Charcoal Water Droplet Drawing

This was a quick lesson I did with a Grade 7-9 class. It took 40 minutes to complete. I demonstrated the different qualities of different types of charcoal, then showed the how to shade a realistic looking water droplet. 

There are lots of tutorials on Youtube if you'd prefer to show a video. 

We used the following types of charcoal: compressed, vine, and charcoal pencils (black and white).

They toned their white drawing paper first with vine charcoal blended out. Then they traced a circle on top (we used plastic lids and yoghurt containers as tracers). Students could do one or more than one. Draw a curved highlight at the top. Add some dark charcoal at the top then blend it downwards in a curved fashion. 

Always blend with the shape of the form. 

End with white charcoal/chalk pastel to touch up all the highlights.

*NOTE: some students have sensory issues with charcoal, so I always have soft tissues/kleenex available- they just wrap their finger around that. 

This is a super messy project and charcoal gets all over the kids and their clothes, so you've been warned! Allow at least 10 minutes for clean-up as the kids take forever to wash their hands at the sink!! I will say most of my students absolutely hate using charcoal and chalk pastels, ESPECIALLY my high school students!

This lesson had a pretty high success rate with students. 

It's a good introduction to shading a sphere!

 

Toilet Paper Food Sculptures

This is one of my students and staff favourite projects!  

Toilet Paper Food is such a fun yet economical project that yields really impressive results. 

You truly only need toilet paper, water and watercolours. 

See all the steps at my previous post HERE.

This year's results:  Grade 7-9

 

Viking Longship Watercolour Paintings

This is a great collaborative lesson if any of your Social Studies teacher 

teach about the Vikings. 

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

I always love the results!  Grade 7-9

 

Papier-mâché Fantasy Planet Sculptures

This is a papier-mache project I designed when I was a student teacher about 26 years ago!  Back then, papier-mache projects didn't faze me, lol. Now, they take so long to finish, plus you need a lot of storage space to store them all.

I have to admit, I've only taught it once since then. The problem I've found with this lesson is, if you only see your students once a week, like I do, the balloons deflate before students get a chance to put at least 4 layers of papier-mache on. I suppose now I could use plaster strips, but I'm not sure how heavy it might make these.

Anyway, you need balloons, acrylic paint, hot glue guns, paper towels, newsprint or newspaper, paste (I've always used the now discontinued Elmer's Art Paste which is essentially wallpaper paste). 

Day one: blow up the balloons to the desired size for your fantasy planet (I had to tie the knots for most of these!!). Add at least 3-4 layers of paper-mache. Set them on a plastic container to dry. I rotate them throughout the day so they dry fully and evenly.

Once the paper mache is fully dry, cut the end of the balloon off and pull it out of the sphere. Then patch that hole with more paper mache.  

Then students can start adding any accessories. This is where the kids can be really creative. You can use cardstock, cereal boxes/thin cardboard to cut out shapes and hot glue them onto the planet. You can use paper towel dipped in paste to create shapes and texture. You can create cones out of cardstock and hot glue them on.

Once everything is dry and ready, paint using acrylics. 

For a final touch, varnish them to protect the paint.

Finally, I used a long needle to poke a hole with thread so they can be hung

Some  completed works by Grade 7-9 students: