Wayne Thiebaud Cakes with oil pastel - grade six

Wayne Thiebaud cake lesson plans are such a good bang for your buck. Have you seen his amazing cake paintings?

They translate so well to oil pastel lessons for junior level grades. You get some fundamental drawing skills, shading, blending, and a finished product that looks kinda 3D, and the entire thing can be accomplished in under one and a half hours! Since I am still on mat leave (only for another week!! Ugh) I've been getting my fill of art by volunteering with my friend's class, so I really need lessons that can be done in one shot, rather quickly but with a great payoff. 

I always begin projects like this with a group draw (think - paint night style.) I drew each step on the board, stopping to make sure that everyone was following along and making sure the lines were parallel. I can't stress how important this is! If they aren't parellel lines, the cake will look... not like a cake. Which just isn't fun when you're doing a cake project.

Next, students need to begin coloring and shading using oil pastel. I told them they could go crazy with as many layers as they wanted, but to remember that every layer needed to be colored in, so if they were super thin, they would have trouble keeping the lines clean.

Have them start by (1) coloring in each layer with a base color. Next, they will (2) blend using white oil pastel, going toward the center. Finally, they will (3) blend using black oil paste, going toward the center. I tell my students that they don't need to use fingers or kleenex to blend oil pastel, that just coloring on top of the color with the shade will blend it quite nicely. 

Once the layers are done, they can color the exterior of the cake. Using the same technique of coloring with the base layer first, students can blend the black and white oil pastels coming from the edges and going in toward the center of the cake. 

The top can be colored with an all over color, and students can decorate it using candles, candies, and anything else they can dream up!

The final step is the add-ons - a plate, a table, some cake shadowing. 

Some kids went ahead and did wallpaper designs, which just took the project up a notch. Depending on how much time you have, there can be a lot of creativity here!

I love this lesson. It would be great  to leave with a substitute. You could even link them to this page and just have them follow the steps. Easy peasy!

Have you tried this activity? If so, please link me in the comments!

Winter birch trees - grade 6

I finally did my first ever birch tree lesson! These have been all over the internet for years, but I’ve always particularly liked this lesson by Deep Space Sparkle. I loved the final product her students achieved, but I changed a bit about the process.

We skipped the tape step, and I had students just directly draw their trees onto watercolor paper using pencil (pressing very lightly!) They added in a horizon line, and some chose to add a fence behind the trees. We talked a lot about perspective during this lesson – how to make certain trees appear closer to your eye (make them longer and thicker) and how to make certain trees appear farther away. They also sketched in where they were going to put their shadow (we talked about which direction the shadow would go based on where their sun was.) Finally, some students opted to include another fence in front. 

Students who had done the tiny fence in the background used a thin sharpie to trace the fence, just to make it simpler on them, rather than painting them. The drawing process took about 40 minutes, and when they came back the next day, it took them about another 50-60 minutes to paint their drawings.

The only rule they had to keep in mind when painting was that they couldn’t leave the snow white. They had to use a mix of shades of watery blues and browns to give their snow dimension. In terms of the sky, they could do whatever inspired them. Students used watercolors to paint, except for the final touch - a bit of acrylic white to make falling snow. For the shadows, some chose blue tones, while others chose purples or greys.

I really like how these turned out. I feel like you can see each of their different styles of painting – some are more abstract, some are very precise and clear. Some use literal colors, while others used bright imaginative colors. It’s really fun to see what they came up with!

Stacked Square Optical Illusion - grade 6

This is a project I absolutely love - it always produces great results, it's fairly simple for students to follow, and it's a great lesson for shading and creating a 3D drawing!

I'm not sure what to call this illusion - I've seen it a few times, but there's never really been a name associated with it. to me it looks like stacked squares... soo.. stacked square illusion?

Here's how to do the stacked square illusion:

                       

I begin by giving my students a template that I've made with three lines, as you can see in the first picture. I like to give them a starting point, because students can get really caught up in drawing the lines straight or the perfect dimensions apart. Instead of having them use the side with the lines, I have them work from the backside of the paper, so they can faintly see the three lines through the paper, but they aren't actually a part of their final project. (I hope this makes sense.)

The first thing students do is connect the lines at the top and the bottom of the pate, and identify roughly where they thing the center of the shape is.

                      

The next thing they do is start drawing pairs of lines. If the pairs are above the center mark they drew, they point them upwards (if possible, I have them point the lines more gradually upwards as they go.) The other thing they must do is close the sides of their pairs of lines (since they're working from the backside of the paper, they won't actually have the three dark black lines that we began with, they'll just be seeing them from the other side of the sheet.)

                      

This is what they should have once they've worked up one side of the paper. Once they're at this point, they can flip their paper upside down, and do the same thing on the other side.

                           

This is the part that really makes the illusion stand out - under each set of two lines, they draw two nearly horizontal lines going towards the center of the shape. They must do it all for one side of the paper, then flip it upside down and do it for the other side.

                          

Once this is all done, they can begin to color! They need to choose a side that will be dark, and a side that will be light. To keep it simple, I have them pick a marker and a pencil crayon in the same color. The parts in between the colored sections is shaded in using a pencil - dark shading on the dark side, and lighter shading on the light side.

Once they've finished the illusion, I have them color in the background using Sharpie. They all turned out so, so well - I'd love to post them all!

Catching Snowflakes - grade 3

As you may have noticed, my past few projects have been decidedly winter themed, but I can't help it - today it was close to minus 40 with the windchill! I feel like I am just completely surrounded by winter and cold and snow right now, and it's definitely affecting my choice of art projects.

I originally saw this idea as a collage on artsonia but decided to have my grade 3's do them with pastels instead, just to get them drawing and coloring. They began by drawing the face (with the little button nose on top) then drew the scarf and body. Following that, they added in more details, such as the mouth, the hair, and the sweater pattern.

It just kills me how cute these are. I love the scraggly hair, I love the patterned sweaters, and I love the little teeth. They're just adorable.