Each grade level has finished up another art lesson (or two!) since I last blogged, so…. I figured I’d just write a HUGE blog post on ALL grades!

I hope you enjoy reading and looking at all their beautiful artwork and fun photos of students creating them!! There’s a TON of photos!

Here we go!…..

1ST GRADE

MIXING PRIMARY COLORS TO CREATE SECONDARY COLORS!

In this quick 1 (40 min.) art class, first graders learned that the primary colors on the color wheel are red, yellow and blue. They also learned that these 3 colors cannot be created, and that they already exist! BUT if they are mixed in a certain way, they create the secondary colors (purple, green and orange)!

After demonstrating under the document camera on how to mix the primary colors, students each mixed on their own practice sheets.

They used liquid watercolor paints to mix within the circle on their worksheets. They loved seeing the colors appear like magic! And seeing their water cups change colors as well as they rinsed their brushes!

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After creating the secondary colors, students watched a couple of fun, short stop-motion videos about the primary and secondary colors as seen below! They absolutely LOOOVED them and I think the jingle helps them remember better! They wanted me to play it a few times!

LOVE IS IN THE AIR! – 1ST GRADE

This fun 3 day lesson incorporates the elements of art; Shape, Color, Line, Form, and Texture! We also review overlapping, and crayon wax resist painting throughout the lesson.

Kids finished them up just in time before Valentine’s Day! I can’t wait to display them in the hall!

DAY 1: CREATE THE WARM TISSUE PAPER BACKGROUND

Students glued squares of warm colored tissue paper (reds, pinks, oranges and yellows) onto a sheet of 12×18″ tagboard using watered down glue. They glued a small area of the paper first with a paintbrush dipped into watered down white school glue, then laid down one piece of tissue, then apply another thin layer of glue on top. They repeated these steps for each piece to flatten the tissue out.

Students were encouraged to overlap as they glued pieces, and to fill up the entire paper.

DAY 2 – CONTINUE GLUING TISSUE / CREATE PLANE

Students continued gluing tissue until their paper was filled in entirely. Then they each received a sheet of 8.5 x 11″ medium weight tagboard with a pre-printed outline of a plane. (I drew the plane ahead of time and photocopied them).

Students drew a variety of lines and/or shapes using crayon, pressing hard inside their plane, leaving a bit of white showing.

Once colored to their liking, they painted over the entire plane using watercolors, creating a crayon-wax resist. Students could paint with whatever colors they wanted!

Planes were set aside to dry along with their tissue backgrounds until the next class.

DAY 3: ADD PLANE AND HEART!

I pre-drew a large heart with pencil on everyone’s paper beforehand with a line that starts at one side and goes off the paper on the other side.

I demonstrated how to pull gently on the cotton batting to stretch and thin it out and how to shape it with their fingers.

Students glued on the cotton batting for the plane’s smoke along the lines I drew for the heart using a glue stick, pressing down and counting to 5 each time as they pressed.

Once the heart was finished, they cut out their planes and glued using a glue stick to their tissue paper backgrounds.

Awesome job first graders!! I can’t wait to hang them up in the hallway by the Art room!

For one of my first grade classes we created them on a painted blue background instead!

FIRST GRADERS WILL START “MIXED-MEDIA ALPHABET SOUP” NEXT! You can type the lesson name into the search box to check out previous blog posts on that lesson or go onto the 1st Grade Art Lessons page and scroll down!

2ND GRADE

Catching Snowflakes Portraits – 2^nd Grade

Second graders had a lot of fun creating these adorable drawings of people catching snowflakes on their tongues!! They did such a wonderful job, and I love how each student put their own unique spin on the final touches!

This took 3 (40 minute) art classes to complete.

To create them, I demonstrated under my doc camera how to draw the face looking up by drawing a small upside down “u” for the nose, then a large circle for the head near the middle of their grey construction paper.

Then they drew a large circle or oval shape for an open mouth, squares or rectangles for the teeth (here, kids could add spaces between teeth to show the person lost a tooth or teeth!), a letter “m” for the tongue, lines for hair (flying around from the winter wind), a scarf, and sweater or jacket.

Once all drawn in pencil, students colored in using oil pastels.

