Thursday, September 26, 2013

Album covers

Art club started this past week, and we hit the ground running. Our school feeds into a fine arts academy, which the students have to submit portfolios to become a part of. This year I turned art club into a portfolio prep class, so the serious kiddos could get a little extra direction. We started off the year doing a fun collage. Each student had to invent a band with a name that gave a clue to their personality, come up with an album name, then collage an album cover. They turned out really well.

 Some people even made a song list. Love it.


 Those plastic CD covers were donated, they may have had AOL disks or something in them. It was interesting having to explain to the kids what an AOL disk was. It made me feel really old.
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Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Lesson plans with Artsonia

Hey all!
Just a quick note to tell you I submitted my first lesson plan to Artsonia! If you haven't checked out Artsonia yet you should. It is an online art gallery of student work. I can do a whole post later about how to use Artsonia as a fundraising tool, but for now I just wanted to show you the great lesson plan I posted, and hopefully you can use that link to find others too.
  ChineseZodiac Collage.
Have a great day
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Monday, September 16, 2013

Peak Inside My Sketchbook- Zentangle.

Hey all-
School is in full swing here, so I thought I would share what my 4th graders are working on.


This has consistently been lauded as the best project 4th grade does all. year. long.  Of course by the 4th graders. Who knows what everyone else thinks of it. I LOVE this project because it can be a quick or long as you need, its easier then it looks, and if you aren't a great drawer it doesn't matter. I like doing this as a first project of the year, because it gets the kids in the right mindset for the year. You can however do it any time. I like to stay away from Christmas though, otherwise I get lots of cups of hot coco in the kids zentangles.

There are books all over the place with directions on how to do this, but I don't have any. I like doing it kind of free form. I show the kids my examples, take them through my process of drawing ideas in my sketchbook, (the process is I think and draw, but it's fourth grade, lets cut them some slack) and show them a few videos.  I like this one and this one. That alone is usually enough. If you want to pick up a book it can be helpful if you have a kid that just cannot think of anything. I have a sheet of visual texture I give out that helps jog brains.

What are you working on this  fall?
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