Art Lessons for Kids
Looking for an easy Liberty Bell art project? This lesson leans more towards craft than art but many standards are reinforced: composition, history, tracing/cutting, and color mixing. To start, my students sponge painted a piece of 12″ x 9″ paper with blue, red and white paint. I provided the paint, but left the children to [...]
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My Kinder classes embarked on painting animals last month (owls, cows and sheep). Basic drawing skills were enhanced plus I shared what little knowledge of holstein cows I had. I talked a small bit about cow anatomy…big heads, all those stomachs, hooves and the best part of all, udders. They giggled a bit about the [...]
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Modigliani portraits have become an art room staple, thanks in no small part to Kathy over at Art Project for Kids for providing a simple, fool-proof technique for imitating the elongated faces famous to Amedeo Modigliani. I copied Kathy’s project a couple of years ago with my sixth grade students where we created the Modigliani [...]
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This just might be the most adorable owl painting ever. Inspired by 4Catslife’s owl painting I saw on Pinterest, I took no shame in trying to copy the piece as best I could. My kinder classes were the lucky recipients, but this lesson is easily adaptable to any age group. Supplies The supplies are simple: [...]
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A perennial favorite of mine, Van Gogh inspired flowers is a lesson I try to do every year with my third grade students. Sometimes my medium varies. A year ago I tried tempera painted flowers and I loved the results. I even made it into a PDF art lesson so you can see exactly how [...]
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James Rizzi has left his mark on the world. His amazing illustrations has made an indelible impression on me and my students. Last Fall, my sixth graders did a unit on James Rizzi which included Faces and Simple Birds. This time we had fun with James Rizzi Inspired Skyscrapers. This is a super easy lesson [...]
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If you haven’t seen Lucy Cousins’ Hooray for Fish! I encourage you to find it at your nearest bookstore. It is filled with vibrant colors, fast reading text and the most adorable fish you can imagine. My Kinders LOVED this book and the illustrations captured their imaginations. I began the lesson by reading the book and asking [...]
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A while ago, I stumbled across the most adorable children’s books. Do You Have a Hat? written by Eileen Spinelli and illustrated by Geraldo Valerio features the hats of some very famous individuals: Goya, Lincoln, Carmen Miranda to name a few. It’s a great read for the classroom; funny, brief, historical and visually dynamic. Since the [...]
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I’ve been admiring this art project for a while now. VK Bowerman’s Laurel Burch Cat project is colorful and fun. VK doesn’t have a website, only a Flickr account, so I can’t provide a website. But please visit her Flickr page and prepare to be inspired by wonderful work. I studied VK’s project and visited [...]
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This is part three of my quest for determining the best medium for primary portraits. Last week my first grade students created beautiful oil pastel portraits, then another first grade class created their portraits using chalk pastels. Today, my final first grade class used my favorite medium:tempera paints. Tempera paint has always been one of my favorite [...]
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This is part two of my quest for determining the best medium for primary portraits. Last week my first grade students created beautiful oil pastel portraits. I love oil pastels as they are super easy for prep and clean-up but on the downside, they require a great deal of patience. Little ones don’t often have [...]
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Portraits are the quintessential elementary art project and for good reason–they are adorable and a keepsake that every parent appreciates. But some portrait lessons are better than others. It’s fascinating to me why some lessons work while others don’t. I’ve been teaching for a while now, so I have a fairly solid understanding on what techniques [...]
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Continuing along with my Fairy Tale Royals art unit, fourth grade students used the classic double-loading paintbrush technique and drawing with black paint to create these stunning Fairy Tale Royals. Starting Off To begin, hand each student a piece of 12″ x 18″ white drawing/construction paper. Place small tubs of black liquid tempera paint (mixed with [...]
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My Kinder students joined in on the fairy tale fun by learning how to turn lines and shapes into a castle. By combining squares, rectangles, triangle and a few half circles, Kinders created their very own castle. You don’t need many supplies; a 12″ x 18″ piece of regular drawing paper, some liquid watercolors and [...]
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Castles are a sure thing in the art room. Every grade level loves to make castles and I often do a castle project with my fourth grade students. But this time, I wanted an easy, two-lesson project better suited for my second grade students. The castle project from Knights and Castles Things to Make and [...]
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