Ted Harrison

I was definitely impressed with the lesson plan I saw on thatartistwoman site. She has amazing lesson plans especially for watercolor lessons. I had printed out photos of Ted Harrison's paintings and showed my students his artwork.

The students then drew their own landscapes using white pastels on watercolor paper and then filled in their contour lines using the watercolor paints making sure they tried to stay within the lines. The students were so proud of their completed work it was def a confidence booster for my beginner art students!

Panty Hose Sculptures

I saw a great post on Claudia Olivos and Sergio Olivos on panty hose sculptures and thought it would be a great addition to the summer extended school year art class. I followed the steps from the Olivos getting my materials:
wire hanger, wood board, gesso, nails, stocking, and a hammer. I started by nailing a nail into the wood board making two holes by nailing in the nail and pulling it out ( I did this step for my students). I then has the students wear safety goggles and straighten out the hanger and pushed it through the hole and bent it on the bottom. Next the students sculpted the hanger into a shape of their choice. After they were happy with the shape they pulled a stocking leg over the hanger and they tied of the stocking on the bottom and cut the other leg of the stocking off and we stapled and stretched it and stapled the stocking on the bottom. The students then gessoed the stocking all over this was done to ensure the paint would stick. We let the sculptures dry and then during the next class the students painted using acrylic paints to design their sculptures. My students were so creative with their sculptures I was so amazed at the results!

Cake Pops!!

We had a baby shower today at work and I decided to try to make cake pops. It was quite difficult at first however with a few tweaks here and there they came out great. I followed the recipe from little miss momma. What I learned from the recipe was that it is very important to make sure the cake pops are in the freezer for atleast a few hours after you insert the lollipop sticks into the cake balls with a little melted candy on the tip of the sticks, this ensures that they will not fall. Also when you are ready to dip the balls into the candy melts make sure you have a lot of melted candy so you can dip the whole ball with one clean sweep completely covering it. I also froze my cake balls on styrafoam in the freezer overnight. Here are the sweet results tada:

Drawing and Painting class

We've been having a lot of fun in the drawing and painting class, students have been creative with their flower and leaf paintings. Here is the painting the students were shown and told to make their own flower and leaf paintings using their own design and colors.

Art Mural

I worked on a collaborative project with all of my students we looked at pictures by the artist Keith Haring I showed the students the website Haring Kids. The students then came up their own characters to represent some of the interests they have at school and this is the wonderful result!

Camouflage hands

This next project was a way for my students to use their bodies to create beautiful art. I found this lesson plan on the art classroom and was blown away at how creative the students were and how great the results were. I had the students choose their patten of choice and they they sketched it on thick watercolor paper and used acrylic paints to paint the whole pattern. Then during the next class they used their non dominant hand and placed it on a portion of their picture and painted their hand to camouflage with the picture. The kids loved the fact they were able to get paint on their hands and get messy ... hey that's what art is all about!

Summer Fun

I work in an all year school program so I wanted to make Art during the summer time something fun and different. For summer I came up with the idea of doing string art. I came across some wonderful free templates with directions from websites such as String Art Fun, tlc yarn art, and some of the string art students created their own designs! I had the students pick of create their patterns and then paint their wooden boards with their color of choice. Then during the next class they hammered away with one inch nails making sure the nails didn't go through the wood. After their pattern was nailed they then using embroidery thread to string their art. The students were so proud of their work and many were asking me if they could do more projects like this.

Glue Batik

I absolutely love this tutorial on doing batik using gel glue from That Artist Woman. I had some white fabric and muslin fabric which I cut into squares for each student. The students were instructed to draw a design, logo, picture, or their name using pencil. After they sketched their design they traced over it using crayola washable gel glue. We then waited until next class after the glue had dried to paint them using watered down acrylic paints. I also had some spray paint bottles which some students used for their batiks... there were some amazing results.