I showed students how to clean their oil pastel sticks by using a piece of paper towel if needed. I showed them how to do this by wrapping a folded piece of paper towel (less likely to tear this way) around the top of the oil pastel stick and just twist the oil pastel a few times (or as needed) as your other hand holds it firmly. This is a great tip for all and any art lessons when using oil pastels, and especially when you don’t want other colors getting everywhere in your artwork where you don’t really want it.

Students added snowflakes (of course!) and could add one on the tongue as well!

For a final step, they outlined with a black oil pastel to help define edges.

Look below the photos of artwork to see pictures of students creating them!

2ND GRADERS HAVE BEGUN THEIR NEXT ART LESSON “ABSTRACT SELF-PORTRAITS”! You can view previous blog posts on this lesson by typing in the lesson on my search page or click on 2nd grade art lessons and view more there too!

3RD GRADE

3D WINTER MUGS!

This lesson incorporates 5 of the 7 Elements of Art- (Line, shape, color, texture, and form), and we talk about perspective, and one of the Principles of Art “variety”! 

This lesson took 4 (40 minute) art classes to complete.

 DAY 1

First, students drew a horizontal line near the middle of their 9×12″ heavyweight tagboard paper as they held the paper vertically, using a ruler.

Then they drew 2 different patterns- 1 for the top section (creating the wall) and one for the bottom section (creating the table) for the mug’s background.

They then traced over their lines with various colored crayons, being sure to press hard as they traced.

On a smaller sheet (9” x 4.5”) of tagboard, they created patterns and designs as well in pencil. This paper would eventually be their mug. Then traced over their pencil lines with crayons as well.

DAY 2

Students finished tracing over their designs on both papers with crayon.

DAY 3

Students painted their 2 papers (background paper and mug paper) with liquid watercolors, creating a crayon-wax resist. Students could use any colors they wanted!

DAY 4

Students assembled everything together!

They first flipped the mug paper over and folded back the ends about an inch, creating 2 flaps. Using a glue stick, students applied the glue on each flap HEAVILY (I told kids to go up and down with their glue stick 12 times just to make sure they put on enough since the paper is so thick!!)

Then they glued the flaps down to their background papers one side as a time, pressing down and counting to 10 as they held it in place to make sure it stuck on. Then curved their mug paper with their hands and pressed down counting to 10 as they glued the other flap down.

Then they drew the mug’s handle by drawing the letter C on their chosen colored construction paper (cut to 3” x 4.5”), cut the C shape out and glued into place next to their mug.

For a final touch, students applied glue to their papers and then added a small amount of cotton batting to the mug for steam coming out from the top of their mug!! They loved the texture of the soft, fluffy cotton!

I LOVE all of these winter mugs! Each one is so unique!!

AWESOME job 3^rd graders!!

You can check out my YouTube video tutorial on the 3D Winter Mug lesson as well!

3RD GRADERS WILL START “KINETIC PIRANHA” NEXT!

TO VIEW PREVIOUS BLOG POSTS ON KINETIC PIRANHA WITH STUDENT ARTWORK, YOU CAN TYPE IN THE LESSON ON MY SEARCH PAGE OR GO TO THE 3RD GRADE ART LESSONS PAGE AND SCROLL DOWN!

4th GRADE

MIXED-MEDIA DONUTS!

4th Graders did such an awesome job creating these colorful and fun donuts inspired by artist Wayne Thiebaud!

This lesson took 4 (40 minute) art classes to complete.

DAY 1

We reviewed what mixed-media means first, (using multiple mediums to create artwork) and I explained how we’d be using oil pastels, tempera paint, markers, colored pencils, and puffy paint to create their mixed-media donuts. I showed students my art teacher examples, as well as a PowerPoint with previous 4^th graders donut artwork, then showed the first portion of my YouTube tutorial on the lesson.

First, students needed to create the background. They folded a piece of 9×12” heavy weight tagboard in half (horizontally) to create a crease, opened it up, then drew lines with a ruler to create a striped pattern along the top half. The lines could be horizontal, vertical, or diagonal.

They then did the same for the bottom ½ of their paper but made their lines going in a different direction.

They then colored in each stripe with various colored oil pastels. The top section was colored in with one design and the bottom section using other colors for a 2nd design. Other than making the top half different colors from the bottom half, they could use any colors they wanted!

