Painted paper trees

I used some of my 1st graders' artwork for our volunteer gifts in my previous post.  The remaining classes also completed a similar version but instead of using green construction paper for the leaves, we used our painted paper that we created earlier in the year.  I also had a substitute for one group and she is a fantastic one!  I left lesson plans for them to create just the background with paint, and I failed to specify which direction I had originally intended for the paper to be oriented.  So, she did that very first step portrait instead of landscape, and I am so glad she did, because I think I love them even more this way!!

Here are the landscape versions, I was thinking it would be better to have more room for the flowers, but now I love both versions.

We ❤️ our volunteers!

Each year our school hosts a volunteer appreciation tea for the wonderful volunteers that help us throughout the year. This year I was asked to have students create something special for them in art to show them how thankful we are for their time.  The tree and branches are their handprints and we used our painted papers that we made earlier in the year for the flowers. :)

Happy First Day of Spring!!

Ironically, today is a dreary, cold, and rainy day... The temperature is a balmy 45 degrees on the first day of spring. :( So... I'm happy to be creating such beautiful bright and colorful flowers in a few of my classes this week.  It definitely has brightened up my morning!  We added polka dots to the background of these and I love the striking effect of them!

This student asked if he could do his in shades of black, white, and gray.  It turned out awesome!

Happy Spring!

More Georgia O'Keefe inspired paintings! :)

5th grade is finishing these gorgeous spring flowers this week.  This class had a LOT of purple and orange and blue color combinations!  I love this yellow and blue one!

Cosmos!

Finishing up spring projects this week, starting with 1st grade and these larger-than-life flowers!  I found them here and she has shared an awesome tutorial for them!  Although I didn't exactly follow it.  Probably would have been easier!  :)  We discussed Georgia O'Keefe and her beautifully detailed flowers while we worked on this project. I can't wait to decorate the hallways with these!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Valentine's Day is one of my favorite holidays, I'm not sure why, maybe it's all the red and pink!  I've always loved it and now with my own children we always make a big deal of Valentine's Day every year.  My students are working on these nifty looking abstract hearts this week.  I've done so many variations of this project, but it's a great quick, yet neat looking design that I always fall back on!

My usual variation for older students involves patterns!

Penguins sliding down the hill!

Kindergarten created these adorable penguins over the last few weeks.  This was a fantastic lesson for teaching depth.  I simplified it a little by giving them 3 different sized ovals for each of the penguins.  We added the details, colored the beak and feet, painted them black and lastly painted the sky and a light shadow underneath.  

Birch trees, 3rd grade

This was an easy and such a neat looking project to complete!  I found a similar design on Pinterest.  We painted our background on the first day, traced and painted our trees white on the second, and on the last day we added the details in black paint.  I love these!

Watercolor winter wonderland, 5th grade

Over the years I've done this project, I think I've finally figured out how to get students to make horizontal lines in the water.  I have them hold their brushes at a 45 degree angle and pretend it's in a vice, unable to move.  They can go side to side and up or down, but they have to move their entire arm so it reminds them to keep their lines horizontal.  The water in this year's project looked much better!

Snowy evergreen trees

4th grade learned about layering and overlapping in these snowy scenes, and I love how the sky turned out in several of them!