ABOUT THIS BLOG

"A Faithful Attempt" is designed to showcase a variety of K-12 art lessons, the work of my art students, as well as other art-related topics. Projects shown are my take on other art teacher's lessons, lessons found in books or else designed by myself.
Thanks for visiting!
LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I acknowledge, with deep respect, that I am gathered on Treaty 7 territory. I acknowledge the many First Nations, Métis and Inuit whose footsteps have marked these lands for generations. I respect the histories, languages and cultures of all the Indigenous peoples of Canada, whose presence continues to enrich our community.

Wednesday, October 29, 2025

Puffy Paint Ghosts!


This is a student favourite lesson- homemade puffy paint! My Grade 11 students asked to do it again (I did it with them back in Grade 2!). So I had them teach it to a Grade 5 class during Halloween activities. They did a great job.

Mix half shaving cream with the same amount of white glue. Mix well. You can tint it different colours using liquid watercolours or food coloring. The kids love this!  It actually does dry puffy!


















 

Wednesday, October 22, 2025

Flint Corn Observational Drawings

 


My students were not having it with this observational drawing project, lol
The patience required to draw individual corn kernels is something that todays generation is not equipped with sadly.


Grade 7-9 students drew ornamental corn from observation. 


Then they outlined everything in ultrafine sharpie.



Then they added the warm colours using watercolour pencils. 


Some of the finished ones!























Monday, October 20, 2025

Spooky Halloween Windows with chalk marbling


This is a great one day lesson for Halloween!
I saw this project idea as a reel on the Instagram account of Ms. Potts’ Art Room.

The only difference is we did chalk marbling, and she used a paint marbling kit.
I didn't want to order a kit, so used chalk marbling and it worked well, but with 
probably more subtle colours. 

I pre printed out a window template as I didn't want to have students using the Sharpies to colour all of that- the smell gets strong fats and the sharpies just die that much faster. 

Grade 4-6 students drew spooky silhouettes within each window. It could be spooky or cute. 
I had to carefully review/explain the concept of silhouette with my kids: it is the dark shape or outline of a person, animal, or object seen against a lighter background.

Visual representation
A dark image against a bright background, such as a person in front of a sunset.
The interior of the shape is usually solid and featureless.
It differs from an outline, which is a linear drawing of the edge, whereas a silhouette is a solid shape


Once the images were drawn, they coloured them in using sharpies.



Then we filled an Ikea bin up with about 1 inch of water and scraped Prang chalk gently onto the surface. We used between 2-3 colours. Use more chalk for a more intense colour. Then swirl the chalk using a bamboo stick.


Ley the artwork down gently onto the water and press the back. 



Peel it up to reveal a cool marbling pattern!  The kids loved this step. Leave these to dry. 
We placed them on large sheets of paper to dry. 


Some of the finished artworks! 












 

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...