Some fun things!

I haven't had a chance to post because I've been a bit busy tying up my February vacation and getting back to school!

To my surprise last week I received a Stylist Blogger award from CHRISTIE at Fine Lines! Thanks Christie!
I will post back with my 'about me' and blogs to pass you on to asap.
On other high notes-
I hit 50 followers (which may be a small deal to some of you bigger bloggers but is a big deal to me!). So thanks to all of you for checking out Color and Collage! ...I'm almost to 10,000 hits as well.... exciting! ;)

Last week I taught a 4th & 5th grade printmaking class at the Danforth Museum of Art. It was great- and I showed the kids how to use a real press. So fun for them! They're collagraphs came out beautiful!

Lots of great new projects to post later this week! Stay tuned!!

Fifth grade tested and approved... underwater watercolors

A while back I posted an underwater watercolor lesson that I did with middle school students over the summer. 

Recently I did the lesson with one of my fifth grade classes.  It took about 5 30-minutes classes. We used foam brushes dipped in two hues of green for the seaweed and fluffy brushes for blue washes. I also decided to have the students use watercolor colored pencils for the fish instead of watercolors due to my lack of tiny brushes and lack of time. We did a few practice fishies before we drew them on to the backgrounds though. The watercolor pencils gave the kids some good practice in color blending, adding layers, and drawing small details.

I think they were a great success!

Long Night Moon

I found this book:

Long Night Moon 

by Cynthia Rylant and Mark Siegel

It goes through the moon in each month of the year with beautiful illustrations!

I was inspired by the February moon that was covered by a snowy haze. 

This project was simple but a great success. The second graders did a great job and were very proud of their pictures. One class I only had one 30 minute period and one class I had two 30 minute periods. Both worked out. The project timing can work for 30 minutes to an hour depending on your time block.

Step 1: Draw a circle with pencil about 2 inches in diameter. Draw the bare tree on the bottom of the page (we have previously done a lot of tree drawing so I did not need to spend time introducing this).

Step 2: Color in the circle with white chalk. CAREFULLY take your finger and blend around the edge of the moon to create the "snowy haze" effect. 

Then color in the tree using brown construction paper crayon. 

Step 3: Students can gently make clouds in the sky and snow along the bottom.

Step 4: Draw a mountain in the background by using less chalk to color it in so it is not as bright white.

Step 5: Dot stars in the sky using toothpicks dipped in silver paint. 

Little Penguin Sculptures

wine corks- mat board scraps- orange straws- coffee filters- model magic- black acrylic

Hot gluing wine corks to 3 x 3 mat board scraps was the perfect base for these little penguins.
The kids could cover the cork in model magic and add feet to start.
Then they add a head, wings, and tail- stick a small orange straw cutting in the head for the beak.

When they dried- the kids tore up coffee filters to glue around the penguin for ice and snow and then painted the penguins with black acrylic.
The first graders were so in love with new little friends!

Indian Elephant inspired Valentine cards

These are almost finished and have come out really well- I can't wait to send them home with my kinders tomorrow!

My students drew elephants on small grey construction paper, cut them out and we glued them on hot pink. 

I stapled the papers to purple construction paper and then gave them red markers to draw hearts blowing out of the trunk (like water spraying out of elephant trunks but with hearts, so cute). The kids added gold and silver paint designs, and some decided to draw blankets on the elephants. 

Look to Britto for a little love...

Just a thought to store away for next year....

I love love love Jim Dine- do not get me wrong (and love to use his prints as inspiration for Valentine's Day lessons)- however I was in Miami this past weekend and visited Britto Central - Romero Britto's Gallery on Lincoln Road.
They had an entire wall of hearts - to boot the paintings were hung in the formation of a heart for Valentine's Day. I didn't get to take a picture and can't seem to find one but I'm going to email the gallery and ask for one for teaching purposes. The images above were some examples of the hearts though.
His paintings would be great inspiration for Valentine's Day art class lessons!

Brice Marden Experiments with Organic Lines

I was working at the Danforth Museum this past weekend conducting a family drop in program.
My lesson connected to a collection of Brice Marden's prints on exhibit.

The lesson is simple but worked out really well for all ages.
I cut 18x24 drawing paper to 9x24 for a more unusual size that lent itself to long lines.

-Step one was to draw organic/squiggly/wiggly/curvy lines using black and grey materials that I had separated out-- washable markers, sharpies, crayons, pencils, colored pencils, oil pastels.

-Step two was to go to the painting station and add color if desired- I put out watercolors with brushes, sponges, and straws for blowing. 

The lesson was an exploratory one that allowed artists to test out how materials worked together such as watercolor on washable marker, watercolor on pencil, etc.
It got great reviews from the visiting families so I thought I would pass it on!