Butterflies

 Learning the concept of 'half' in art with Cassie Stephens!

Impressionist Sailboats

I tried a simplified version of this lesson with my class of mainly five year olds. We talked about hot and cold colours and, like the impressionists, we did our painting outside!

Taxis

We used oil pastels and a wash to create these taxi scenes in the style of Ethiopian artist Zerihun Seyoum.

Giraffes and Tigers

Guided drawing for 'Giraffes Can't Dance' (we didn't have time to do the full project unfortunately!) and the collage 'Tiger who Came to Tea'.

 

Kitten's First Full Moon

A version of this lesson from Mrs Knight's Smartest Artists fit perfectly with our topic on Light and Dark. It was the first time many of the children had seen the oil pastel resist technique and they were amazed! Some children also tried a tin foil version to make the moon reflective.

City at Night

This was a great project for Year 1. They were excited to blend a combination of primary colours to make a sunset sky. They then practised cutting and gluing for their cityscape. 

Candles

Another piece of artwork from the Year 1 Light and Dark topic. We thought about different patterns for the candle, tore paper to create the wreath and frame and smudged chalks to make a glow around the flame. There were a few sources of inspiration for this on Pinterest (such as this one).

Winter Trees

I always like oil pastel smudging so we used the technique for these winter trees. We talked about where the light source is and where the shadows should be.

 

Owl Babies

Printing, cutting, pasting, smudging white and black to add tone to the log... This Owl Baby art lesson (inspired by this) was a good addition to the Year 1 Light and Dark topic. (They also splattered white paint on afterwards to add a star effect).

 

Going on a Bear Hunt...

 

First time in Year 1! A simplified version of this ARTventurous art lesson worked well and was good practice drawing and smudging! 

Cool Crayons

I made these recycled crayons for my class as part of our school's sustainable Christmas celebrations. The idea was found here. 

Value Snowmen

Primary 3/4 learned a lot about value from this snowman lesson. The idea was taken from Mini Matisse. The paintings were then turned into Christmas cards!

     

 

Owl Painting

My class were maybe a little young for this Smart Class lesson but it was a great way to learn about using the paint brush in different ways (and to create more winter bird art!).

Winter Robins

 

For this winter wildlife display, Primary 3/4 created collages from paper shapes (draw and cut out the body, trace red paper for the red belly, cut a black triangle for the black beak, then add details with black pen). We tore white paper strips for the snowy ground and splattered with white paint to finish off.

In Space!

Primary 3/4 made these during their space project! The art lesson was inspired by this one here. In a previous lesson we took funny photos outside to learn more about perspective. In this lesson we drew around our hands and feet and then filled in the rest for a falling in space effect. Tricky but fun!

Van Gogh Landscapes

As part of the food and farming topic, Primary 3 created these Van Gogh-inspired oil pastel landscapes. There were lots of elements of art involved! The lesson was inspired be Ms Rogers Art Class and, despite being a couple years younger, I think these children did a very good job!

The Wayne Thiebaud-style cakes are also in the background. An old favourite lesson with more learning about form and tone using oil pastels (I think my original inspiration was here).

Bees

As part of their food and farming topic, Primary 3 learned about the importance of bees! In this lesson they learned about creating careful line drawings. The bees were then glued to a beehive background made by tracing hexagons with pencil, drawing smaller hexagons with oil pastel and then painting. There was a maths lesson about tessellation in there too! The whole art idea came from Ms Roger's Art Class.
 

In a Yellow Submarine

 

This drawing lesson brought in two themes from the Primary 3 1960s project: 'The Yellow Submarine' and the Thunderbirds (in which Thunderbird 4 was a yellow submarine). Children picked their submarine and learned how to observe carefully and create a line drawing. After colouring and cutting out the subs, we glued them to a background made by printing on soapy paint bubbles!

More 60s: Eardley and Lichtenstein

Why didn't I take any better pictures than these?? The first Primary 3 lesson looked at the work of Joan Eardley. We thought about what her paintings of children in 1950s-60s Glasgow could tell us about life for children in Scotland at the time. We then learned about drawing portraits and the children made their own Eardley-style self portraits.

In the next lesson we learned about Roy Lichtenstein. We also learned about onomatopoeia and picked a word to create word art in the style of Lichtenstein. We printed with bubble wrap to make the Ben Day dot effect, used felt tipped pens for the words and layered them all on coloured paper. There was lots of inspiration for this on Pinterest such as this from Cassie Stephens and this from Little Yeti.

Back to the 60s!

Two Primary 3 lessons here. Both were somewhat inspired by this photo. After looking for popular styles in photos from the sixties, the class worked in pairs to design their own outfit. One person in each pair then traced the other to transform their designs into life-size artwork!

We also explored the designs made popular by op art artists like Bridget Riley. We used paper weaving to make these black and white pieces inspired by this blog post which was inspired by this one (and there was also this one too).