The Great Plate Dragon

During our Chinese art unit, art club worked together to create this huge Chinese dragon from painted paper plates! He looks amazing in the hallway, love it!

Ming Plates

I did a few Chinese art projects at my former school and one of them was Ming vases. Students used oil pastel and watercolor to recreate a Ming vase artwork. Then I saw other teachers having students replicate Ming dynasty plates on paper plates, and I was excited to try that. 

Working from real Ming dynasty-inspired bowls

3rd grade worked hard to use value on their plate while using Chinese designs such as plants and animals of the zodiac. Love how these turned out, great job 3rd grade!

This Artist Can

I recently posted a video on our YouTube channel for teachers to show how we start each class everyday. "This Artist Can" is our chant of the rules that we do before every class. Check it out and let me know if you use anything similar or how you make sure kiddos remember the rules of the art room. :)

Color Theory Table Reference

I have been stuck in bed since Friday with the flu. :'( But I have been able to do some light computer work between the body pains, so here is what I made! Next year we are getting hexagon tables in the art room and I wanted a color theory table reference that matched. This year, I have these rectangle wheels which I made from clip are online.

Love them, but I wanted to make one that suits our needs specifically. So I made these! The center of each has our 5 house crests as students will be sitting by house next year (Hopefully).

The one at the top has nothing in the middle, so feel free to save it and print it for yourself if it suits your needs!  

Chinese Lanterns

A favorite and a classic when learning about Chinese Art; the Lantern festival. 5th grade created painted paper with China's colors for their lanterns. Then we folded and cut them into the lantern shape. Some kids knew what was coming, but most of them were audibly surprised when our papers were suddenly lanterns! Always beautiful and fun!

AND you can view the instructions here:

Terra Cotta Soldiers Printmaking Collage

This past summer I went to the Field Museum in Chicago to see the Terra Cotta warriors display. Amazing as was everything else there!

During our study of China, 2nd grade created their own army using marker printing. Then we cut them out and assembled them in a collage. Marker printing is always so fun. ^_^

HOW TO MARKER PRINT???? Check it here:

Clay Chinese Dragons

Both the 1st graders and I were amazed with how our clay Chinese Dragons turned out! This was their first clay project and they really nailed it!

We started by making clay "snakes". Then we added some "kinks" to the snake to form it into the dragon shape.

After that, we pressed the dragons into texture plates to add "scales". They could pinch the clay to add horns and spikes if they wanted.

Once they were dried, we painted them. Love these adorable things, we will definitely make them again some day!