Leaves Observational Drawings

Autumn is starting here where I live in Canada. It's the perfect time to go outside with a class and gather some leaves to draw.  My Grade 4-6 students practiced observational drawing with their leaves.

I turn off all the lights in my room and just use the lighting from the window. You can also light with a lamp if you have one. Have them focus on creating a contour drawing first, then start shading. 

The materials we use are drawing pencils, blending stumps and kneaded erasers (I only use the Faber Castell brand!).

This student sprinkled water on hers as she wanted dew drops.

 

Sign Language Hands Artworks

This is an open project I gave to my Grade 10-12 students. The only requirements I gave was to include realistically drawn hands. We should be able to read the sign language easily.  Other than that, the media was left up to each student. I love the variety 

This one was a gift for me from the student :)  It's my name. 

 

Black Glue Resist African Animal Watercolour

This is a popular lesson with students because it involves animals!  

I've posted the steps to this project previously HERE and HERE.

Mix up black glue, students draw a portrait of an African animal on watercolour paper. Go over all the lines with a skewer dipped in the black glue. Let dry overnight- I wait a week before painting.

Using watercolours, wet the paper loosely first, then just loosely dab on some colours, in the wet-on-wet technique. Don't overwork it or the black glue tends to dissolve, in my experience!

Some Grade 7-9 finished artworks:

 

 

Radial Symmetry Printmaking

 

This is a gorgeous styro print project I saw online HERE a few years ago. I finally got around to teaching it this past year. Let me tell you- the struggle was REAL!  This took forever to complete and many of my students got frustrated. There's a large amount of unpredictability in this lesson and my perfectionists really struggled with getting 'perfect' prints. Nonetheless, it pushed us out of our comfort zones and they learned a lot about printmaking with this project. 

I did this lesson with a mixed group of Grade 7-9 students. I don't know how teachers do this with elementary aged students!!

I followed the directions posted HERE. They are great!

So the lesson involves quite aa bit of prep in terms of cutting your styrofoam into perfect squares, then cutting heavy white paper into a larger square that will fit 4 prints. Thank you rulers and paper cutter.

The first class students painted radial circles on their white paper using watercolour. You can basically use any medium for the background colour. Let dry.

Then students draw their design on white copy paper the same size as their styrofoam square. Tape the paper design on top and press through with a dull pencil to transfer the design. Press down entire areas; this will allow more of the background colour to show through once printed.

Students made a couple of practice prints and then printed on their good copy. It was stressful, lol

Getting the right amount of ink on the brayer was the hardest part by far. 

Use printing ink- it works the best.

Make sure to draw the arrow pointing to the center of your design, otherwise the radial part doesn't work!  Some students messed this up. 

Here's an example of when the print is incorrectly placed. They just had to continue this pattern to make it symmetrical. Not the end of the world but yeah.

Some finished prints:  Grade 7.8.9