Jim Dine 4 Hearts Art Project

Here's another fast and easy Valentine's art project with an art history component. 

I saw this on an Instagram reel from @scholtenart. I altered the last time a bit.

This was the first project I did with a new set of Grade 4-6 students. Honestly, it was easy for alot of the older kids, but the boys, especially, needed help and reminders with cutting and gluing and all those fine motor skills that boys sadly seem to lack compared to girls. This took my classes one 40 minute period to complete. 

This is the first year I've tries tempera paint sticks and they are fantastic! It's like drawing with a really slick, smooth, colorful glue stick!

I pre-cut heavy white paper into squares (9" x 9") and then pre-cut coloured photocopy paper into squares that would fit onto that in 4th (I can't really explain math, lol)

Students covered the white paper with patterns using paint sticks.

Then they chose two squares of a colour, stacked them and cut out a heart shape. 

Review positive and negative space.

Glue stick these onto the background like so. Then we used black and white pencil crayons to add some shading and highlights to the hearts. 

I love how fun and colourful these turned out!

 

Jim Dine Inspired Hearts

This was a fast and furious 40 minute period lesson!

It's great for discussing both line, pattern and colour.

We first looked at the heart paintings by Pop artist Jim Dine.

Grade 4-6 students used tempera paint sticks to create a colourful patterned background 

on 9 x 12" white paper. Then they created a heart template from folded scrap paper. They traced this onto their background, outlined it using black oil pastels, and blended it for shading. I love how these turned out!

 

Chalk Pastel Dinosaurs

I haven't taught this lesson since about 2019 and boy, have things gone downhill! My Grade 4-6 class really struggled with both manipulating the chalk, drawing the dinosaur and creating a creative landscape background for their dinosaur. 

For context, our Grade 4 students go on a field trip each year to the famous Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Drumheller. Set in the rugged Alberta badlands, the museum displays one of the world's largest collections of dinosaurs. Nearby is also Dinosaur Provincial Park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The park is well-known for being one of the richest dinosaur fossil locales in the world. Fifty-eight dinosaur species have been discovered at the park and more than 500 specimens have been removed and exhibited in museums around the globe. There's also incredible hoodoos you can hike around nearby. 

Our students go for an overnight trip to the museum where they get to sleep in the museum under the dinosaurs! I've been on this field trip and it's incredible!

Drumheller is also a cute town to visit in the summer, as it has loads of cute dinosaur sculptures scattered throughout the downtown. 

Anyway, back to the project! Students first practised drawing a dinosaur and then drew their good copy on 12 x 18" black construction paper. They outlined everything with a black oil pastel. Then they coloured it using chalk pastels. This was the messiest I've ever seen the kids be, with the boys absolutely covering their shirts in pastel. I've never seen anything like it before and will have to re-think how I teach chalk in the future. Overall, he boys maturity has dramatically declined since 2019. 

When it came to the background, there was little imagination and I really had to coax the kids. Honestly, I think this is symptomatic of a generation being raised in front of screens. They want to do everything fast and have little patience for subjects requiring sustained lengths of work and patience, like art. 

I have been reading the book The Anxious Generation, by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt and it has been really eye opening and confirms what I have been seeing as a teacher who has taught for over 25 years. 

You can see my kids art from 2019 in my previous post HERE. What do you think?

Some Grade 5,6 results: 

 

Tissue Paper Faux Stained Glass Art Project

                                          

This is a faux stained glass lesson I have taught a few times over the past 15 years. Sadly, I am now seeing a decline in the ability of my junior high students to use X-acto blades. This was the first time I was super nervous using them with the class and might have to re-think this lesson in the future. The overall fine motor skills seems to appear generally weaker. I last taught this 3 years ago and had no issues.

Nonetheless, if you're interested in trying this out, check out my previous post HERE which has all the steps. Make sure you use really sturdy, good quality black construction paper for this project to be successful.

I store my tissue paper chaotically in drawers, lol.

Students sketch out a stained glass design of their choice on sturdy black construction paper. 

Then they cut it out using X-acto knifes on cutting boards.

Trace and cut out tissue paper shapes to glue on the back. This project took about 3 weeks to complete, depending on the complexity of each students' design. I laminate these once finished to help make them sturdier and protected.

Some finished artworks: Grade 7-9