Chalk Pastel Bunnies for Easter

How adorable are these little guys?!? 

I experimented with a new bunny portrait lesson this year.  These bunnies were created by my little Grade 1 and 2 artists.

Created by 6 year old artist!

I love chalk pastels.  They are one of my favourite mediums to work with.  

But be forwarned as they are VERY messy.  

We did this lesson over 3 days as I spent the first day letting them explore the pastels on large sheets of newsprint and then practising how to make our bunny shapes.  We also practised not putting our free hand onto the markings we made on our papers...

The students started with a neck, then made 2 touching circles (like a sideways 8).  They traced over their circles repeatedly, trying to make them both the same size.  Its okay if they aren't right on the first go as you can always add to the shapes and rub away some of the mistakes.  Once the circles were pretty equal they continued tracing their circles a few more times.

Next they added a "hill" on the 8.  Again tracing until they were happy it was fairly centred on the sideways 8.

Next they added the ears.  I had said that they kind of make an M shape, and as you can see some of them took that very literally!! 

Once they were happy with their bunny form they were asked to use ONE finger to blend the chalk as if they were re-drawing the bunny - going in circle motions around the 8, back and forth on the hill, and the ears they were free to colour in the the chalk.  They were to try to drag the chalk into the shapes to fill them as they were tracing.

For the next part we switched to oil pastels.  They made a small upside down triangle in the 'dip' of the top of the sideways 8 and drew a line and upside down Y for the rest of the muzzle.  Eyes were added to the sides of the head and inner ears were coloured.

I got them to paint the backgrounds in liquid water colors to wash away any fingerprints around the bunny heads.

The final touch was to add whiskers with a black sharpie.

Haunted Houses

These amazing haunted houses were created by my Grade 1/2 class.  

I used this lesson idea by Art Teacher in LA.

First we used a directed drawing lesson for the house.  I used the steps found here for our houses, with a few modifications.  We discussed window shapes and students were free to include as many windows as they wanted.  I encouraged them to make big shapes. Students then drew a spooky tree and a moon.  I allowed them to also add tombstones or bats if they wished.

We then used our yellow oil pastels to colour in the moon and the windows and doors.  Black oil pastels were used everywhere else.

Students then painted blue and purple liquid watercolors for the backgrounds.  

Happy Hallowe'en!

Here are a few other Hallowe'en projects to try:

 Frankenstein Kids

 In a Dark Dark Wood

 Frankenstein Cardboard tube craft

  Going Batty

Coffee Filter Trees

I had to share these incredibly easy fall trees that my Grade One class made!

Students used eyedroppers to drip liquid water color paints onto coffee filters.  Don't be stingy with the paint as they will be brighter. You could also use washable markers to colour the filters and then spray with water.  But again, make sure they fill the filter with lots of colour!

 When dry, they cut out this fabulous tree template.  The template for the tree is from a book that does not allow me to share it here due to copyright limitations.  However, you could easily use something a lot less complicated as it was a challenge for a few of them.  However, you could hear a pin drop during cutting time due to the extreme need for concentration!!

Here is a free online template you could use for the tree.

These look so great in my window and it makes me smile every time I walk

 into my room and see them!

Snowflake Resists

Here is a winter art project I did with my grade one class last year before I started this blog.  I printed out large snowflake templates on my computer and allowed them to trace them by taping a blank paper to one of the templates.  Kids who had difficulty seeing the template through the paper were allowed to place their papers on the window.  The light passing through the window made the black lines show through more easily. Some children chose to remain at their desks and could see the outlines just fine. They used white oil pastel to try to replicate the snowflake onto their blank papers.  Encourage your students to press hard with the oil pastels.

When the large snowflake was complete they made other freehand drawings of smaller snowflakes around the large one.

Then the students used watercolors in cool colours to paint right over their oil pastel drawings and tracing. While the paint was still wet they sprinkled salt over the paint to create a frosty effect.




This creative student had the patience to outline the entire template instead of colouring it in!



 

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.

Claude Monet - Japanese Bridge

These are paintings that my Grade 2 class did last year.  We did a mini-unit on Claude Monet.  My students really enjoyed working with water colours to create a replica of Monet's Japanese Bridge.  We did them over a few lessons.

I first got the students to draw the bridges with white pastels so that they would still see the bridge even after covering them with paint.  We used different shades of blue and some purple for the water.  They experimented with yellows and greens and even some blue for the upper portion of their painting.

When the paintings were dry, they went over the bridge drawings with white paint and used various shades of green to create the lily pads.  Final touches to the lilly pads were made with white and pink pencil crayons.