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Saturday, February 28, 2015

2nd grade Family Portraits (step by step lesson)


This year I was so excited to come up with a new improved way to teach 2nd grade how to draw their families nice and BIG with overlapping! 
When families have their portraits made, they bunch up, they aren't just in a line, which is how kids like to draw people! 

These are the steps
1. draw the horizon line in the middle

2. I made little ovals for them to trace. Adult heads at the top of the paper, children on or just below the horizon lines, and teenagers between mom and kids. Make sure they don't make the child too far below the horizon line or there won't be room for legs.
The kids can be directly under and adult head to create OVERLAPPING which creates depth and makes it look more realistic. 

3. Make a "skeleton" to position the bodies. I tell kids to draw the neck and then a letter "I" for the shoulders and hips

4. Now draw arms and legs. we talk about how you like your family members and could be holding hands or have their arms around one another

5. then draw hair lines, eyes in the middle, and eyes could be looking at each other to create emotion and a feeling of love between family members! Then erase the sticks, draw clothes, and decorate (glasses, mustache, add pets and items/props that represent their interests)






6. Use liquid watercolor to paint. We painted the skin, hair, and grass during the first painting class period





7. In the second painting class, we painted the clothes and sky. Separating these parts between two days helps eliminate sky and grass from blending into the people

Here are some of our finished products! They turned out BEAUTIFUL!! 


























Monday, January 19, 2015

Art Blog contest

Thank you to all of those who nominated SmArt Class for Art Blog of the Year! Now that SmArt Class was chosen to be in the contest, I need your votes! Be sure to check out some of the other amazing blogs out there too and add them to your blog roll! There are so many talented art teachers who blog as a resource for all of the teachers out there looking for advice/ideas/and inspiration! Check out the Art of Ed website while you're there, its full of everything art teachers love from awesome art magazine articles to online Teacher Professional development taught by art teachers all over the country!

It's easy to vote and there's nothing to fill out, Just click the link and scroll down to the bottom where it says "Vote Now" then select SmArt Class under the Elementary Art Blog category if you have enjoyed my blog and found inspiration here! Winners will be announced on my BIRTHDAY January 25th
Thanks so much!!

http://www.theartofed.com/2015/01/18/finalists-announced-and-voting-open-2014-art-ed-blog-of-the-year/

Elemenary-1st


Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Finished Day of the Dead sculptures, Christmas Break and What's Next?

I hope everyone had a fabulous Winter break! Ours was wonderful, restful, awesome, blessed, need I say more?! I got a brand new baby nephew for Christmas that I am so proud of (and took tons of pictures of)!! We did lots of art and came up with some fun stuff for the rest of the year! We celebrated Bunbun's 1st birthday and my girls had a blast making party hats, decorations, and a carrot oatmeal parfait for the party!


so handsome! 

The girls left cookies for Santa, but Shrimp and BunBun left carrots and seeds. Of course he ate them and left lots of treats! Bunbun really liked the gingerbread man!

Happy Birthday, BunBun!! 





 My 4 and 6 year old created artwork at home everyday! Here are a few of my favorites!


My daughter created this paper plate version of Shrimp and thought it would be a great idea for a class project!! Thus was born the idea of winter Shrimps and friends! Students will be creating their own bird complete with a winter hat made from tissue paper prints!!
Here's the steps! Just draw with marker, paint marker with water, make the tissue prints, then use a template to make the hats and yarn for pompoms



My second graders are starting their family portrait paintings. I LOVE this project! I am trying to teach them to draw big and overlap. Usually the family picture looks like tiny people all lined up. I wanted them to group the people how they would look in a real family portrait. There would be small people in front and tall in the back. We have just begun drawing them out on watercolor paper and I am very pleased with how they are turning out! LOTS of overlapping! 



Third graders are working on all kinds of parrot related artwork. Mrs. Taylor's class is creating GIANT alligator paintings with parrots on their backs! 






 Now last but not least, here are some of our finished Dia De Los Muertos Sculptures! This was a very fun project. The easiest way to do it is to paint the animals with acrylic paint NOT spray paint! Then use white acrylic for the bones giving each student a print out of their animal's skeleton from google image. Then use neon paint and sharpies to decorate. And of course add some bling!!














I have gotten a little behind on blogging some of our projects. You can see in November we made our Day of the Dead Dia De Los Muertos animal sculptures and I wanted to post some of the finished ones! They all turned out fabulous! Our next adventures involve Self portraits, family paintings, and some super fabulous still life drawings!

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