Cozy Creatures in Winter art project

This was a quick and adorable art lesson I developed for a 40 minute class I had to teach. Normally my periods are 80 minutes long, so it was a challenge to find a project my Grade 7-9 students could complete in that short time. 

I found this small winter themed scrapbook paper at Dollarama. I've never seen anything like it- it looks definitly AI produced but I was here for it! Any teacher who visited my room and saw it LOVED it, lol.

The paper was about 5 x 5". There were about 8 different designs- as students walked in, they chose one.

I used regular photocopy paper and split it into 4 pieces, so each square was small. The students googles clip art images on 'animals with scarves or sweaters". They drew their animal in pencil, then, using a fine tip black marker, they added stippling for fur texture. they then coloured in the scarf/sweater using pencil crayons. They cut it out and glued it onto their background. I love how cute they came out!!

Cozy cuteness overload!

 

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!