Oil Pastels and BABY OIL - Part 2

Drying still life paintings

2nd graders made their still life mixed media art this week. They were working from a photo (in my last post) enlarged on the Smartboard. We talked about where each of the fruits were positioned and I demonstrated how to use the oil pastel first,

shade with a bit of black and then blend all together with a Q-tip dipped in baby oil.

We talked about starting with the apple in the very center and emphasized making it about the size of a real apple or their fist. After that, the kids were on their way making their fruit. I  must say, it is a pretty forgiving media and very easy for the kids to handle successfully.

When they finished their fruit I showed them how they could draw in the plate and the horizontal line to divide the table from the background.

These were done with oil pastel to act as a barrier to keep the liquid watercolor from wandering too far.

The last step was to quickly paint the plate and background using a wet on wet watercolor technique. They had yellow, blue and red liquid watercolors. It comes concentrated and I diluted it about 50% and still got pretty vibrant colors.

We reviewed how to clean the brush between colors and use the sponge to dab off excess water. It was interesting to me how some kids were willing to explore mixing the colors on  paper and others were more timid in their work. I love it when everyone leaves feeling totally successful!!

I LOVE all the secondary colors that the students created:))

Still Life with Oil Pastels and BABY OIL!!!

Tomorrow I have 2 classes of 2nd graders that will be making a still life using oil pastels and baby oil for the fruit and liquid water colors for the table and background. This all has to be finished in one 45 minute period, and I think it is doable! We'll be using this still life:

Here is my "practice version" of a slightly different set-up.

I always learn so much by doing a sample first. In this case, we are using donated scraps of all different brands of illustration board and I wanted to see how it took the watercolor and how much to dilute the liquid watercolor so it wouldn't overpower the color of the oil pastels. I was also testing this brand of baby oil because I hadn't used it before. I am looking forward to seeing what the kids do tomorrow:))

Another Foil Contour Variation

It is our last day of Spring Break -- a rainy day with thunder and lightening and I am alternating between making asparagus soup, reading a fairly entertaining "who done it" book and fooling around with the art materials I have out on my dining room table. I figure that all these activities beat cleaning the house, ironing or weeding out old clothes from a closet (all things I considered doing!).

So, here is a variation of the geometric foil shapes I posted about last week (here).
This time I started with organic shapes of foil and outlined with a Sharpie marker.

I left a blank, white space between the watercolor contours so that the colors of primary colored paint would not run into each other.

I found that I wasn't as pleased with the overlapping results of this variation so I may try another version before the day is out.

Right now, though, it is back to the book:)) Hope everyone has a happy Spring weekend before heading back to school next week:))

Geometric Foil Shapes

We are still on Spring Break and I've been doing a bit of experimenting, thinking of future lessons.These would also be good for folks looking for something to do during vacation breaks!

 I don't know about you, but at certain times of the year my lessons seem to be driven by what materials I still have on hand. You may remember my GIANT box of sandwich foils that I purchased at Smart and Final. Well, I still have a LOT of them left, so I started with that.

Three straight sided geometric shapes are spaced out on piece of illustration board.

Then Sharpies make contour outlines, eventually "bumping into each other."

Finally, primary colored watercolors fill in the channels:

I've actually made several variations of this. It's amazing how I think I know how it is going to turn out, and then I try it out and run into unexpected problems. This is one of those instances -- there were some "mistakes," although I like the overall look.  I'll post some of the other trials later.

Sweet Tweets!!

1st graders finished up their Calder-inspired, rocking birds this week. Here are a few:

I posted the whole lesson earlier in the week HERE and HERE.

One little disclaimer. Attaching the wire was WAY too hard for my classes (25ish in a group) to do on their own and have them not wobble. Fortunately, I discovered this before we started, so guess who spent an evening in front of the TV twisting wires and applying a bit of masking tape to cover the sharp end?!! Not really as bad as it sounds:))

I also cautioned kids to pinch the blue spot with one hand when they moved the wire neck with the other (if they had to move the neck, that is). That kept the neck from wobbling.  These turned out pretty cute, but if I were to do it again, I'd allow time enough for the kids to make feathers come out of the top of the heads:))

A Few More Apples

I found a few more photos of our apples to share. I love looking at these and will be sorry when I have to give them back to our students!!

From Art to Story

As 1st graders worked on their Calder-like moving birds this week, I wanted a related story that I could read to them as they finished. Nothing came to mind, so I started thinking about making my sample bird into a story patterned a bit after Cindy Ward's, Cookie's Week and Eric Carle's, The Hungry Caterpillar.

At 7:00 Petey woke up. It was raining. What should he do?

In my version, the bird (named Petey after a parakeet I had when I was 6 years old) starts his day indoors doing various things around the house, but later notices the open door and you can imagine what happens next.

At 12:00, Petey noticed that the door was open. I wonder where Petey will go now?

My childhood parakeet actually did escape through an open door. We tried to lure him back by putting the cage with his partner in it out in the back yard and, surprisingly, an entirely new parakeet flew to the cage. She definitely wanted to stay, so we welcomed her in and called her Emma. She actually was smarter, tamer and cuter than the original!! True story!!!

Anyway, back to the art. I suggested that the kids use their new art bird as the main character for their own story. They could either take pictures, upload to a computer and write text or they could draw pictures and hand write their text. Backgrounds could be the actual photo background, or they could draw a background to fit their text.

Our Spring Break starts next week, so I thought this might be a fun activity to do with parents at home. I put a few sample pages in our hallway bulletin board space in hopes that some families would like the idea and give it a try:)

I know this is too small for you to read, but it gives you the idea.

I tried making a copy of 2 of my sample pages as a Google doc to see if you can access. We'll see if it works. Click HERE>