• Subscribe to Blog via Email

    Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

    Join 4,531 other subscribers

Complementary Color Collages– 1st Grade

Complementary Color Collages by the 1st Grade This project introduces the first graders to complementary colors.  I show them the color wheel and I explain how the complementary colors are across from each other on the color wheel.  They are the “opposites”.  If you mix the two of them together you would get a brownish or grayish color.  We talk about the primary/secondary colors and focus on the pairs of red + green, blue + orange, and violet + yellow.  … Read more…

Alphabet Art: First Grade

This is a lesson I love to teach at the beginning of the year.  The first graders create a picture using letters.  I show them how draw the letters and stack them, twisting and turning the page, making sure to connect the letters.  Below is an example of the shapes formed from the letters.  I really loved this one, because even though the boy used letters (a lot of “O’s) to make the design, it is very abstract and not … Read more…

More Sketchbook Covers for Elementary School Art Journals

All of my classes have been busy making sketchbook covers.  Here are a few more assignments by grade level: 1st Grade Initials:I saw this idea at Art Projects for Kids. The background has crayon texture rubbings and watercolor paint. 3rd Grade:  The students wrote their names in cursive and then surrounded the name with repeating colorful lines.   4th/5th Grade Names:  They drew their names and then covered the negative space with patterns.  Similar to this idea… Name Tangles.   … Read more…

Sketchbook Covers for Kids

It has been a busy 2 weeks and a rough transition back to school.  The actual “school” part has been just fine.  The problems have been with coordinating my schedule and “life balance.”  I will talk about that more at the end of this post, but first I will show you some pretty pictures. We have been making sketchbook covers from donated file tab dividers.  My sister-in-law works in medical records and they were transferring everything over to digital, so … Read more…

Tissue Paper Fun

Our last summer art workshop was a fun one!  We decoupaged tissue paper on to glass vases.  The cylindrical ones could be candle holders.  We tore and cut tissue paper and adhered them to the glasses with Matte Medium.  I hate the smell of mod-podge, so I rarely use it.  I get headaches from it, does anyone else?  I figure if I get headaches from it, it probably is not good for the kids to inhale.  This Blick Matte Medium … Read more…

Body Pictures– Summer Camp

I am teaching 3 summer art sessions.  Each session is two hours long with one or two art projects.  For this session, I had 2 students going into 4/5th grade, 2 students who just finished kindergarten, and one student going into kindergarten.  It was a small class, which was perfect for this project, since the pictures were LARGE. To start, we traced our bodies on large butcher paper.  Then, we outlined them with markers and used collage materials (magazine images, … Read more…

First Grade Bird Paintings– Audubon

These beautiful bird paintings were drawn and painted by first graders.  The students learned about the artist John James Audubon and we read a book about his life. I love this book about Audubon, because it has beautiful pictures and ties science and art together nicely. The students looked at pictures of birds and drew them with crayons.  Then we painted the background with tempera cakes.  This is a lovely picture.. too bad we didn’t use thicker paper, it wrinkled … Read more…