DAY 2

Students finished coloring in their stripes with oil pastels, and then drew their donut on a separate piece of paper. I talked about perspective and I demonstrated how to draw a donut (not viewed from above, like a circle) but as if viewing from eye-level, resting on a table in front of you. To do this, students drew an oval with a smaller oval near the top of the donut. Frosting was drawn dripping around the top of it and into the hole of the donut as well. They colored in their donuts using markers and/or colored pencils.

DAY 3

Students painted over their oil pastel covered paper using 2 colors of their choice with liquid tempera, one color on the top half, and one color on the bottom half.

Once one section was painted, they used texture combs to scrape over the painted area while still wet, to create various lines within the paint and reveal the colorful oil pastel layer beneath it! Students LOVED this step!!

Students could create any lines with their texture combs they wanted (wavy, straight, etc, and could overlap as they scraped too). They then painted the bottom half and ran the texture comb along that section too, creating lots of texture to their background!

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DAY 4

Student’s were introduced to artist Wayne Thiebaud and viewed a slideshow of his paintings. We discussed how his paintings of cakes, donuts and other sweet treats looked so real, and how the texture of his thick layers of paint for frosting looked like real frosting! I explained how in the next step- we would be adding even more TEXTURE to our artwork by adding a cut paper doily and puffy paint for the sprinkles!

Students then finished drawing and coloring in their donut if needed, and glued on a half a doily to the center of their papers with a glue stick.

Then cut out and glued on their donuts with a glue stick, and as a final step, applied various colored puffy paint on their donut to create their sprinkles (students LOVED this step!)

This lesson is always a hit with my 4^th graders!!

Mixed-Media Donut lesson idea from Cassie Stephens

4th GRADERS ARE WORKING ON “RADIAL SYMMETRY PRINTMAKING” NEXT! A COUPLE CLASSES AT ROOSEVELT ALREADY STARTED, AND I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE WHAT EVERYONE CREATES! TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS LESSON AND SEE HOW THEY ARE CREATED, TYPE IN “RADIAL SYMMETRY PRINTMAKING” IN THE SEARCH BOX TO GO TO THAT BLOG POST!

To view my YouTube video on this Mixed-Media Donut lesson and the Radial Symmetry Printmaking lesson you can check out my YouTube channel HERE!

5TH GRADE

FALLING FOR FORESHORTENING!

For this art lesson, students learned about a type of perspective called foreshortening.

(Scroll down further to view photos of students working on this lesson!) Foreshortening is a drawing technique used to create the illusion where parts of something or someone appear to come out at the viewer strongly, making those areas seem closest to the viewer, and some parts appearing to recede strongly, making those areas seem the furthest away from the viewer.

Students used this technique by drawing a person that appears to be falling backwards into something, with their arms and legs outstretched. They did this by tracing their hands along the top of the paper, and their feet along the bottom of the paper, leaving space in the middle. They then drew the head, neck, arms, and legs of a person smaller, to create the illusion that the body was further away than the feet and hands.

Students were instructed to pay special attention to the soles of their shoes, being sure to add details and texture.

Students also had to draw the person’s facial expression to match whatever it was they were falling into (something scary, or something soft and fun!), show movement in the hair, and add line details to the palms of the hands for texture too.

Once the person was drawn, 5th graders outlined the entire person in black sharpie, then drew a background depicting what their person was falling into, and colored in everything using colored pencils and/or markers.

Some 5th grade classes are currently still working on these for another day or 2, but I’m super impressed with the creativity and attention to detail!

Here are a couple of students drawings only in pencil and sharpie to start…

Close-ups from the ones above

NEXT UP, 5TH GRADERS WILL START A NEW ART LESSON THAT I HAVEN’T TAUGHT BEFORE – INSPIRED BY THE ARTIST JIM DINE ….CAN’T WAIT!!!

THANKS SO MUCH FOR STOPPING BY AND VISITING MY BLOG TO SEE WHAT STUDENTS ARE UP TO IN THE ART ROOM! IF YOU HAVEN’T ALREADY…. CHECK OUT THE DROP DOWN SECTION “STUDENTS CREATING ART” PAGE ––I JUST ADDED A BUNCH OF FUN NEW PHOTOS!!

I’LL ALSO BE POSTING MORE ARTWORK LATER THIS WEEK!

SEE YOU SOON!