Art Lessons for Kids
Woohoo! My first attempt at an “art video”! My second grade students completed these in one 44-minute class. It’s a pretty simple lesson… no-fuss bird drawing using oil pastel then paint with liquid watercolors. Perhaps the simplest lessons are the best? Enjoy! Second Grade Watercolor Birds
This is a lesson I did last year with my third grade students. It’s featured in my PDF Art Booklet “Art & Literature”. My second grade students are studying dinosaurs right now and even though I created a new dino lesson for them (featured later this week), I wanted to show you these cute little [...]
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I’ve done this architectural drawing lessons for the past few years. It’s a great way to teach how math and art collide. Rectangles, triangles, perspective….you name it, this project has it! As a new spin, students colored small areas with markers and painted larger areas with pan watercolor paint. We spoke about monochromatic colors, but [...]
Everyone has done a birch tree art lesson. They are such a lovely tree, stripped of their leaves and shimmering with black and white bark. Most kids in Southern California have never seen a forest of birch trees, unlike my 10-year old self who collected the bark to someday build my own birch-bark canoe like [...]
As a creative warm-up and to practice making thick, thin and expressive lines, I introduced the sixth grade art rotation with Emotion Portraits. I found this idea on Flickr from one of my favorite art teachers Artsy T. Her flickr site is fantastic and her style of projects is nothing less than inspirational. (Here is [...]
This watercolor fish art project takes a while (about four-45 minute classes) but it is worth it. It’s also worth having watercolor paper, no matter how inexpensive, as this project is a wonderful opportunity to experiment with watercolor paints. Regular paper really doesn’t do the drawings justice. Believe me, I’ve tried! I have to admit, [...]
If you’ve been following my blog for any time length of time, you might have noticed that in addition to art, my biggest love is books. I incorporate books into my art lessons every chance I get. They’re my biggest source of inspiration when it comes to dreaming up lessons and books are usually the [...]
Need a quick, easy lesson that can be completed in 30 minutes? These fall leaves are perfect. All you need are crayons or oil pastels and some liquid watercolor paints. If you have watercolor paper, great. If not use regular sulphite (construction) paper. I cut the paper in half so we’re only dealing with a [...]
Last fall my husband and I went to Maui. It was stunning; the art, food, music, beaches…all beautiful and inspiring. I vowed to use some of my memories to create an art project for my students. This was one of them… What you’ll need: 12″ x 18″ white drawing paper (or watercolor paper if you [...]
My fourth grade students completed these fantastic castles today. I followed the instructions and template technique from my Architecture Made Easy PDF Lesson Plan but changed the medium. Instead of colored pencils, I suggested the students use colored markers for the small sections of the castle (windows, flags, banners, doors, etc) and liquid watercolors for [...]
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Composition is hard. How do you know when a picture “looks” right? That’s what I asked my fourth graders today. We talked about what grabbed our attention and how our eyes travelled around the page. I used student art to demonstrate compositions that were effective. Creating a balanced picture was our goal. Fish were our [...]
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This is a super easy project for middle elementary kids. I like to demonstrate how to draw a tropical bird using the steps below. As I’m drawing, I explain how it’s easy to alter the shape of the body, shape of the beak or the expanse of the wings, etc. Depending on how well the [...]
Have you ever wanted to experiment with different supplies with the same project? Of course you have! You are an art teacher! I wanted to add a new spin on my favorite scarecrow collage. For one school, I used the standard watercolor paint technique but for the other, I used tempera paint outlined in black. [...]
All successful watercolor projects begin with a great drawing. Use the how-to-draw handouts to help your students to their best work. This 19-page art booklet features four Watercolor Projects that are suitable for all elementary school grade levels. PROJECTS INCLUDE: Tweet! Tweet! An easy directed line drawing turns into a stunning piece. Perfect for Kinder [...]
Using the same technique as the Kinder Cows art lesson, this pig art lesson teaches your little ones simple drawing techniques and offers enough options for each child to create their own little piggy! Supplies: 12″ x 18″ white drawing paper Black, pink, white, green and yellow oil pastel or crayons Red (watered-down), green and blue [...]
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