Antique treasure maps - grades 4-8

Ok I am being worse than usual at updating! Summer has just been toooo appealing - we've been working like crazy on the house, and I have been busily getting ready to teach a new grade, in a new division, at a new school!

This is probably my favorite project that we did during my Summer art camp. I actually just came up with it while we were at the park one day, as the kids were playing in the sand, digging and hiding treasure. I asked if they wanted to try drawing treasure maps, and they were all really excited!

To create the maps, I first had my students research antique treasure maps. They looked at a variety of compasses, and decided on the style they wanted. They sectioned out islands, which they outlined using Sharpie, and then colored the edges using pencil to make them stand out more. The next step was details - students used thin Sharpie to add mountains, trees, monsters, pretty much anything they wanted! When everyone was finished, we used brown liquid watercolor to dye the paper brown. The next day, my camp volunteers helped to burn the edges of the paper, giving them an aged look.

They were soo proud of these, and I don't blame them - I LOVE them!!

This last one was done by a student of mine that is just such a talented artist. She had to leave before we got around to burning the edges, but the finished product is still beautiful. I'd hang this on my wall!

 Tomorrow is my first day at my new school - wish me luck!!

Art camp - Sharpie doodle art!

Here's another quick update from the world of art camp. I am three weeks in and it's going so well! Only six days left.

There's an artist I really love, over at ihopethismakesyouhappy.com, who does incredible Sharpie paint drawings (see some here.) I just love them, and thought they would make excellent inspiration for an art camp project!

We do this project on Friday mornings, as it's really simple, calming, and takes up a good chunk of the morning. Kids are always really happy with the results!

To get them looking their best, I have students research the original artist, and talk about what makes his artwork so appealing (the variety in shapes, the thick black contrasted against color, etc.) Then, they divide their paper into shapes, and color them in using a pallet of 5-6 colors. After that, they use a combination of thick and thin Sharpies to make their doodles. Beauty!

You really should check out this artist's work. I have no clue who he is, but his style is awesome and there's so much to inspire art projects!

Another art camp goodie - hand lettered quotes!

Hand lettering is one of my favorite things to do. As someone that can't really draw, it's always been something that I am able to fine tune and feel a moderate amount of success with. I decided to try a hand lettering project with students for the first time today, and I will definitely be doing it again!

The first thing we did was look at hand lettered quotes on google. We studied them, and talked about the features (most of them are written into a square shape, and feature different styles of text for teach line.) We also talked about how certain words were larger, implying that they're a more important part of the quote.

Campers then chose their own quotes, and did a rough draft into a square shape. When they were confident with their writing, they lightly traced the squares onto good paper, and copied down their quote. Using a fine Sharpie, they hand lettered using a variety of styles of writing.

The last magic part of the equation was hand dying the paper using the ol' shaving cream and liquid watercolor technique (do you know this one? If not, I will post a tutorial.) Since we had taped the papers down to our placemats using painters tape,  the shaving cream went around the tape, leaving  a beautiful crisp, white border when they were done. Many kids voted this their favorite project so far!

Grade 5/6 totem poles

These are my favorite kinds of assignments - ones with loose guidelines, and tons of creative freedom. I wanted my students to explore mixing mediums, using a wash of a solid color of watercolor (in this case, brown) and then using pencil crayons to add detail, dimension and visual interest. I went with a totem pole theme, because in grade six, we are studying First Nations peoples. However, I encouraged them to stray away from typical totem poles, instead making totem poles based on things they loved - animals, TV shows, monsters, whatever inspired them. Some found reference drawings online, and others worked completely from their head. I adore them!!

3-D Mother's Day Letters (filled with flowers!)

I've been wanting to post this since Friday but waited just in case I have any moms from my class reading! For mother's day, my students made 3-D letters which they filled with dollar store flowers (a project I adapted from here.) Using the first letter of their mom's name, students made their 3D letter (using card stock and lots of tape!) Then, they filled them in with wet floral foam.

The last step was to fill them with flowers!

Beautiful, right? I made one for my mother in law, and one for myself as well! They'd look super cute hanging in the middle of a frame wall.

Hope everyone had a great mother's day!

Egpytian glue portraits

Sorry for the absence! I've been sick for the better part of the past week, and with that came a pounding headache and light sensitivity. The last thing I wanted to do was spend time editing photos for my blog! I have so many projects to get to, though.

Here's a fun project I did with my grade 5's.They are currently studying ancient Egypt, and I wanted to do a portrait study with them.

Students used a computer period to do a study of ancient Egyptian profile portraits. They sketched out an idea that they were happy with, and then we did a guided draw of the facial details once we were back in class.

Once students had finished their drawing (in pencil), they used glue to outline their drawings. The next day, they used chalk pastels to fill them in. The finishing touch was a few jewels, which they glued on as accessories. They're beautiful!!

Unity/collaborative art - snakes! Grades 4/5

One of my favorite projects so far this year was the collaborative crayon art that I did with my grade 5/6 class. They were a huge success, and I really wanted to do something similar with my grade 4/5 group. I thought about what shape would work for a long, collaborative piece and finally came up with... snakes!w

I followed the exact same procedure as I did last time, except for this project, I gave students a tracer for the head only. With the crayons, it was more important that the shapes all be consistent, but since Snakes come in many different shapes and sizes, I figured the students would be fine to create the body shapes on their own.

These projects are unfortunately impossible to photograph, but rest assured, it looks absolutely beautiful in the classroom!

I have many, many updates I am going to try and get underway this weekend.. I'm so behind, and have so much I'd like to share!

Floating jellyfish - grade 5/6

Here it is - my monthly new favorite project. Every month or so, I seem to declare a new project my favorite (see: here and here, and several other times I've said this.) But really, this one is special. In November, one of my students did a project on jellyfish, and I've just had it in my head that that would be a neat thing to do for an art project. Even more recently, someone pinned a photo of a jellyfish, and it jogged my memory.

Coming up with this project was pretty simple - I googled images of jellyfish, figured out how to draw them (very simple - start with the bubble shape at the top, add the tentacles, then behind the tentacles draw the line that represents the other side of the jellyfish.)

Students first drew in pencil, then traced in Sharpie (some thin, some thick.) Then, they used the same stippling technique that we used for our elephants and hot air balloons project. I encouraged students to use a mix of blues, soft purples, and blacks to create their background. Next, they moved onto their jellyfish, where they used greys and purples to create a shaded effect that made their jellyfish look rounded. The last thing they did was color in the tentacles using black Sharpie.

I think they are absolutely fabulous!! I even hung up my example in my hallway at home: