Mixed Media Candy Hearts Art

This is a wonderful Valentine's lesson I found HERE on the Deep Space Sparkle website. It's great for teaching kids how to draw a heart as a form as opposed to a shape.

I gave kids a heart shape handout to practice on. They turned this into a 3D candy heart. They then traced this onto heavier paper. I gave them a choice of media to colour them: some used pencil crayons, watercolours, watercolour pencils or tempera paint. I demonstrated how to shade them using three different values: light, medium and dark. 

Some Grade 4 - 6 results!

Paper Mosaic Collages

In retrospect, this is actually a perfect lesson to leave when you need a Substitute Teacher- it's a lesson that keeps the kids engaged and working and requires quite a bit of concentration and bonus: no paint! Grades 4 -6 students started out by watching some videos on Ancient Roman mosaics just to get a feeling of how intricate and time consuming mosaic making is.  

Then they chose either white or black 9 x 12" paper. I encouraged everyone to include about a 1/2 inch border, then draw something simple: like an object or a landscape. 

They used either colored paper or pages from magazines- they cut these into strips, then into squares.

To glue them down, students used white glue and small paintbrushes. 

These were time consuming for sure- the kids that had the most patience did the best and the ones that didn't ended up cutting much larger squares in order to finish faster!

Some finished pieces from Grades 4 - 6:

Chalk Pastel Snowmen in Profile

We have a loooong winter where I live, so I tend to do quite a few winter-themed lessons. I sure love how they look but do not enjoy the cold at all!  This is a snowmen lesson where I wanted to show my Grade 3's how they can give the illusion of distance or space in their work by using two different sizes of snowmen. I had them draw them in profile just to mix it up a bit. 

They started off by drawing their snowmen in pencil on 12" x 12" 

light blue construction paper.

For colouring them, I gave students the choice between chalk pastels (great for blending but soooo messy) or construction paper crayons (not so great for blending but soooo clean!)

Once everything was coloured, students outlined their pictures with a black coloured pencil.

Some Grade 3 results:

Faux Stained Glass using Aluminum Foil and Sharpies

This is a really fun and engaging lesson I found HERE on the Kinder Art website. 

I modified the steps a bit. These turn out really beautiful with wonderful colour effects that these photos aren't able to capture!

We used plastic sheet protectors. Students looked online for photo inspiration. On regular photocopy paper (which fits in the page protector), students drew out their image in pencil. They had to make sure to turn it into stained glass effect by fracturing up the image. Slide the finished drawing into the page protector and then outline the drawing using a black permanent marker. Then colour it all in using coloured permanent markers.

Then, get a piece of cardboard the same size as the paper (81/2 x 11"). You'll also need a piece of aluminum foil about an inch larger than the cardboard. Crumple up the foil really well a couple of times and then smooth it out flat again. It should be all textured now.

Glue and wrap the foil to the cardboard. Then cut the page protector apart so it's only one sheet. Then staple the image on top of the foil. For the rectangular artworks, students used coloured mini duck tape to wrap the edges. 

Finished!

Because of the reflective nature of these, they were super tricky to photograph!

This lesson is a great tie-in to Medieval Art if you teach that as part of your curriculum.

Close-up detail photo