K and 1st Spring Watercolors!

I found the inspiration for these lovely spring watercolor paintings on Art Projects for Kids. It's a terrific exercise in simple landscape drawing for Kinders and 1st graders, and the frame around the edges of the drawing really helps students use all of their space rather than drawing tiny flowers in the middle of their paper. So this works as an excellent introduction to composition, as well. I decided to use watercolor paper and liquid watercolors as my youngest artists needed a new paint medium to explore.

Here's what we did:

1. Class 1: I led the first class, the drawing portion, from the white board while drawing along with the children.



• We drew the frame first, and I gave 1st grade students and advanced Ks the option of creating a double frame. Some of them added patterns within their frames. 
• We then drew a horizon line. This could be grass or it could be hills. I left it up to my students.
• We began adding flowers by drawing the blooms first, positioning them toward the top of the frame. Stems and leaves were added next. Whimsical flowers are a favorite of mine in my own art work, and the kids always make comments when they see my screen saver (seen in this post). This was a great opportunity to show them how I use lines and shapes to come up with fun new flowers to draw, and it allowed them to create their own imaginative flowers.
• We then discussed the types of insects and bugs one might see in the spring. (We did this project in early April...I've just been late in posting.) Students added a bug or two or three flying through the air or crawling in the grass or on the leaves of the flowers.
• Students then traced ALL of their pencil lines in Sharpie. This was excellent practice in using fine motor skills. Also, a number of students didn't understand the term "trace," so this was useful for vocabulary, as well.
2. Class 2: Students painted their drawings with liquid watercolors. I really love these SO much more than pan watercolors. My only complaint is how easily the colors get muddy. Kinders aren't careful about cleaning their brushes, and by the time I got to paint with the last class (of 10), the blues and greens were a bit grayed out, and the yellow...well, the yellow simply was no more. I freshened the yellows for my 1st graders once, and we managed to keep them fairly yellow-ish for at least long enough to finish painting.
• Here are some terrific tips on storing and using liquid watercolors from Deep Space Sparkle's blog.

And here are more of our colorful spring watercolor paintings:

Seascapes

I did these pen & ink/watercolor paintings with 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students last year. I'll be doing watercolors with all of my students soon, but I realized I never posted these. I think they turned out really nice.

Background: Since we live in Fort Lauderdale, the ocean is a large part of my students' daily lives. Not the "Spring-Break-Girls-Gone-Wild" beach that everyone thinks of when they think Fort Laud or Miami's South Beach, but the calm, quiet, still ocean that those of us who live here year 'round know and love. The water is clear and blue, the sunrises are amazing, and the evening breeze is one of the most revitalizing and calming sensations you'll ever experience. This is the ocean my students and I discussed when preparing for this lesson.

Process: Three 40 min. classes
1. Discuss foreground, middle ground, and background. Students followed along with me to begin the drawing, beginning with large palm-like fronds in the foreground. We then discussed the horizon line, and how placement of elements in relation to the horizon line changes the perception of perspective. Students could choose their own elements to add to the middle ground (water) and background (sky).

2. Nib pen instruction and inking the drawing. There were a number of ink splatters as students became comfortable with the nib pens and a few spills, as well. Next time I'll use deeper ink wells (I just used condiment cups) and have a pen rest available (students kept wanting to put the pens in the cups when they weren't using them, causing the wells to tip...this only happened maybe 4 times, but that's 4 times mess too many...ugh.) We talked about line variation, and students practiced on a test sheet before beginning to ink their drawing.

3. Paint with watercolor. We tested wet-on-wet for the water, let that dry for a few minutes, then used wet-on-dry or dry-on-dry for the rest.

I really love the results, and using the nib pens made the students feel like real artists (they are!).

Pen & Ink Hands!

This was a fantastic introduction to pen & ink for my third-fifth graders!  I borrowed the project from Art Projects for Kids and adapted just a bit (but not much).

This project makes it possible for all students to feel successful, which is really important at this age when so many of them get frustrated with their drawing skills and are at risk of giving up altogether.

Lovely cross-hatching by a 5th grader.

I used the project to introduce three pen & ink techniques: basket weave, stippling, and cross-hatching. I did a thorough demonstration of proper technique and pen use for each, then had students practice until they were comfortable with at least one. 

Pen & Ink has always been very meditative for me, and I was surprised to see how deeply my students got lost in the process, as well. They absolutely LOVED this project and, while working on their drawings, were the quietest they've been all year long. And that speaks volumes, friends.

Time: 2 or 3 45-minute classes (depending on how quickly students work)

Materials: 

• 6"x9" white drawing paper
• Pencils and erasers
• Medium or fine point Sharpie markers (one per student)

The project: 

1. Use a pencil to gently trace part of one hand onto a 9"x6" piece of white drawing paper. I then show students how to look closely at their hand to add wrinkles and fingernails. Questions to ask: "How many knuckles do you have on each finger?" - "Do your fingernails extend beyond your finger?" - "How do the lines on your fingers curve?" - "Do the lines touch wrap around your finger or are they just on 'top'?"

2. Trace the hand drawing with a Sharpie (or other fine-tipped marker).

I think some of the "unfinished" drawings are quite nice...

3. Choose one of three pen & ink techniques demonstrated to fill in the negative space/background of the drawing.

I found the inspiration for this project on Art Projects for Kids. While I'd love to be able to say that all of my best projects are the product of my own amazing imagination and experience, that simply isn't the case. Most of my experience teaching art prior to this year has been in private schools and through small community non-profit centers, both of which generally allowed for much smaller class sizes than those I have in public school. As a result, I've spent most of this year trying to rethink my approach to certain techniques and concepts in order to make them work for larger groups of kids. Beg, borrow and steal (with credit) has been my mantra, whether from wonderblogs like the one above or from my fellow art teacher at NAGE (who's been at this longer than have I and has been very gracious with ideas and feedback). 

This student wanted to intentionally leave an organic edge at the top of his drawing. He also worked hard on the gradation from dark to light values.

For basket weave, I encouraged students to work in a spiral, starting with a central "block" of 4 or 5 lines and alternating horizontal and vertical blocks, working out from the first one. This is to avoid visible lines of blocks and white space. However, I think the negative space created by the basket weave lines in this drawing create intriguing movement within the drawing. Sometimes I'm glad the kids don't listen to me. :)

How do you not love a 10 year-old who can reference Star Trek??

A small fraction of students' drawings...there are hands everywhere!