Dogs, Color Wheels, and a fun jewelry idea!!

 I hope all of the moms out there had a Happy Mother's Day!!! This little guy was my very special Mother's Day gift from my family! His name is Chico because he's very small. He's an "otter" colored Netherland Dwarf and will be making a visit to the art room soon I'm sure!

Ok this is a super fun EASY project that my friend did that is so cool!! 

1. glue 25 pieces of colored construction paper together

2. let dry over night

3. sand the front and the back until all the layers are visible

4. squeeze the silver clip to poke a hole and secure onto the top. 

5. paint with clear nail polish

They look really really cool finished! 

My fourth graders have been learning to use proportion and measuring to create these fabulous dog paintings original lesson HERE

We call this wet on wet watercolor background technique "Galaxy"

 1st-3rd grade is creating these "Creative Color Wheels" We are learning primary vs Secondary colors and mixing our own green, purple, and orange. Then students turn them into something creative like ice cream, Emojis, fish, lady bugs, eyeballs, etc!

April Showers and Jellyfish Watercolor Resist

First graders have been working on this painting the past few weeks. We are studying weather patterns and having fun learning new techniques with watercolor like blowing, dripping, and adding salt! 

 Third grade is painting these fun jellyfish watercolor resists! I LOVE this Liquitex gloss Medium and Varnish!! It makes a great resist! 

 We just painted this gloss medium right on the paper to create our jellies...

We are using warm colors for the Jelly and cool colors+salt for the water

I just LOVE the texture from the salt!

 One of the high school teachers in our district used the Liquitex Gloss Medium and Varnish to make these gorgeous multimedia watercolor resists for Dia De Los Muertos. They stamped the Gloss on the paper, drew their design, and painted over it. We are going to use this technique with our Sureal Self Portraits this year! Cannot WAIT!!

Confetti Egg Art

Yesterday we had some left over Easter confetti eggs! They are on clearance now everywhere for 50 cents a box. My daughter drew this cute bird and filled it in with crushed egg pieces!

Claude Monet's Garden 1st grade

My first graders are studying Claude Monet right now! First we watched a cute video (below) to learn about the artist
Then we drew the garden and the Japanese bridge with oil pastels on watercolor paper.
Students had to use three different shades of green, have lily pads that begin large at the bottom of the page and get smaller as they go up the page. The lilies can be any color, detailed or blobs.

 We used cool colors for the water, plants, and tree reflections. I use liquid watercolors because they are the BEST!!

Before each student takes their paper to the table I swipe the whole paper with a very very wet towel.

 Then they begin with some splotches of turquoise

Then they use blue

Then bits of purple, making sure to leave the top and bottom for the green

Then finally add the green at the top for the trees reflecting on the water and on the bottom for the grass

You can add salt for texture OPTIONAL

 Then finally we use a dark green watercolor marker to add some

Here is the version with salt after it dried. I love how it created a green vignette around the top!