This winter hat art project for kids is so much fun! We were experimenting with all sorts of 'magic' here. Ever since we made the magic salt and watercolour snowflake paintings the other week, we've been having lots of fun hiding secret patterns on our paper and having them magically appear when we paint over them with watercolour. And our new added skill of the day? Adding texture to the watercolour paint! If you look closely at the pictures below, you can see that we managed to create a 'woven' texture on the hats, which looks super cool! So along
An elementary art teacher blog with art projects and lessons, DIY projects and outfit photos as well as clothing I have made myself.
Hey, kids! Last Thursday night, my school celebrated their second annual Fine Arts Extravaganza with a musical performance and an art show. Our winter art show is with the fundraiser Artome. This is our second art show with Artome and I CANNOT brag on them enough. I swear, I'm not affiliated with them in any way, I just love how easy of an art show (and fundraiser) this is. You can check out last year's Artome art show here. I shared quite a bit about this art show on my Instagram and I got a lot of questions. I thought I'd put them together in this post and hopefully help anyone out who is wondering about hosting an art show like this. Before I dive in, here's a short time lapse I made of the pre-show...that's right, this is the calm BEFORE the storm! Here are some of the questions I got about out experience: Is this the only art show you do? No. We do a HUGE art show at the end of the year where every piece of artwork that every child has created is on display. I usually do two blog posts at the end of each school year highlighting both the 2-D and the 3-D portion of our art shows. You can check out archived art show blog posts by using the search bar on my blog and searching "art show". What happens to the artwork that is not purchased? After the art show, it is removed from the frame and shipped back to me at no extra charge. In fact, there's no charge for this art show except for the cost of the frame. I'll get to that in a minute. How much is the artwork, framed? That's up to you. Artome charges $19 for the framed artwork (and labor of framing and setting up the art show) and you simply up charge. I ask $25 and receive $6 per piece sold. Artome does not charge any additional fees. No charge for set up, shipping, paper, nothing. So, to me, the $19 is super reasonable. So, how does this work? You start by contacting Artome either by email or phone. I'm a phone talker myself so I just give them a shout. I ALWAYS get someone immediately. Customer service is spot on. You start by setting up a date and time. About a week later, you'll receive your box of paper for the artwork to either be created or mounted on. The artwork is to be created on a 9" X 12" surface. The paper they send is about 12" X 18" with a space for you to add the child's name, title of artwork, teacher's name and school. Once all of the kiddo's artwork is created, Artome sends you a shipping label. Then you drop it in the mail at your local UPS about 2 weeks before your show. The day of the show, the crew arrives about 2 hours before show time to set up. YOU DO NOTHING! It's fabulous. In fact, the guys who set up my show, had it up in less than an hour! Writing all of the names on the labels sounds like it would take for ever. What do you suggest? Last year, me and my parent volunteers collectively clocked 2 hours just writing out the names of my 350 students and the rest of the details on the forms. This year, I asked my school secretary if she could print me labels and she agreed. That shaved so much time off the process! I cannot recommend that enough! If you don't create the artwork on the paper, how do you attach it to the paper provided? We used 3M spray glue. It is stinky but works great. I see you used chalk. Did that smear? How did you set it? My third graders used chalk and we had no issues with smearing! A mom volunteer sprayed it with hair spray and then we attached to the paper...no problems! What if parents can't make it to the one night only art show? Can they still purchase? So, you get to decide when the art show ends. And, when it does, all of the artwork is packed up, framed, and shipped back to Artome. They do post-show sales for a couple of days after the fact. If you do have sales, they'll ship the framed work to you when they ship the unpurchased and unframed pieces. What if more than one person wants to buy a piece of artwork? Like a grandparent or something? Artome can do a super high quality print of the original. Then they frame the print and it seriously looks just like the real thing! What lessons did you do and how did you decide what to have the kids create? I actually did a repeat of my self portrait projects from last year! They were such a hit...I mean, parents love self portraits, right? You can find the complete lessons on all of our projects! First grade did Royal Self-Portraits, second grade did Super Hero Selfies, third grade created these Sandra Silberzweig-inspired Chalk Portraits and fourth grade did Romero Britto-inspired Selfies! I think that answers about all of the questions I've gotten about this art show. I really love it and love this tradition of having a fine arts night. I do think next year, I'd like to add another element...but because we really go to extremes with our end of the year art show, it feel nice to have a beautiful art show that I'm not sweating bullets over. I know at some art show that folks put together, they have places set up for kids and families to create. I'm intrigued by this idea...but with our musical program already taking place on the same night, I think adding that just might be too much. I'd love to hear from y'all if you do something in addition to sharing artwork at your school art shows. I'd also love to hear if you've worked with Artome? What did you think? Such a great idea! By the way, these are the chalk pieces...I think they look great, don't you? No smears. That also shows how carefully each piece is framed. Thank you so much for letting me share my art show with y'all! It was such a fun night. We plan to use the funds raised to purchase clay and glaze for our spring projects. Y'all know how quickly 500 lbs of clay and a million bottles of glaze can add up! Big thanks to Artome for making it a fun and EASY night for this super tired art teacher! Here's to makin' it to Winter Break!
