Flowers in a Vase Watercolor Painting

This is a classic still life painting lesson that was co-taught by one of my practicum students. 

Her background is not in art, so I suggested this project as it's fairly simple but allows for a lot of creativity for the students. This was taught to a mixed class of Grade 4 - 6 students. 

I found the inspiration from the wonderful Deep Space Sparkle website  HERE and HERE. 

Here is my quick demo showing how to draw a vase/vessel and then a variety of flowers- we also encouraged spring flowers such as tulips and daffodils.

Student drew their good copy on 12 x 18" heavy white paper. 

While the kids were drawing, I kept myself busy with one of my LEAST favourite art room tasks- refilling the liquid watercolours. I saw this sauce cup idea on a blog years ago, but I don't know, I think I need to re-think it. I feel like the paints evaporate so fast. I refill them, then a month later, the containers (with lids) are dried up. Don't get me started on how fast the yellow gets contaminated. 

Anyhoozle, once the kids are finished drawing, they outline everything with sharpie or black wax crayon (everyone chose sharpie). 

Some early starters used the regular pan watercolours, but we switched later to liquid watercolours. 

I gave an brief review and demonstration on how to use these. 

Some finished artworks!

 

Shakespeare Inspired Creative Art Projects

In my high school. Grade 10-12 students get a Shakespeare unit (I still remember studying Hamlet and Macbeth in high school) where they have to complete a creative project at the end of the unit to show their understanding. It can be in any creative medium (film, music, etc), and many students choose visual art. The finished work is put on display on tables and all the classes walk around viewing the work.

The Shakespeare work studied this time was Hamlet (1599), Twelfth Night (1601), and 

As You Like It (1600).

My favourite line from Hamlet!

This was about 12 feet tall!

 

Patterned Gecko art project

These cute and colourful geckos were made by Grade 4-6 students.

I demonstrated on my easel how to draw one.

Then students got to work on 11 x 17" copy paper (tabloid size).

Then they drew sections throughout the body. 

Within each section, they drew a pattern and outlined everything using black marker.

Then they coloured them with markers

The last step was to bubble cut around them, leaving a thin white border.

So cute!

 

Bunny with Glasses art project

This is one of those art projects that went viral on social media but I can't, for the life of me, find the original source. I think it's HERE, but I could be wrong. It's the website TES, which is a British based educational website. 

Nonetheless, you can find variants of this lesson (different backgrounds) all over the internet. 

Some templates are HERE and HERE. 

This would make a great sub lesson if you're going to be out in the Spring as it can be, depending on which media you choose, low mess and low prep!

Some finished artworks by Grade 3 students: