Spring Flowers

I am so impressed with the sponge print flowers this Kindergarten/Grade 1 class created.  We used the same technique as we did for our SUNFLOWERS and POINSETTIAS.  

So pretty! :)  

The only difference with this lesson is we used different colors of green chalk pastel 

to color in the background.

Spring!

 Here is a lesson inspired by The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle.

After reading the book we decided to use the same painted papers we had left over from our Winter Birds buddy activity.  Once again we got together with our Big Buddies for a little extra help.

Using petal tracers that they had made for us, we cut out approximately 10 petals and arranged them in a circle around a yellow tissue paper circle.  Green tissue was used to create a stem and leaves.  We then used whatever scraps of painted paper and tissue we had to create an insect.

Clay Daffodils

They are finally done!  Here are our of finished daffodils!!!

Bird's eye view:

With a candle for our Mother's Day gift:

Happy Mother's Day!!!

Mixed Media Flowers

Last week I was fortunate enough to be invited into my daughters Grade 4/5 class to do an art lesson.  I always look forward to the opportunity to work with intermediate students.  The toughest thing for me is deciding on a project that I can do in one hour or in one afternoon.  Here is what I came up with.

 

  

  In one afternoon we touched upon many concepts including colour choice, blending colours, proportion, overlapping and line.  The flowers were drawn and coloured with chalk pastel and outlined in oil pastel.  The backgrounds were painted with watercolor.

And now we wait...

I am so disappointed!  

We made these wonderful clay daffodils with another class for spring.  They were supposed to go into our school display case for April and then we were going to wrap them with a tea light candle inside for a Mother's Day gift.  

 

However, something is terribly wrong with our school's kiln.  During the first firing the kiln made so much noise that the Grade 7 class, where the kiln is located, had to relocate to another room!!!

So now we have to wait for our next in-school professional day to do the second firing, so as not to disturb the class again.  Luckily it is at the end of this month.  So, although they won't get the chance to be displayed, they'll at least be ready to go for Mother's Day.

Here is a bird's eye view:

 

Can you figure out what we used to help shape them?  We used a snowflake cookie cutter for the bottom and a small pinch pot for the top.

They are glazed and ready to go. Stay tuned for the finished product!

Sunflowers

On Earth Day my Grade 1 students planted sunflower seeds.  The plants are now at varying stages of growth and the children excitedly check on their own plant each morning.  I thought the children would enjoy creating some bright sunflower artwork.

We created these sunflower paintings using the same cut sponges used in my

Christmas Poinsettias. 

Day One:  We made our petals by painting the sponges and then stamping them onto our papers.  We drew a small circle with pencil as a reference point and then worked our way around it.  We then used green paint to add a stem and sponged leaves onto the stem.

Day Two:  We used brown oil pastels to colour in the center circle of the sunflower.  We then used orange and green pencil crayons to add texture lines to the petals, stem and leaves.  The final step was to use blue pastel to colour in the background.

 The make our classroom very bright and cheery!

Dandelions: Bird's Eye View

I'm think I'm obsessed with dandelions!!!

I promised my daughter's teacher that I would come into her classroom at the end of this month to do a painting project.  I decided on a simple watercolour dandelion.  While searching different images I found this interesting quilt pattern and was instantly inspired: 

I originally found this on this blog http://woodhavenstudio.wordpress.com/ but can no longer locate the photo and would love to give credtit to the designer.



I wish that I could do this project as well as the painting activity but unfortunately with all the year end events and feeling the crunch of report cards creeping up, I'm just not going to have the time.  But here is how I did it:

You will need:

9 X 9 piece of green construction paper

oil pastels

Watercolor Gardens

This was a fun watercolor project for my Grade One class.  We first painted 'blobs' of different colors using watercolor paints starting with the lightest color and ending with the darkest.  They painted approximately 6 blobs with each colour. 

When they were dry the students filled in the
remaining background with green paint.
(Need to remove the flash from my camera!)

Using black markers the students drew little circles in each blob and then drew petals by extending lines from the circles to the outer edge of the blobs.  I had them practice first before attempting on their artwork. 



Some children had some difficulty getting their petals to fill the entire paint blob but were able to add extra petals to fill the space they had missed.