Set up your own Preschool Art Show! Create various types of art and save it up to display at an event for the whole family.
Looking for the most efficient way to hang student artwork for a school wide art show? Well look no further! Click through to follow the 6 easy steps that will save your time and your sanity and are art teacher approved!
My second grade kiddos just finished up their Super Hero Selfies for their Artome art show! These 12" X 9" works of art were so much fun to make...and to see the finished result. I thought I'd share the process with y'all! We began by chatting about Vincent van Gogh and looking at Starry Night. From there, we used our paper and my VERY favorite oil pastels (Sargent's florescent brand!) and created our skies. Because I have 30 minute art classes, that took one art class. The following art class, we added either all warm or all cool watercolor to our skies: Y'all might have heard: I LOVE me some Crayola watercolor paint. I order the following and place them in each watercolor pan: magenta, red, red-orange, yellow, green, turquoise, blue-violet and violet. I place them in that order so the kiddos know what colors they can use as far as warm/cool colors go. The following day, I busted out the tiny brushes and India ink for some cityscape painting: We started by painting simple rectangle shapes. Then we added shapes on top of those like triangles, rectangles and squares. From there, windows were added. They really rocked these! Many of my students sketched their cities out on dry erase boards first. This really helped them get comfortable with their ideas before attacking their paper. It did mean that some kids took two 30 minute art classes to complete their cities...I was okay with that. I never mind the kids going slower if it means they do their best and are proud of their work. Once the paintings were complete, we could start creating our Super Hero Selfie! The kids were given a circle template...simply so we didn't end up with tiny little folks. The template really helped them gauge size and get a jump start. I did a quick demo on how to create a body by using shapes like a rectangle for the torso. I showed them how to draw stick arms and legs and turn them into THICK arms and legs. Some of us are still pretty skinny tho, ha! LOTS of kids wanted to add their pets or their siblings as their sidekick...how cute! After drawing with pencil, tracing with Sharpie, the kids added color with color pencils. In all, that process took about two art classes as well. Then the CAREFUL cutting began. Not gonna lie: some of us may have cut off limbs. No biggie, we simply glued them back in when we glued ourselves onto the background. When coloring, we did talk quite a bit about color schemes. We chatted about the colors of Superman and Spiderman, Wonder Woman and the rest...they have about three specific colors. The kids were tasked with picking out 2-4 colors for their hero. Weapons were not approved but shields were, of course! And capes! And disguises! One thing that really helped was giving the kids an About Me super hero sheet. They had to come up with a name for their hero, what their special power was and how they make the world a better place. On that same sheet, they had to create a sketch of themselves as well as a sidekick. I'm really excited about these and cannot wait to see them at our art show! I don't often repeat projects but this one was a winner with the kids and parents last year. Last year, I had the kids paint a black silhouette of the city and add the windows with paper. I didn't love that as much...the paper didn't really stick well to the ink and the kids didn't really rock those windows. You can see it here. I'm IN LOVE with the designs on her buildings. Second grade, y'all! I've also done a lesson similar but more advanced with my fourth grade kiddos. You can check that out here. Every time I see one of these, I laugh...they are so stinkin' cute. Especially when you know the artist behind the masterpiece! Taking that color coordinated thing super seriously...you know I like that! In all, this is not a quickie project...but one that really teaches so much and creates something that each kiddo is proud of!
