Light it up!

This is the last week before Christmas!! Woohoo!  It really is the most exciting time of the year!  We've had so much going on and I've had several classes missing art to practice for their annual Christmas program, so we haven't had much time to do an in-depth project.  I am glad to have them back for this last week so we're doing a quick but cute little project for Christmas!  I found the inspiration for this one on Pinterest of course!  Here is the beautiful in-depth version: http://www.artwithmsgram.com/search?updated-max=2013-12-01T13:21:00-05:00&max-results=10&m=1

We used crayola color sticks, a little less messy, although I would love to do them as she did above when I have more time with them!  They are beautiful!

Had a very shiny nose!

I'm enjoying seeing these reindeer come to life as they're finishing them up!  Each one is different and unique, and has their own personality!

Value pumpkins

 These pumpkins were a great opportunity to study value and practice shading with paint in 5th grade.  We started with the white pumpkin so that they only had to work with two colors, white and brown.  Then we used yellow, green, and brown on the green pumpkins.  By the time we got to the orange pumpkins, where we used orange, yellow, and brown, they were getting pretty awesome at painting value!

Last few pumpkins and scarecrows!

I have a few pictures that I'm just now getting around to posting from November.  These adorable scarecrows were done by my 1st graders!

3rd grade Spiders

I'm a little late posting these!  3rd grade finished these last month and they turned out great!  We used color sticks for the spiders, water colors for the background, and white crayon to trace the web for a dewdrop effect. :)

2nd grade Pumpkin Farms

I changed this project slightly this year by allowing students to color their hillsides and pretty much everything except their pumpkins unrealistically!  I love the colorful results!  Their pumpkins had to be orange, but other than that, anything was fine.  We drew these together and colored them with our favorite crayola color sticks!

5th grade Value pumpkins

My 5th graders are finishing up these beautiful pumpkins this week.  This lesson was fantastic for teaching value with paint.  Sometimes I feel it's a little overwhelming to learn value not only in color, but particularly in paint!  This project allowed us to break it down into one small section at a time.  We used three shades to add value to each pumpkin.  For example, on the green pumpkin, we used yellow, green, and brown.  Brown was for the shadows and yellow for the highlights.  I could have also used white, but I didn't want to give them too many colors and overwhelm them!  They are turning out great!

1st grade ladybugs Art By Me project

First grade just finished up their ladybugs for Art By Me.  It's taken us a little longer to finish this year with all the special extra things going on in my schools.  Some classes have had field trips and we've also had music programs they've needed to practice for so we're finally getting things finished up for the fundraiser this year.  Art By Me money is used to purchase supplies for art that I may not normally be able to afford with my normal budget.  One of the things like to purchase is Crayola Color sticks.   They're so much easier to use than crayons or colored pencils and the vibrance of the colors is just fantastic.  We used them for our haunted house project that I posted earlier this week.  Here's the link in case you missed them:

http://criscoart.blogspot.com/2014/10/happy-haunts-in-4th-grade.html

Enjoy a few pics of these sweet ladybugs!

Happy Haunts in 4th grade

This project has always been one of my favorites!  We draw the whimsical houses step by step, and students loved the fact that their houses did not have to be perfectly straight! 

Art classes for adults too!

This past Saturday I had the pleasure of teaching some fantastic new "students!"  I set up a temporary studio, complete with stools, easels, and plenty of extra lighting.

Please excuse the baby, he was helping us set up that day! ;)

We also added a touch of decor here and there to make it feel artsy...

...and once the "students" arrived we dove right into painting!  

I had to take a picture of the beautiful purple shade of our water jars before they turned into yucky mud. :)

Putting in the background with purple...

I missed taking pictures of a few of the steps, but after the background we painted the pumpkin using a blend of orange, yellow, and red, then added our swirls in red while it was still wet. 

While our pumpkin dried, we created a not-so-perfect (on purpose!) pattern of black and white lines along the bottom...

Then topped it off with a whimsical stem and stitching details!  They all turned out so unique and beautiful!!

I hope to post more pictures from future classes as well!