1st grade Self-Portraits

 Now this is a repeat project and probably will be for the next couple of years. I learned about this project when I student taught. My co-op would give the students a "pre-test" to draw themselves without any help. Then the next 2-3 classes the students worked on drawing proportion, facial details, hair, special details like earrings, glasses, ponytails, etc. and then worked on the background. We review horizon line, line, patterns, and colors. they used crayons and markers. And of course with all my projects we outline with Black Sharpie Markers.

4th grade Tissue Paper Painting Peacock Portraits

We did this project before the Holiday season, it's a little late in posting this project HOWEVER this project turned out great.

We started with a background of peacocks, and then drew a basic portrait of a peacock.

We outlined with medium black sharpies and then colored in the peacocks body and the "eyes" of the feather with realistic oil pastel colors.

To add the vibrant colors of the feathers we painted with tissue paper. I cut up 1" to 2" squares of tissue paper of blues/greens/purples/browns etc.
We painted on plain water and then add tissue papers and THEN painted over with clear what to add a watercolor effect.

Check them out!!!

If you try this in your classroom, please let me know... you will love the results and your students will too and they will feel successful, well at least I hope!

3rd grade Giraffes

Okay.. So I have done this project before, last year. This year I changed it up a little to make it less timely and to give the students more time to paint.

I have seen a lot of "animal portraits" on art education blogs, even some giraffe portraits. I will link up my last year post, because I believe it has some more details.

This year I had the students use oil pastels for the spots and background objects and then used watercolor techniques for the giraffe skin, sky, and grass!

Don't you just love that tongue and character of this giraffe

Oh that nose! such character and creativity

Printmaking:Modigiliani Self-Portraits

This is one of the best projects of the year, the students absolutely fell in love with the printmaking process.
 What you will need:
printmaking styro foam plates (or styrofoam lunch trays, etc.)
speed ball printing ink( all different colors)
pencils
scrap paper
all different colors of construction paper cut to the size of the plate ( a little bigger then the plate)
Info on artist Amedeo Modigilani ( I made a slideshow)

First we looked at some examples of Amedeo Modigiliani's work. Then we drew a step by step self portrait on a small scrap paper.  THEY LOVED DRAWING THEMSELVES IN ABSTRACT FORM, WITH LON NECKS, LONG HEAD, ETC. We taped the scrap paper to the styrofoam plate and then outline the scrap paper by pressing hard on to the styrofoam.

For printing: I made sure they pressed hard into the styrofoam with their pencils, so it would make a good print. I had them come in groups pick 3 colors of different paper and 1 color of ink. They created 3 so they could choose the best.. and then we made ghost prints at the end to see if the "faded" look turned out.

Then they made a frame for their Modiligani self-portraits and glued their favorite print in the middle of the frame.