Crazy beginning of the school year!

It has been quite a school year already, I almost want to start over. My school is almost 100 students over projected numbers, so we have been adding classes and moving students like mad, which means that my schedule has changed as well. Due to personal reasons, I have had to miss about a week and a half of school, and now it is close to the end of the 9 weeks and I am scrambling to get the 3rd and 4th graders projects finished for their upcoming art show. Phew!
On a good note though, the second graders are finishing up their collage projects, and they are turning out well. First the students tissue paper collaged a 9x12 piece of paper for the background. Then they traced their hands on a thicker piece of paper. We took about 20 minutes to brainstorm words that describe personal qualities, which the students then write all over their hands with sharpies. The students then cut their hands out and attached spacers (some plastic beads that were donated to the art room) on the back of their hand, and then glued them to their background. Many of the teachers have been impresses with the range of descriptive words the students have come up with.

Kindergarten Pout Pout Fish

My kindergarteners love the book The Pout Pout Fish by Deborah Diesen.

The kindergarteners love it so much that they practically have the book memorized. Since they love the book so, I decided to incorporate this into their art show. The students created their own version of a pout pout fish using crayons. After they were finished, they placed tissue paper squares on top, and then brushed water over the tissue. Once the tissue paper was dry, the squares dropped off, leaving a "watercolor" like painting behind.

Check out those pout pout lips!

Cheekwood Topiaries!

One of the classes I taught this summer at Cheekwood was a class called Wild World of Art for 10-12 year olds. I had a great class, and they worked really hard this week. One of their favorite projects was the topiary project that I found on the Dick Blick website. We used a wire mesh and wire to sculpt the form of the topiary. Next, the students glued squares of tissue paper to the wire form. When the form is covered with tissue paper, plaster was poured into terra cotta pots and a wooden dowel rod was placed into the plaster before it had set. Using wire and hot glue, the tissue paper covered form was attached to the dowel rod (after plaster set of course) and brown string is then wrapped around the dowel in order to simulate wood bark. When we were finished, the students were able to take their topiaries outside and choose a place in the gardens at Cheekwood to "install" their topiaries, and take pictures.

http://www.dickblick.com/lesson-plans/tissue-topiary/

Kindergarten Calico Cats

This is one of my favorite lessons to do with my kindergartners. It is a tissue paper collage with a painted outline. I give each student a 9x12 and a 12x18 piece of paper. Using crayons, I show the students how to draw a body using a large oval, and then add legs and a tail onto it. Then I show them to draw a cat's hear by drawing a circle and adding triangle ears, football shaped eyes, triangle nose and whiskers. Next, the students use black tempera paint to over their crayon lines, and then we let them dry. The next time the students come to art, they are given liquid starch and tissue paper squares. They brush the liquid starch onto the cat, and place the tissue paper onto the starch. Then they brush more starch onto the tissue paper to seal it. I talk to the students about overlapping the tissue paper, and give them time to work. After the cats dry, we cut them out and glue the heads onto the bodies. For a little bit of sparkle, try adding Crayola Glitter It! mixing medium into the starch. The students love this because then their cats are glittery.