Nutcracker Watercolour Paintings Art

My Grade 4-6 class are finishing up these adorably festive nutcracker watercolour paintings.

They had a choice to fold the paper and draw half of it and then trace it on the window to make it symmetrical OR to freehand the whole things.

We used the fantastic handouts from Art Projects for Kids to help with proportions. 

Then they outlines everything using a black prismacolor pencil.

Then, they had the choice of watercolours, markers or pencil crayons to colour their nutcracker. 95% chose watercolours. 

Once dry, they were carefully cut out. 

While their nutcrackers were drying, they painted 

white diagonal lines with tempera onto 12 x 16" red construction paper.

And they also painted snow on a small sheet of blue paper.

They glued their nutcracker onto the 'snow' paper, then onto the candy cane paper for a border. 

Here are some of the finished artworks:

 

Smudged Oil Pastel Hearts

                                                             

This is a great first class lesson to warm up a new class. It's pretty fast, so depending on your class length, students might be able to take a project home on their first class, which I personally love.

It also involves cutting skills and fine motor skills so you can use this to gauge student abilities and modify future lessons from there. You can also teach/review symmetry and positive/negative space.

I found this lesson HERE on the 2 Soul Sisters Art Ed blog. 

I taught this lesson to a Grade 4/5 class.

Start off my folding cheap manila tagboard in half vertically. Cut out three different sized hearts. 

On scrap paper, color along the edge of the heart with oil pastel. Use a nice thick layer. We use Pentel brand but I think Crayola brand would be even better as I find it's much softer in consistency. 

Place heart on white copy paper and hold down with one hand. With the other hand, use one finger to smear or smudge the oil pastel outwards onto the white paper.

Then start adding in the other sizes, encouraging students to create a symmetrical design

 (flip over heart to the opposite side).

Some finished artworks- this took about one 40 minute period to complete. 

     

  

Symmetrical Mandala Drawings

I have posted on this mandala lesson previously HERE.

This project is super detailed so takes a LONG time for students to complete!  We started these in September!

I found the original lesson posted HERE.

I pre-trace all the circles using a bowl on 9x12" drawing paper. 

Students cut them out then fold them twice or three times. Draw a design in one of the sections. Then unfold and trace that same design onto all the other sections (we use windows).

We watched a video on Tibetan sand mandalas at the start of this lesson. 

Outline using a fine tip Sharpie or micron pen.

Test out colours and practice gradients on scrap paper. 

Students had to include a gradient in at least ne area.

Some finished Grade 7,8,9 Mandalas: