I posted pictures of Monarchs (and a few other colorful varieties) on the white board and spoke to the children about butterfly body parts. I photocopied a few detailed pictures of butterflies, so the children could identify the scale of the wings compared to the size of the bodies. I found some old miniature popsicle sticks in my art cupboard  and although I have never noticed or used them before, I figured they would be a perfect starting point for the children’s drawings.

The kinders traced around this little stick just to get an idea of how big to draw the body (not too big!). Then, through observation, the children drew the top wings and then the bottom. They noticed how the bottom wings appear to start from the middle of the top wing and not the body itself. After studying the photographs in more detail, children used their knowledge of symmetry to create patterns on both sides of the wing. They did AMAZING.

I placed trays of tempera cakes on each table. Although I love the ease of tempera cake, I’m starting to feel that the cakes leave too much of a chalky film and are not nearly as vibrant as liquid tempera. Does anyone else feel that way? So for the background, I pulled out my handy tubs of tempera paint and offered them to use.

Children dew their butterflies with black oil pastel and used the tempera to paint the butterflies. I didn’t give any instruction for the background other than talking about using a contrasting color. For the final details, black paint was used to tarce over all oil pastel lines.

Didn’t they do a wonderful job?

A while ago, I stumbled across the most adorable children’s books. Do You Have a Hat? written by Eileen Spinelli and illustrated by Geraldo Valerio features the hats of some very famous individuals: Goya, Lincoln, Carmen Miranda to name a few. It’s a great read for the classroom; funny, brief, historical and visually dynamic.

Since the book was written for the younger elementary student, I geared the art lesson for 1st grade.  I created hat templates for the children to trace and decorate (sombrero, sunhat, cowboy hat, top hat, winter hat, etc). After tracing the hat onto a sheet of paper, the children then had a good starting point to draw the rest of their body. This turned out to be a perfect combination of literature, craft (hat decorating) and art (drawing and watercolor resist).

After doing this lesson a few times, I realized that instead of  using all the hat templates in one lesson, you can break the lesson down into seasons (winter hat art project, Fiesta, Summer Fun ,etc.) In a way, it makes it easier to help the students. This lesson is featured in my PDF Art Booklet, Art and Literature. It includes step-by-step tutorials, handouts and templates.

Here is a sampling of my first grade student’s work….

Stacy at Sleepyhead Design Studios did the hat lesson as well. I think her kids did and AMAZING job. Click on over and check out her amazing blog.

I studied VK’s project and visited the official website of Laurel Burch. Between the two, I was able to introduce this California folk artist to my second and third grade students.   The project requires a few steps and lots of different sized papers as well as colorful paint.

Art Supplies

• 12″ x 18″ black construction paper (background)
• 12″ x 9″ colored construction paper (cat)
• 12″ x 9″ white construction paper (painted flowers)
• 12″ x 9″ green construction paper (leaves)
• tubs of tempera paint (palettes are fine)
• medium paint brushes
• black tempera paint
• scraps of black paper and other colors for whiskers and cat decoration.

Creating the Cat Silhouette

1. Take the 12″ x 9″ colored paper and fold in half. Students cut a cat shape from the paper, opened it up and pressed it flat.

2. Using tempera paint, children painted faces and lots of patterns on the cat. They also used paper to add eyes and strips of color.

3. Cut strips of whiskers and eyelashes from black paper scraps.

4. Here is a work in progress. Isn’t he cute?

Making the Leaves and Flowers

5. On the green piece of paper, draw big leaves with the oil pastel. You could use the black tempera paint, but by using the oil pastel, children don’t have to wait for teh paint to dry before cutting out leaves.

6. Using tubs of tempera paint, paint bright, big flowers on the white paper. Set aside to dry. Actually, paint the flowers first then create the leaves. i have it backwards in the picture! By the time the leaves are drawn and cut, the flowers will be barely dry enough to cut.

7. If you need to wait until the next class to assemble all the pieces, clip all the pieces together (black background, cat, leaves and painted flowers on top)

I really enjoyed watching the children create these cats. The energy in the classroom was such that children moved from one step to the next at different stages. I didn’t touch on any specific art technique with this lesson, mostly composition and fun!

I hope you give this a try. A mood booster for sure!

Farm Anatomy: The Curious Parts and Pieces of Country Life by Julia Rothman has made appearances on some of my favorite blogs in recent months. The illustrated roosters did it for me. I had to have this book. A farm girl at heart, I secretly long to spend my days quilting and canning tomatoes, but alas, I think I was born in the wrong generation. But there is something so inspiring about opening up the pages of a book and seeing someone’s passion and expertise on display. If you ever wanted to brush up on your knowledge of farm life, this book is a fun way in which to do so. I love the drawings of all the pigs, sheep and cows. I can already imagine a great art lesson!

I saw The Perfectly Imperfect Home: How to Decorate and Live Well by Deborah Needleman at Anthropologie last Fall. I was there to buy Decorate by Holly Becker (which I bought and love) but gravitated towards this illustrated guide to imperfect home-making. I think I could have written this book! It was Patty Perfect…or should I say im-perfect. How often do you see illustrated guides anymore? Deborah’s soothing but expert voice gives you permission to fill your home with colorful creative brushstrokes but warns that there is always a tasteful way in which to do so. Lovely.

It’s no coincidence that these two books just happen to be illustrated guides. My biggest dream is to publish a book; both middle-grade fiction and now a non-fiction art book for children. I imagine the pages of my art book everyday. Farm Anatomy and Perfectly Imperfect has given me the creative fuel I need to keep my dream going.

Do you have any creative titles that inspire you?

Tempera paint has always been one of my favorite mediums. There is something about the intensity of the color that appeals to me. I use Crayola Brand Tempera Paint. It is the brand my school district purchases, so the art room piggy-backs on their order. I also like Dick Blick brands but I tend to order these paints for special colors like magenta and emerald green. A word about Crayola Paints: they are thick. This is good. I believe you are meant to loosen the consistency of the paint to your liking.There is no correct formula, but here are my thoughts: when I’m doing painted paper, I add more water to the paints because I want the paint to flow across the child’s paper. When I’m doing a portrait or other painting lesson, I’ll add less water as the thick paint covers most  drawing lines. I used dry tempera cakes for some projects, but when I want my students to be able to mix colors directly onto their paper, liquid tempera mixes best.

 My guidelines:

• Two 40-minute class sessions
• 3 first grade class
• 3 different media experiments: chalk pastel, oil pastel, tempera paint

 My Goals

• To determine the most successful portrait project for little ones.

 My definition of successful

• Accessible to all abilities, including special needs
• Engaged children
• Proud and empowered children
• No crumpled-up paper and unhappy faces
• A portrait that captures the child’s essence

What we did:

Using the same drawing technique as the other two portraits, oil pastel portraits and chalk pastel portraits, children created their drawing with oil pastel. Then I set two tubs of pre-mixed tempera paint on each table; a light flesh color and a darker one. Children painted their skin (face, neck and ears). This was enough for the first day.

On the second day, I set palettes of paint on the table: blue, green, brown, yellow, red and white. From these colors, children could paint eye color, hair color, and mix paints for backgrounds and clothing.

Once everything was painted, children outlined the paintings with black tempera paint using a small brush. If you wait for the paint to dry, another option is to outline with black oil pastel. A bit less messy, but you have to wait for another day.

First Grade Tempera Portraits….

Some thoughts….

Well, what do you think? Which portrait method sounds best to you? If you don’t like to deal with paints, I think the best medium might be chalk pastel. Most children finished their projects and they really seemed to enjoy the process of “painting” with their fingers. Now that I think about it, why wouldn’t they? The tempera portraits are the most familiar to me. It is a bit messy and it does involve prep and clean-up but I really love the results and I know many parents will love having these for their home gallery. Most, if not all the children working with tempera finished within the allotted time frame. I think this is because they are very familiar with tempera paint.

My least favorite? Oil pastel. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve used oil pastel for projects like these. Now that I’ve tried chalk, I really think it’s by far the best medium. So my favorite? Chalk. Hands down!!!

I think the lesson in all this is to step out of your comfort zone and try mediums you may not think you like. I know the kids don’t care. They enjoy the process and it’s rarely about the results. As it should be, right?

I know what you’re thinking. Never used chalk on portraits before? Well, it’s true. In eight years of teaching art, I have never used chalk pastel for portraits.  No more! I loved using chalk for portraits and more importantly, so did the kids! One lady commented in the last post that she uses charcoal for portraits. After using chalk, I can see how charcoal would be equally as fabulous.

My guidelines:

• Two 40-minute class sessions
• 3 first grade class
• 3 different media experiments: chalk pastel, oil pastel, tempera paint

My Goals

• To determine the most successful portrait project for little ones.

 My definition of successful

• Accessible to all abilities, including special needs
• Engaged children
• Proud and empowered children
• No crumpled-up paper and unhappy faces
• A portrait that captures the child’s essence

On day one, children drew their faces using the letter “U” technique. We used skin colored oil pastel. My thought was that I wanted these facial lines to be permanent and not disappear with accidental rubbing. In many ways, using a light colored chalk might have been better as children would be able to erase unwanted lines by smearing them away. But that was not my thinking when I began.

After all the facial feature lines were drawn, the children added hair and clothes. We kept the background plain. Before I was able to set out the chalk, some kids colored in their hair with the flesh colored oil pastels. I didn’t bother to correct them.

Then the fun started. Using flesh colored chalk, the children colored, then using their one finger, smoothed the chalk around to the edges of the oil pastel. This medium is perfect for blending and quite honestly, I didn’t expect the children to be so interested in this. Was I wrong! They loved creating rosey cheeks and highlights in their hair.

To bring the whole piece together, the children used oil pastel and traced over all of the original oil pastel lines.

Aren’t they wonderful? And the best part? Almost everyone finished in the allotted time.

This was one of my very favorite portraits projects and one in which I plan to do with my older grades.

What do you think?

 My guidelines:

• Two 40-minute class sessions
• 3 first grade class
• 3 different media experiments: chalk pastel, oil pastel, tempera paint

My Goals

• To determine the most successful portrait project for little ones.

 My definition of successful

• Accessible to all abilities, including special needs
• Engaged children
• Proud and empowered children
• No crumpled-up paper and unhappy faces
• A portrait that captures the child’s essence

Not too hard, right?

My Take on Portraits

Its important to note that I might have a different priority for this lesson than other teachers. I don’t use mirrors for self-portraits with this age group because I don’t think it’s necessary to get the features exactly right. As I move towards upper grades, this becomes valuable.

I love to use templates with portrait lessons for Kinders and even first grade students. They establish a face on which every child can draw features. It eliminates frustration when a child draws his head too small. Little kids really do draw small and if they do, it makes it hard to paint or color or really do much else. Templates are fast and when you have limited time, there is no better way to speed things up than to use templates.

But I didn’t use templates.

Had I used templates, more kids would have finished their lesson.

Instead, I used the letter “U” technique which works pretty well and has a 75% success rate. The other 25% drew their letter U’s very small and required lots of one-on-one to fit their features into their heads. Cute, but it does take up alot of teacher time.

Portrait #1 Oil Pastel 

I’ve used oil pastel for portraits a few times before with first grade. Success depends on the children’s fine motor skills. Since I’m not the classroom teacher who evaluates this skill, I have to go with my gut. In order for the oil pastel to work, the children need to be patient and willing to color in well. If they are a hyper group, then their ability to stay focused is not likely. My group was a bit on the hyper side but are an engaged group, so I went for it.

For all my portrait projects I used oil pastel to draw the outlines with. Children tend to draw small with pencils and less so with oil pastels.

Children drew a large letter “U” on their paper and after a presentation on the white board using children as models, I explained where to put facial features. I may have gone on too long with my presentation because the children were getting a tad bit restless. We used a light color brown or flesh tone oil pastel to draw the face, neck, shoulders, hair and facial features. I spent more time on how to draw hair as that is the one feature that can really distinguish one child from another.

We tried to color in the face, ears and neck before the end of class. Most were able to lay down a reasonable amount of color.

Day Two

Today was all about coloring. Children continued coloring their skin and added color to their eyes and mouth. They colored in their shirt and hair then worked on the background. Some left the background simple others created designs. I didn’t specify what they should do. For the very last step, children used a black oil pastel to outline all their features, hair and shirt. Many times when a child thought they were finished, I would encourage them to color a little bit more. This is tricky, because if you are too firm, they will balk. So lots of positive encouragement required, even if it’s the last class of the day!

So what do you think? Do you like using oil pastel? I can tell you one thing; it sure makes prep and clean-up a breeze!

First Grade Oil pastel Portraits…. 

Up next? Chalk Pastel Portraits

Before I get into the do’s and don’ts, I just have to say that my fourth grade students really had fun with this lesson. And I mean lots of fun. The kid’s attention was keen from the moment they stepped into the classroom and peered at my white board. I pinned my teacher sample on my white board and was somewhat surprised to see the expressions on my student’s faces. They all seemed to be thinking the same thing: this isn’t a typical Mrs. Palmer art lesson.

Of course, everyone said it looked hard and I agreed. It is hard. But only for one reason: you must follow certain steps if you want to achieve the 3-D look. Most of my lessons allow the flexibility to add your own stamp, create-your-own-art type of thing. That’s not the best mantra here. The instructions from other blogs are great, but what you may want to know is that the instructions really must be followed.

I demonstrated the drawing and added steps on the white board:

1. Draw a wavy line across the middle of the paper. But not too curvy or too straight!Okay. So far, so good. Only two kids managed to create such a line that made you wonder what on earth they were thinking. For these kids I had to allow them to turn over their paper and helped them draw a wavy line. 
2. Add 6 dots. Not 7, not 10…SIX! (I used 1/2 sheets of 12″ x 18″ paper so I reduced the number of recommended dots from 8 to 6) It is truly amazing how many times one can say a number, demonstrate a number, draw a number and some kids don’t hear you. Many of my students added 8, 9, 10 dots for the very reason they couldn’t accept that the dots could be unevenly spaced. Even though I stressed that, BTW.
3. Connect the dots with curved lines. Many kids missed this step and jumped to step 4. Not too serious, but it was a pre-curser to other problems.
4. Start drawing the curved lines, beginning at one dot and connecting to the next dot. Move up towards the top of the paper.This is where the problem started for most kids. The idea of drawing curved lines from one point to another was hard. I don’t know why. Seriously. I studied the kid’s art and tried to demonstrate proper curves but many ended up with lines stacked on one another.
5. Draw more curved lines but this time between the columns/worms/tornados. Very few kids were able to see how to connect the columns without creating another column. At this point I knew it was a really hard lesson to described; it had to be demonstrated multiple times. So of course, it took many interruptions from me to help the kids out. Many kids ended up with a pattern of lines and squiggles but nothing like my sample. Sigh.
6. Do I sound discouraged? Don’t worry, I’m not, and I wasn’t when I was teaching this lesson. The mood in the classroom was great and we all had a great laugh at trying to figure out how these stupid wormy things work. 
7. Most kids didn’t get to the coloring/shading. But when I see my fourth graders again in 8 weeks, we will tackle it again. For now, our “tornado’s” will remain a work-in-progress.

Okay, all you successful tornado creators…how in the heck did you do it????? Please share your tips in the comment section!

Starting Off

To begin, hand each student a piece of 12″ x 18″ white drawing/construction paper. Place small tubs of black liquid tempera paint (mixed with a bit of water) and small tipped brushes on each table. For a table of 5-6 kids, I place two containers of black paint. For ease of prep, I keep this black paint stored in small yoghurt containers with lids in my cupboard, and pull out whenever needed.

Drawing with Black Paint

I demonstrate how to begin the drawing using black paint. I tell the children that the trick to painting with black paint is to not be fearful of mistakes. If a line is drawn that you don’t like, keep going! Once dry, the black lines are fairly easy to cover with thick tempera paint. So to begin, draw a large letter “U” in the middle of the paper. Next, draw the crown.After the crown comes the neck and shoulders. Finally the hair and face. It’s really important for the kids to keep the drawing simple at this stage. Just the basic outlines and no details. Not even the face if they can help it.

Double Loading Painting Technique

Very messy palettes!

Use tempera paint that hasn’t been watered down–in other words, straight from the bottle! Use a medium sized brush and dip brush into one paint color. Without swirling or stirring, dip the brush into another color. There should be two colors on the paint brush.Take the double-loaded brush and paint onto paper. Lay down the paint in a single stroke, resisting the urge to blend the colors too much. You can do this of course, but it looks so cool to see both colors on the paper. It’s that simple!

Painting Order

I instruct the kids to paint the face and neck first, then the clothes and hair and finally the background. For the crown I set out a few trays of gold and silver tempera paint. It looks amazing with this project but if you don’t have metallic paint, don’t worry about it. As an alternative, you could embellish with gold glitter.

Black Outline

Nothing makes a painting look complete quite like outlining with black paint. You’ll need the same black paint and small brushes and some patience. Kids at this stage sometimes rush the project because they can feel how close they are to finishing. I really encourage them to take it slow. Often, they’ll bring their work to the drying rack and show it to me. In 75% of the cases, I’ll ask the kids to trace over a few more lines. They are always pleased that they did.

Fourth Grade Kings and Queens!

You don’t need many supplies; a 12″ x 18″ piece of regular drawing paper, some liquid watercolors and some oil pastels. I like to start the drawing with a simple line. Children select their favorite color and draw a line across the bottom of the paper, being careful not to touch either side. Then, they draw two long lines up each side. The drawing at this point looks like a square with 3 sides. Now, they complete the two towers by drawing a short line across the top of each tower and then all the way down to the first line. This may sound complicated, but it isn’t. The towers are basically two rectangles. To make the face of the castle, connect the two towers with one simple line. Above the line, children draw battlements. Place two triangles on top of the towers and the drawing is really taking shape.

After adding embellishments such as flags, a doorway and windows, children use their colored oil pastels to draw bricks or patterns. The final step is to paint over all the shapes with liquid watercolor.  If you have liquid watercolor, use it here. It really helps having the pre-mix colors as pan watercolors would take slightly longer to apply.

I opted to cut out the castles with the students so we could make a bulletin board display, but if you don’t like that idea, continue drawing a simple background (add a horizon line at least) and paint.

Looking for more castle projects?

How to Draw a Castle for 4th Grade

Fairy Tale Castle Project for Second Grade