Analogous Color Blending

Here is a fun lesson (great for virtual teaching!) to work on color blending using analogous colors.  I used the idea of "feathers", but this would also be great in the fall using leaves.  No matter the form it takes...focus on using analogous colors in order to create beautiful color blends.

Oil Pastels With 2nd Grade

I admit it...I'm not a fan of messy stuff!!  Oil Pastels fit in that category for me.  However, I love the color...love what can be done with them...so I "deal" with the mess.  This 2nd Grader blew me away with her work today!!

Non-Objective Art: 2nd Grade

My students really enjoyed looking at and discussing non-objective art.  I was kind of surprised by their thoughts on why non-objective art is created, meaning it holds, and why the did/didn't like it.  

Here are the images my students created!  We focused on geometric shapes & discussed value, color blending, and contrast.  I gave them different objects they could use to arrange and  trace.  I'll revisit non-objective art later in the year, and I'll be excited to see what they create with this foundation!! 

Pumpkin Color Blending: 1st Grade

Sometimes I get a wild hair to push my younger students!  I really wanted to encourage them to think of objects as having more than one color.  Instead of grabbing just an orange to color a pumpkin...think about what colors could be used to make a pumpkin have more impact.  So I had them pull all their yellow - red colors out of their crayon box.  I showed them how to blend one color into another as not to get a stripe effect.   I think for 1st graders...they did an AMAZING job!! 

Painted Branches: 2nd Grade

Here is a fun project my student teacher is doing this week with my 2nd graders. They are using the Biggie Watercolor sets by Crayola.  We felt this would be best as not to have the students muddy up colors in their painting by all the choices.   The Biggie sets only have four colors, and Ms. G told the student to not use the red.   Plus the bright colors look almost tie dye "ish"...and the brightness of the color allows the black to really have a great impact.  We cut the 12x18 paper to 10x18 just to emphasis the length of branch. This project was completed in one class time.

Color Me Impressed!!!

You have those moments were you are just so impressed with a child's work...ya gotta tell some one!  Well, after e-mailing his mom...and stopping any teacher I saw in the hall....I decided I needed to share it with you as well.  I was introducing colored pencils for the first time with my Kindergarten students. I just don't even want to deal with it first semester.  The sharpening is really the issue with the K's.  By now though...I feel they have a handle on it...and are ready for colored pencils.  I showed them blending/mixing, and value before turning them loose!  This student filled up his page with this drawing better than most...but the color really took me by surprise.  He did such an amazing job with blending the red/pink in the center flower...and the yellow to red was looking so wonderful on the top right hand flower!!! 

 I can't wait for him to finish it up!!!!

What's On Your Plate?

This year for our all school art show we're using the theme of food!  I'm finishing up my other units, and just getting started with the food themed units.  I try to do several projects based on this theme so I have options to chose from for the art show.  Here is the first project for 2nd grade(which is also the basis for the print they'll be doing in a couple weeks). 

Color Blending Pumpkins : 1st Grade

Sometimes I like to shoot for the moon....many times it never leaves earth's atmosphere...and sometimes it goes far beyond my wildest imagination.  Many times this is the same lesson..and the same class!!!  This lesson is an example of that.  I like to push my students to think beyond grabbing one green to color the grass...or in this case...grabbing one orange to color the pumpkins.

And you'll always have those that march to the beat of their own drum...

Tints & Color Mixing with Kindergarten

Kindergarten did the Georgia O'Keeffe lesson I've shared on here in years past.  They start with a dot in the center of the page, and draw six wavey lines coming from the dot.  They then pick a plate of paint that I've already pre-dispensed(I try to have a variety of color combos).  Everyone gets white to create tints.  I showed them how to mix their colors on the paper, and to paint from the center point out to create a "flow".  At the end of class we discussed what tints & shades were, they were given a color & had to tell me what two colors made it, and then just other random color knowledge. 

1st-3rd Group Landscape In Progress: PART 4 FINISHED!!!

Fall Art(NOT HALLOWEEN!!!!)

I do not do "Holiday" art. Holiday art is good for a day and then needs to be taken down after the holiday passes. Seasonal art can be hung for a few months with no problem! Plus, you avoid stepping on anyone's religious points of view on holidays(not usually a big problem in the south, but sometimes you have children that do not celebrate holidays). I had my forth grade class work on color blending with pumpkins. They really enjoyed themselves & did a great job on blending the crayons! I'm NOT so happy with their copy-cat ways! Their pumpkins ended up looking like the ones I created during the demo. I had encouraged them to draw different sized/shaped pumpkins, but...creativity seemed to be lacking that day. Usually they do not copy my demo's....I don't know what was up that day?!?!?! I'm hoping this idea(color blending)will carry over into their other work. WE SHALL SEE!!