Zentangle dragonflies

Today another one of our fabulous art masterpiece moms , Laura Bynum, is sharing a project she did with her 2nd grade class. Laura is also an artist too! Check out her blog www.lbynumart.com

Laura had her class do Zentangle Dragonflies and they turned out great. What is Zentangle? A Zentangle is an abstract drawing created using repetitive patterns. So pretty great project ideas for kids of all ages.

She used water colors , water color paper, pencils, zentangle example sheets, thin sharpies and brushes.
Laura showed them a couple examples after she told them what a Zentangle was.


The kids jumped right in drawing their dragonflies and creating the Zentangle designs.




After they got their designs down they painted them with a little watercolor.
Here's some masterpieces!



Here's some helpful links that she used
www.whatwedoallday.com

Here's a great one on how to draw a simple dragonfly. www.howtodrawanimals.net

Enjoy! Let me know how it turns out!

Jim Dine embossed hearts project.

Jim Dine (born June 16, 1935) is an American pop artist. He is sometimes considered to be a part of the Neo-Dada movement.

I am going to have the kiddos learn about Jim Dine today with a fabulous slideshow and make embossed 6 x 6 hearts. 

For the materials I purchased this roll of 36 gauge embossing aluminum.  I couldn't beat the price on Amazon, and it comes in a 12 x 25 foot roll.  It is easy to cut with scissors. Plenty for 2 classrooms.

 I also  bought cuticle sticks to use as cheap embossing tools.



Here is the link to the slideshow on Jim Dine....
I'll let you know how it goes

Georgia O'Keefe Skull Project

 By Aston 

In 5th Grade today we are doing a Georgia Okeefe Lesson, but I changed it up, instead of the flowers, we're doing her Cow Skulls,  I'm teaching 2 classrooms at the same time, I'll be running back and forth between the two.  We'll see how it works.  One classroom I'll have them working on a southwest inspired tissue paper landscape, complete with mesas and cactus.  The other classroom will work on putting details on and painting pre cut out cow skull.
Here is a link to the slide talk....
GeorgiaOKeefe slide talk

It was a success.  I used large pieces of water color paper for the background, and placed out a stack of tissue paper.  I told them to wet their paper with modge podge,  in sections.  Starting with the sky, they put a sheet of light blue tissue paper on the top half of the watercolor paper.

Then I told them to use two shades of the same color, dark for the background mountains and lighter color for the foreground mountains,  layering them gives a middle ground.  I also encouraged them to tear the paper, and to try to leave plateaus in the background, (flat topped mountains) to give it a more southwest look.  

All the Tissue paper was put down with modge podge, or diluted glue, careful not to tear the paper, then the desert colors were put down on the bottom third.  They used Browns, tanks, whatever they chose for the colors, some put a wide swath of brown and decided not to put any green cactus in, anything is ok.  

While those were drying, I had them work on the cow skulls,  I precut them out so they didn't have to do that part.  I showed them a few samples of where markings could go on them, and had them use brown sharpies to mark the eyes, nostrils, horns, details, then they could either wash them with a diluted metallic terra on the way! Brown paint, or do watercolor designs.  Whatever they wanted to do.

The next day, I had them put a last layer of modge podge over the background to give it a shine and make it even.  They put the skulls onto their southwest backgrounds with glue.

They look great!

By Caleb

By London