By Patty on Jun 4, 2017 |
Who doesn’t love an easy project? This one Watercolor Flower Garden is as easy as you can get. All you need is a small sheet of watercolor paper, black waterproof marker, a white crayon and a few colors of liquid watercolor paint. Children draw a series of flowers to make a garden. The flowers don’t have to be complex…just a few simple circles with petals is all you need. You can download a drawing guide that will generate ideas quickly or you can have each child create their garden from their imaginations. After drawing with a black marker, outline each flower and the leaves with a white oil pastel or white crayon. This helps define the flower shapes even more. If a child wishes to have an area of the art stay white, encourage him to color the area our shape with the white crayon. Now for the fun part….dab, brush and dribble liquid watercolor paints over the entire drawing. No need to stay within the lines! Here’s a video to show the process… Need a drawing prompt? Here’s a drawing handout to download. Click on the YELLOW tab...
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By Patty on Jan 31, 2017 |
No doubt you have access to a few candy hearts right about now. I know I do, so instead of gobbling them up, I decided to turn these sweet pastel treats into an art project. This lesson is a great way for kids in grades 3 and above to observe a color and try to replicate the value. You can free-draw the heart or use a template. The older the child, the easier it is to draw a large heart. Drawing a heart big enough to paint inside is the goal so if you notice that some children are struggling with drawing the heart, use a template. WHAT YOU’LL NEED: Grab some liquid tempera paints, paper plates, 6″ white paper squares, a pencil, a black marker and of course, a few sweet heart candies. CREATING VALUE Tints are created by mixing white to any hue (color). This might seem rather boring but I tell you, kid’s LOVE watching white paint do it’s magic on a color. It really is all about the paint mixing here, so if you can give each child a small paper plate in which to explore the painting mixing, please do. Place a quarter size dollop of white paint in the center of each child’s plate. Place a candy heart (random colors) on the plate and then squirt a dime-sized dollop of the candy color on the plate too. Some colors like light teal require three colors: white, turquoise and yellow. For older students, using COMPLEMENTARY colors adds an authentic darker tone or SHADE to use as the contrast. Although, it just might be easier to use less white for the darker parts of the candy hearts. Mix the white and colors together until the color is the same as the candy heart. PAINTING THE HEART Painting the heart is very quick because the paper size is small (6″ x 6″). This allows the child to create more than one heart. If you are doing this lesson with younger kids (ages 6-8) use a larger 10″ x 10″ paper. The bigger area is more forgiving. Where the shadows lies on the heart, use a darker color to add as the contrast. When the heart is...
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By Patty on Nov 22, 2016 |
While decidedly Christmas in flavor, this easy holiday craft for kids can vary in paint colors to compliment any season. I’ll admit that creating these pink beauties filled my creativity bucket for the day. So grab some paint, a few paper plates from your pantry and crank up the holiday tunes. I guarantee, you’ll enjoy this as much as your kids! This project is perfect for those days during the holiday season when you need a fun activity for your festival of lights unit or holiday unit. Picture Book Recommendation The Legend of the Poinsettia by Tomie DePaola This book is set in a small village in Mexico and is a retelling of a traditional folk tale. It does have strong religious content so it may not be appropriate for your class. Each teacher can determine whether it is suitable for his or her classroom. Here’s what you’ll need: 10”, 9” & 6” Plate (exact size is not as important as 3 different sizes) Red, white, green and yellow liquid tempera paint Gold metallic paint (optional) Small kitchen sponges (cut a regular sponge into smaller rectangles) Red, white and green oil pastels Paint brushes Yellow tissue paper Scissors Pencil Small plastic cup or lid White School Glue Don’t be alarmed by the extensive supply list. Most everything can be found in your art pantry. I find tempera paints are best but if you have craft acrylic paints (the kind you find in craft stores) then you are great. Curious what the difference is between tempera paint and acrylic paint? Here’s a video showing what I discovered: Acrylic vs Tempera Paint. * DOWNLOAD THE FREE PDF BELOW FOR INSTRUCTIONS, PHOTOGRAPHS AND ARTIST STATEMENT How to Make the Poinsettia: Each student receives 3 paper plates. I use the most inexpensive brand that has no printing on it. It doesn’t matter the size of the plates, but it does help to have 3 different sizes: small, medium and large. Place a small condiment cup or circle template in the middle of the LARGEST PLATE. Draw a circle. Starting at the outside edge of the plate, cut a leaf shape towards the center circle. Do not cut through the circle. For younger kids, it may be helpful to...
