More Owls

I did another round of owl workshops this week. Just thought I'd share my student's amazing art!

Painting Owls Folk Art Style

This week, I've taught three different classes on painting owls folk art style, and I think by the last class, I finally figured out what worked best. Sometimes that's how it goes. 

I showed the students several different ways to draw owls, and then they got to design their own. We also brainstormed together as a class for different pattern ideas. 

I introduced "Folk Art" to the students and we looked at several examples of different types of folk art. I focused in on the colors, patterns and child-like qualities of folk art.

I encouraged students to use bright colors....

I encouraged students to use lots of different patterns....

 I encouraged students to try to stick to three main colors....

Some days I let them have a little freedom with their color choices....

But it's usually easier when I don't. I get mild whining ("..but I wanted a brown owl"), but in the end, they usually love the way they turn out. They still have creative freedom on their design, patterns and accent colors.

T.G.I.F.!  I've fought a terrible head cold all week, plus my low back is killing me! I'm doing a personal painting workshop this weekend so I hope I'm up for it. Can't wait for Sunday so I can rest! Hope you're week was great!

Expressing Yourself With Clay

 

I looooove how this project turned out! I saw this idea on CreARTe with Graeme's Facebook's page and as soon as I did, I knew I had to try it. She is an art teacher at a local school and has photos of some really cute art lesson projects. In the past, I've always done Clay Faces, but this one has so much more personality!

For this project we used a 9 x 12 canvas hard board, Crayola air dry clay, clay and texture tools, acrylic paints, Mod Podge, magazine clippings, E6000 glue, varnish sealer and embellishments like beads, glitter, etc.

“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” Psalm 139:14

I always tie in a Bible verse with each of my home school class art lessons. This one fit this perfect! God created us all perfect in His eyes. He had a reason to make us unique, and has a special plan for our lives. What a beautiful truth to hear as a young girl.

I introduced these terms; form, score, slip, mixed media, and dimension. Students learned basic clay building techniques.

I encouraged students to have fun with this and express their personalities through their art.

We also learned about Buonarroti Michelangelo (1475-1564)

This project took awhile to complete. I broke it up into three sessions because we had to allow for drying time. The first week we worked on the boards, second week we formed the clay girls, and the last week we painted and glued it all together.

Drawing and Painting Pumpkins

Here's a fun fall project where you can introduce numerous concepts like; lines, shading, and warm/cool colors. First, I teach students how I draw a pumpkin. I always teach that before you paint to practice your drawing and plan your painting. And I love talking about painting fruits, and stress that there's not such thing as a "perfect" pumpkin. They can be fat, tall, bumpy, lop-sided, etc. Students painted on a 12 x 12 stretched canvas with acrylic paints.

We added a little green puff paint for the vines and tricked out our edges with stripes. Students were kindergarten through 2nd grade (one fourth grader), and completed their paintings in a 2-hour workshop.