Hartmut Böhm is a German artist whose work spans four decades and who joined avant-garde artistic movements such as Neue Tendenzen, a German approach to Op Art and kinetic art. The artist shows similarities to Minimalism as he uses to rely on systematic mathematical and geometric principles...
This constellation process art project uses everyday household items to create your kids' names in the stars. A wonderful mixed media art project for kids.
10 Ways to Take Your Art Show Up a Notch % %
Set up your own Preschool Art Show! Create various types of art and save it up to display at an event for the whole family.
See photos of Ghent in Belgium showing the various parts of the city and things to see and do.
Try this easy tinfoil sculpture art lesson in your classroom. Learn more from this blog post.
The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation and Spoke Art teamed up once again in 2020! The follow-up to the popular “Frank Lloyd Wright: Timeless” exhibition made its debut in late October as a virtual showcase and now has limited edition artworks available.
Math and Art are no strangers, as these Math Art Activities for Kids show! Be ready to be mesmerized by how even Math can look gorgeous!
Feel free to print out and use for your classroom! I am using these for our art show participants. If you would like to purchase a package of 14 Printable Art Certificates with a variety of headings and styles visit my shop. PDF Version: Click to access Art-Show-Certificate.pdf
Over the summer, I did a mixed media cityscape with fireworks project with my Unique Materials Art Fun classes. I was very excited to be asked by Arts and Activities Magazine to submit the lesson for possible future publication. I was so pleased to hear the article will be in the December issue. What an honor and privilege to be included in the nation's leading art education magazine! Here is my original post and a variation on the lesson using recycled materials. Jackson Pollock fireworks show (by Calvin) This fun and "everything but the kitchen sink" lesson is a take on this mixed media cityscape project I did a few months ago. "Miss Mary, the 4th of July is over." I told my classes, "There is a fireworks show at Disneyland every night at 9:35. You can even hear it from where we live!" (about 15 miles away) Each child created a cityscape outline using cardboard pieces and black acrylic, using the edges to make prints. After these were dry, they painted them with watercolors. Windows were created with circle or square prints in bright colored acrylics. They glued company names from magazines to personalize their cities. Fireworks were done on a separate piece of construction paper with small brushes and acrylics, with a final flicking of paint. And last, we located out cities on water and created reflections using oil pastels with a watercolor wash. There is a lot going on with these, clearly evident on our tables (and even floors) at the end of this project. But what Fun! Mixed Media Cityscape Collages Reese, 1st grade Mia, 1st grade Ella, 1st grade Presley, 1st grade Lauren, 1st grade Rylee, 5 Parker, 5 My new Draw, Paint, Collage classes are working on some very large mixed media cityscape pieces inspired by the art of Ezra Jack Keats (a real favorite of mine), Romare Bearden and even a little Basquiat. You'd never know it by the amount of animal based projects I do, but I Love cityscape art. The more expressive, the better. So I experimented with a variety of media and techniques and came up with this project. The kids started out choosing a well worn placemat full of paint and even doodles. They choose a few analogous colors and white to sponge paint lightly over their poster board, leaving paint and doodles showing through. The next layer was a black city silhouette started with Sharpie and then painted in with acrylic. Once dry, ends of pencil erasers were used to make colorful prints for city lights. Next, I had the children use sponge brushes to paint over a sheet of newspaper, encouraging them to leave some words and pictures showing through. Pieces of cardboard were then used to print out building shapes and sponges were used to print colorful lit or dark windows. Once dry, they glued down some logos cut from magazines. And as if this wasn't enough (a less is more art lesson, this is not), I had them create reflected city lights using oil pastels, which they painted over with blue watercolor to create a waterfront city. Collage pieces were cut out and glued in layers with some help from Miss Mary. They are wild and expressive - just my thing! My experiment for the lesson Posted by Mary at 3:48 PM
A Show and Tell Adjective activity for primary students
These chalk pastel Northern Lights pictures are super easy and fun for the kids to make and just look at how beautiful they are.
Painting pine cones is perfect for any holiday decorating because pinecones and free and so this is budget friendly! Make a batch of painted pinecones DIY!
