We just finished a unit about color and my jr. highers had to create designs in the various color schemes like warm, cool, complimentary, analogous, primary, secondary, and intermediate colors and then label them. Watch for the end results soon.

Perspective and symmetry are both great subjects to learn about in these selfportraits. I did this with 5th and 6th grade and they really enjoyed designing the bottom of their show after getting inspiration from their real shoes. The hard part was creating the symmetrical opposite on the otber one. We then cut them out and attached them to a checkerboard weaving.

Another heart idea. This is brown paper I printed words onto and then drew over with sharpie and painted the rest. The white is a white gel pen over the top. I love the layered look of it.

In elementary art this week we are making cupcakes out of clay. We are using the silicone cupcake molds for the bases and then coils for the tops. I am excited to see how they turn out.

They will have to be fired twice, once for the bisque and once for the glaze. Hopefully they will come out amazing. I'll let you know.

And perfect timing to be working on cupcakes. Its the art teacher's birthday this weekend!

Robert Indiana's LOVE sculpture.

So, what's it going to be? What is the latest and the greatest as far as Valentine art projects go? I found this one online and think I might need to try it with my preschoolers. I think I might collage the hearts first and then stamp with bottle caps and macaroni and cardboard lines. Good idea.

Did this one a couple of years ago. We learned about the artist Robert Indiana and his LOVE scupture and then broke up the page into for squares and drew out the letters. Then colored with black and white patterns in the positive space and color in the backgrounds, negative spaces. Easy peasy.
Saw this one online and just thought it would make a great teacher gift. I could use some lotion. My hands are all dried out from the clay we have been sculpting.

Based on Picasso's Hands with Bouquet. Trace hand, and cut out of skin colored construction paper, set aside. Cut strips of green construction paper. Glue them on to white background paper. Add colored squares of tissue with white glue and the eraser end of their pencils. I add the dots of glue onto their paper and they have to attach a flower to every dot I make.

Self portrait holding a Valentine Heart. Draw the heart and hands first then add the portrait in the back. "But now, faith , hope and love, abide these things, but the greatest of these is love" 1 Corinthians 13:13.

In kindergarten today we learned about the artist Henri Matisse. Henri loved to draw with scissors. We looked at his collage called "Escargot" and created our own snails using tissue and watered down glue.

We put glue underneath and on top of the tissue squares to help it stay down.

We also added antenni with a blacik sharpie

break out self portraits

And we just finished these break out self portraits. The kids used prisma color markers and created a front all about them and the future and then ripped a hole in it and added their self portrait to the back. They look amazing.

My jr. highers are working on this project. They had to pick warm or cool colors for the backgrounds and we are making them out of tissue and watered down glue. We will finish the backgrounds tomorrow and then start working on the trees which are just torn white construction paper and watered down black tempera paints. Too bad we don't see treescapes like these in Southern Ca.

Jessica's "Daily Affirmation"

Saw this on another art teacher's blog and thought is was so great. Sometimes we just need to tell ourselves how good we are. I get a lot of affirmations from friends, but have a hard time accepting them sometimes. Maybe it just needs to come from within as we look in the mirror.