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Beach Paintings

Childlike drawing of a person in swimwear on a beach with a blue ocean and flying seagulls in the background.

To make these fun beach paintings, we started off with a mixture of blue paints and the kids used forks to scrape wave lines on them.  Then, we used sea sponges to sponge prints shades of sand colors on the beach. Then, the kids drew and cut out things that would be on a beach.  Many of the kids got creative and had things popping up off the picture. Some of the kids decided to make waves that rolled off … Read more…

Self Portraits in the Style of Andy Warhol

A grid of nine colorful pop art portraits of a person touching their face, styled in various bright color combinations.

Self Portraits in the Style of Andy Warhol 2nd grade             How are tools properly used in the art room?  What is a self-portrait?  What is Pop art?  These are the questions the 2nd graders explored in their first unit.  The students learned about proportion and drawing a human face.  They used mirrors to draw themselves and these were photocopied four times.  Pop art was discussed and they learned about Andy Warhol by reading a book and watching a video. … Read more…

Old School Lesson Plans

Colorful geometric drawing of a cat sitting with a serious expression against an abstract background.

During the summer, I’m going to dig back to some of my old lesson plans that I had posted on artsonia.com to show to you.  Maybe I will revisit these again during the upcoming school year.  This was favorite of mine and I don’t know why I stopped teaching it. The pictures all turned out gorgeous. CUBIST CATS  for Second GradeThe kids learned about Picasso and his dynamic, fragmented Cubist artwork. 1.  First we did a step-by-step drawing of a … Read more…

Tape and Sticker Pictures

A collage flower made from various colored and patterned paper strips, accented with vibrant stickers, and "Flower by Colleen" written at the bottom.

box of stickers This was a super fun art project that I forgot to blog about earlier.  We did this at the summer art class I taught at my school.  Tape and sticker pictures.  I wrote about tape and sticker pictures earlier which I love to do with my 20 month old daughter.  The above picture is a box of stickers I made.  I took some sticky address labels, and color photocopied some patterned paper onto the sticky labels.  Then, … Read more…

Puppets!

Yellow cat puppet with button eyes, black felt whiskers and nose, and red felt ears. This puppet is made from soft fabric.

Puppets were made during my summer art class!  For this project, I drew a puppet template, which the kids traced and cut out from felt.  They cut out 2 pieces, a front and back.  Then, I hot glued them together.  The kids then cut out other pieces of felt and added googly eyes to decorate their puppet.  They attached these pieces with Elmer’s glue.  We added a large stick inside also to hold the puppet up.  We made these really … Read more…

Superheroes on Canvas

Canvas painting of a child's drawing of a person in bright colors, set against a red background with scattered dark spots.

In my summer art class, we painted superhero canvases.  The kids decided what superhero they would like to be and drew these on dry wax paper with markers and colored pencils.  Then I used gel medium (on the backs of the paper) to adhere their images to the canvas board.  Then, they used paints to paint a background.  I love them!!  There is a link to the dry wax paper at the bottom of this post.  The ages of my … Read more…

Architecture — 2nd grade

A 2nd grade child's drawing of a multi-story building with colorful windows, a door, and a small cross on top showcases their budding interest in architecture.

Frank Lloyd Wright:  The 2nd graders discussed Frank Lloyd Wright’s buildings.  We analyzed how he integrated his buildings with the surrounding nature.  The students worked collaboratively to build intricate buildings out of wooden blocks.  Next, they represented these buildings with a visual drawing and infused them with their own creative elements.

Australian Animals– 2nd Grade

Child's colorful drawing on crumpled paper, surrounded by whimsical abstract symbols and doodles.

  Australian Art:  In April, the second graders learned about Australian art.  Animals were  drawn similar to Australian Aboriginal drawings showing the animal’s bones, organs and muscles as well as the outside normally seen.  Some of the oldest Australian art was created on tree bark.  The students created the same likeness of ‘tree bark’ art on brown butcher paper.  We wrinkled them and then ironed the sheets.   The students tried to emulate the Australian Aboriginal style of dot painting. We … Read more…

Color Collages

Color collages featuring various green elements: plants, animals, and text, surrounded by handwritten notes about the color green.

 I really enjoy these pictures.  These were made by second graders.  This is a monochromatic color exercise.  The students flip through magazines to find pictures and swatches of one color and shades of that color.  They filled in some of the extra white spaces with markers.  Then, they wrote a poem that tells about the color.  I gave them some examples of how to use all the senses in their poems.“Blue is….Blue looks like…Blue tastes like…Blue smells like…Blue feels like…Blue … Read more…

Oil Pastel Landscapes– 2nd grade

Oil pastel landscape drawing with red mountains, a blue river, green grass, trees, and a small brown hut. Ideal for 2nd grade art projects.

@font-face { font-family: “Times”; }@font-face { font-family: “Cambria”; }@font-face { font-family: “Adobe Caslon Pro SmBd Italic”; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: “Times New Roman”; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; } Oil Pastel Landscapes By the Upper Primaries This project focused on learning about foreground, middle ground, background, shadows, and color mixing.  The students learned simple depth techniques.  The Upper Primaries used oil pastels to draw a tropical landscape.  They learned how to mix and blend … Read more…

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