Hot Air Balloons

There is a big contest locally in the fall every year revolving around the Kentucky Derby Festival.  It is not to be confused with the Derby Museum contest.  The Derby Festival contest artwork can not have anything horse or Churchill Downs related in it.  There are several other options though, one of which is the big Balloon Race.  This project feels like it takes forever and there are several steps but in the end I really like how they look with all of the lines, patterns, colors and textures.  If you really want to know how its done just let me know.  

A Pirates Guide to the First Grade...Arrgh!

Children's books are such a fantastic way to introduce a project especially to the little ones.  I read a lot to my Kindergarten and 1st graders.  One of my favorite stores is Half Price Books.  My sister often goes with me and we sit in the little chairs while we hunt for good books.  A good children's book must have a fun store, good message, and fantastic images in my opinion.  For the project above I read "A Pirates Guide to the First Grade" by James Preller.  The kids giggle through the whole store because of all the silly pirate talk.  The day before I read the book we go over the proportions of the human face and do a practice self portrait.  After reading the book we talk about what the pirates look like, their clothes and such, and we review the proportions of the human face.  Then they turn themselves into pirates.  I so look forward to this project every year!  They make me smile every time I walk past them in the hallway.  Ms. Kings class really gets into it because her room has a mermaid/pirate theme.

*Disclaimer: Ignore the corner suns!  I do not allow my students to put the sun in the corner but this class was almost finished and their teacher offered to let them work on them in her room so we could hang them quickly.  They came back with the suns:(

Kings and Queens

 

 

This is the 1st time I have tried this project.  Every year I go through the proportions of the face and then we make some sort of fun self portrait.  Making 2 faces proved to be the trickiest part of this project.  I had them draw the 1st one then trace the 2nd one but some had trouble keeping their 2 sheets of paper lined up or seeing the lines from the 1st portrait through the 2nd sheet of paper.  If anyone has any suggestions to making this step go smoother please let me know.  Once they were both drawn and colored we glued them to a larger piece of white paper.  I think next time I might have them cut the heads out and glue them to a colored piece of paper, there's to much white the way they are now.  Each student could decide if they which face card they wanted to be (Jack, King, Queen), and what symbol they wanted that face card to be(Spade, Club, Heart or Diamond).  The letter in the corner had to be a bubble letter!  The last thing they added was their crown.  It could be whatever color they wanted as long as both were the same.  Next year I think I might try and have some metallic paper for their crowns.  If they finished a few minutes early the student could add a little embellishment to their crown and the empty white areas but I was very strict on symmetry!  

Line and Color Hands

I saw this project on several other art teachers blogs and thought this would be a great way to review line and color with my 5th graders.  I had them trace their hand and part of their arm on the paper with a black crayon (we rarely use pencils in my room).  They position their hand anywhere on the page and could position their fingers anyway they would like as long as it was school appropriate.  Most of the students chose to just lay their hand down and trace around their spread fingers but some tried ok, peace, or I love you signs. After their hand was traced they had to pick a line (we discussed several options), and pick a direction for that line to move in (horizontal, diagonal, vertical, or radial).  The line was also drawn in black crayon and needed to run through the hand as if the hand were not even on the page.  We colored the hand drawings with oil pastels.  I love the crayola brand oil pastels!  They are so user friendly.  I just wish they would come in more colors.  I had the portfolio's when I first started at this school and while they looked beautiful they were so soft and messy I couldn't stand to let my students use them.  The hand had to be warm colors and the background had to be cool colors.  The contrast really catches visitors eye when they come into our building and see them hanging in the front hallway.   

Can you read the students name?

Another art teacher, Ms. Kovac, showed me this project using the students name to create a project when talking about line.  This is the 2nd year I have used it and I love it.  The materials are simple, crayons and paper, and the results are beautiful.  We start by writing our 1st name really big on the paper huge, turning the letters, overlapping them and trying to stretch them from one side to the other.  Then we do the same with our middle and last name filling in any large white areas as we go.  With long names this is easy but some of my kids have short 1st and last names with no middle name so they have to add some extra lines or write both names again.  I leave it up to the individual.  Next we check for any hanging lines where a line does not touch another line or does not run off the edge of the page.  When that is all taken care of we start coloring.  I limit the colors to between 3 and 5 and talk a little about movement (moving the viewers eye around the page).  I do this project with my 4th graders with great success!