are pics of student outcomes! You can tell based on their expressions how much fun they had with this one. This would be a GREAT end of year project!