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By Patty on Oct 5, 2016 |
The complementary colors of orange and blue are everywhere this fall season. And why not showcase these happy colors with a blue belly cat? A bit of doodling the other day prompted a quick contour drawing of this cute cat. Using the simple drawing handout, children can free-draw their own contour cat to use as the subject of three watercolor techniques: Wet-on-wet watercolor (cat) Wet-on-dry watercolor (background) Wax resist (white outline and watercolor barrier) This lesson can be done in two steps. First, draw the contour cat with a sharpie on watercolor paper. Then paint the cat and background. Second, after the paint dries, add the pattern and lines. ART SUPPLIES waterproof black marker watercolor paper (90 lb) pan watercolor paints white crayon or oil pastel medium round brush water TECHNIQUES wet-on-wet wet-on-dry wax resist contour line drawing patterns, shape and line DRAWING DIRECTIONS Use the drawing handout as a guide to draw a contour line of a simple cat. Focus on drawing two ears, a head, a long neck, hunched shoulders, simple paws and a long, curvy tail. Don’t worry if it doesn’t look perfect. The fun part is drawing wonky lines! Draw two oval shapes for the EYES. With a white crayon, trace carefully along the outside of the black marker line. With a brush, touch the blue paint and dip into water so the clear water has a tint of blue. Brush water inside the contour line. With BLUE paint, start painting a LINE of color along the bottom of the cat. Hold paper upside down so that the blue drips and mingles towards the body. Continue painting the cat blue, allowing the paint to migrate down the paper using gravity. This is really fun for kids as they can see how the colored paint will travel to the wet areas. Paint outside of the contour line (NEGATIVE SPACE) blue’s COMPLEMENTARY COLOR (orange!) After paint dries, use the black marker to add a NOSE and a MOUTH. Fill the cat with patterns, lines and shapes. ARE YOU A SPARKLER? Over 300 art lessons are available inside the Members Club. Access to videos, resources & trainings for one low monthly fee. CLICK THE IMAGE TO SIGN UP FOR NOTIFICATION OF...
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By Patty on Jun 13, 2016 |
MATISSE’S GARDEN My favorite activity is popping into a book store to browse. I hardly do it anymore mostly because bookstores aren’t as plentiful. And doesn’t Amazon make it easy to buy your favorite books? But as I was walking down Sate Street last week with my daughter, we popped into The Santa Barbara Museum of Art book store. Nothing makes me happier than being immersed in colorful children’s book covers, except maybe art books written for children. Matisse’s Garden by Samantha Friedman is a must have book for your art room library. It moves past Matisse’s back story and dives straight into the process of creating art, choosing colors and seeing art in a new way. And if you don’t have any of Matisse’s works of art nearby, there are eight reproductions you can use to show your students. Nice, huh? I love the illustrations by Cristina Amodeo. Perhaps a little less saturated than I prefer but still lovely and appealing. I was so inspired that I decided to draw my own little Matisse Garden inspired by Amodeo’s illustrations. Here’s a video that shows how to use basic markers to draw organic shapes and create a composition of your own. I used a simple sketchbook and Faber-Castell broad-tip markers. I tried really hard to leave the colors flat, like Matisse, but I couldn’t resist. In the end, I grabbed a Sharpie and outlined the flowers. You are either in one camp or another. I almost always outline but I love the organic beauty of not outlining, too. I know. So many tough decisions in art-making. Which do you prefer? Outlining or not? SAVE THIS POST! ARE YOU A SPARKLER? JOIN THE MEMBERS CLUB AND GER ACCESS TO OVER 300 ART LESSONS, VIDEOS AND...
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By Patty Palmer on Apr 8, 2016 |
This tin foil sea turtle and fish collage was a huge hit with my third grade class. The kids loved how the sea turtle and fish looked, swimming in the glittery waters. WANT A DRAWING GUIDE? CLICK HERE OR THE IMAGE BELOW & WE WILL EMAIL IT TO YOU…. HERE’S HOW https://d11vly3u9uru85.cloudfront.net/promo/Foil+Fish.mp4 CREATING THE BACKGROUND There are a couple of ways to make the water background for the sea turtle and fish. One method is to use liquid or tray watercolors and table salt to make a traditional speckled background as shown below or you could use Mod-Podge and glitter liquid watercolor paints. HOW TO MAKE SHIMMERING WATER To make a watercolor and salt background, use 6″ x 9″ pieces of 90 lb watercolor paper and regular watercolor paints. Wet the paper with a sponge or large brush, then mix blue and green watercolors onto the wet watercolor paper (wet-on-wet technique). Sprinkle regular table salt or Kosher salt over the damp paper. Salting the surface will give the “ocean” a sparkly quality. MAKING GLITTERY MOD-PODGE I made glittery paper by brushing a combination of glossy Mod-Podge and glitter watercolor paints together. The students brushed the home-made “glittery paint” onto a piece of blue or lavender drawing paper. The results were shimmery and ocean perfect. The recipe isn’t exact, but I used about ¼ cup of Mod-Podge and pour enough glitter paint into the solution until I saw the color emerge. It’s good to remember that the Mod-Podge dries to a clear finish, so don’t be discouraged if you don’t see the glitter at first. It will dry and the sparkles will emerge! After making the background, decide of you want to draw a Sea Turtle or Fish. If you draw fish, you can draw two or even three to fit onto the paper. The sea turtle is larger and is best to draw just one. ADDING COLOR & TEXTURE Set the ocean paper aside and use the handout to draw the fish or sea turtle. The idea is to keep the drawing very simple because the drawing will be created on tin foil. It may be helpful to do a practice drawing on a piece of paper cut to the same size of the tin foil. Draw one turtle or 2-3 fish...
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