Tar Beach Collage

2nd grade viewed Tar Beach by Faith Ringgold. We drew and painted a cityscape inspired by the city skylines in her work. Then we attached the painting to a larger paper. After that, we added squares of fabric and patterned papers. They are awesome!

Complementary Kusama Collages

This easy 2nd grade project was a great refresher in color theory while learning about the unique works of Yayoi Kusama. We started by drawing a pumpkin on a colored piece of paper. Then we added dots to match Kusama's style.

Next we cut out the pumpkin and glued it to a complementary paper. We finished them off with geometric designs in the background. Easy, fun and cute!

Kusama Pumpkins Sculptures

Ok, official favorite project of the year so far! And a super simple process! 

We used Neon Model Magic clay by Crayola. Each student got a piece that was about a handful. We made a "pancake" shape first, then wrapped that around a ball of tissue to give it some extra "fluff" while using less clay. Then we added spots of a different color.

After the pumpkins were made, we painted a oil pastel and watercolor resist background. We folded and cut the paper to create a 3D room. Such a great effect, love it! 

Andy Warhol's Cats

3rd grade loved learning about Andy's cats and exploring his early illustrations. This was a simple lesson. I found a few "How to Draw Cats" pages online. You can find links to the How-To's under each cat image. 

Original by Andy Warhol

We drew all 3 together, then they picked their favorite to finish. We traced with sharpie and added watercolor paints. 

Very easy, super cute, and a great opportunity to wear my many-colored cats dress! 

The names you see are what they named their cats, like Andy signed "Sam's" name to his cat drawings. 

How to draw this sitting cat from Art Projects for Kids. 

How to draw this laying down cat from ArtsyCraftyMom.

Andy Warhol Prints

This was my first time use Gelli Printing plates in the classroom, and they are awesome! We used regular liquid tempera paints instead of printing ink. After viewing the works of Andy Warhol, focusing on his flower artworks and discussing the printing process, we used fake flowers and Gelli plates to create these gorgeous collages!

Students printed as much as they could in one class period. During the next class time, they cut up their "best" ones and made collages. Love these and I will definitely be using Gelli plates again! 

Textured Hearts

One of my favorite new lessons this year comes from kindergarten! As we explore the elements & principles of art, we created textured hearts on textured paper. I don't have many in-progress pictures of this; kindergarten moves faster than my camera.

We started by using oil pastels on texture sheets to create a textured piece of paper. Then we used Crayola Model Magic to create the hearts. First we pressed them into the texture sheets, then used heart-shaped cookie cutters (yes, this is a literal "cookie cutter" lesson) to cut out the hearts. So this could be adapted to any shape, depends on what kind of cookie cutters you have. The kids were amazed and the results are gorgeous. Can't wait to do these again next year. 

And a bonus surprise: I was going to glue these to their papers when they dried, so I had the kids set their hearts on their papers to keep them together. The hearts stuck to the papers, so I didn't have to glue them! :D 

Collaborative Chihuly Bottle Sculpture

5th grade worked together on this bottle replica of Dale Chihuly's glass chandeliers. Very simple process; we painted the inside of water bottles using warm or cool colored acrylic paints, then cut them into "ribbons". 

The bottles' tops fit perfectly into chicken wire and it is hung on an anchor chart stand that was abandoned in the hallway. ^_^

Chihuly Cylinder

This simple project for 1st grade was a great review of warm and cool colors while introducing the works of glass artist Dale Chihuly. We viewed his cylinder glassworks and compared them to his paintings of cylinders. We watched videos of Chihuly painting and noticed how much movement he used and how fast he worked. Then we made our own cylinders using oil pastels working quickly. We painted our backgrounds using watercolors. 

String Pull Art

Ok, new favorite project, seriously. This took me a while to perfect, knowing how much paint, pressure, etc. to use. But once I understood enough to teach it, the kids really mastered the technique and created gorgeous artworks! This is 2nd grade!

We were inspired by the glass artworks of Dale Chihuly. We viewed his works and noted his used of organic lines and transparent colors. Then we mimicked it using the string pull technique. Can you see the resemblance?

Chihuly Melted Glass

4th grade viewed the glassworks of Dale Chihuly and recreated his Maccia using melted plastic. We used permanent markers to color on hard plastic plates. Then we used heat guns to melt the plastic. They were amazed at the process and the results are gorgeous! Check out more on our Artsonia page. 

Chihuly Paintings

3rd grade nailed it again with these gorgeous paintings based on the work of Dale Chihuly. We viewed his glassworks and discussed how he relays his ideas to his team using drawings and paintings. Then we created these amazing artworks with many layers!

The first step was to create a background. We are working on tagboard because we needed to add a lot of paint to these. They used large dry brushes, texture rollers, and paint scrapers to create a textured background. 

After the paint dried, we viewed videos of Chihuly painting and talked about how he used movement in his artworks. Then we played a matching game, matching some of his paintings to the sculptures.  I really wanted them to understand how the 2D and 3D artworks were related, and this help a lot!

You can find a link to the images I printed for the game here.

After playing the game and talking about the shapes he would use in his paintings, we used oil pastels to add quickly-drawn shapes inspired by Chihuly's glassworks.

To finish them off, we use liquid paint in squeezy bottles (official name) to add a few more details. I tried to stress that "less is more" in this case and that we just needed to add a little more interest to our paintings.

These are always a hit and they were so proud of their work!