Abstract Lyric Painting

Paul Klee has always been a fun artist to introduce and discuss the ideas of abstraction with students of all ages. My high school students enjoy the opportunity to connect their favorite music to an art project. This brings together composition, the elements of art, color theory and art history. 

Several years ago, I did this lesson as messages of thanks placemats exploring warm and cool color schemes using markers with elementary. It's been fun to remix an old favorite for the high school level.

February Art Projects Your Students Will Love

If you're looking for a way to bring a little love into your classroom without an overt "Valentine" theme, here are some of my favorite art lessons. In elementary school, chances are students will be slipping all kinds of heart shaped drawings into their work, whether you ask for it or not.

Love bug scratch art project. Original post here.

Notan design conversation hearts. Original post here.

Valen-dine Expressionist heart weavings. Original post here.

Georgia goes 3D. Who doesn't want flowers for Valentine's Day? Original post here. 

Updated clay flower version here.

Pop art Val-Pal's. Original post here. 

Scherenschnitte. Why not extend their love for cutting paper snowflakes into February? Original post here.

While the following lessons were not originally intended to be Valentine themed, I think they would lend themselves really well. 

Paul Klee Messages of Thanks, could become messages of love. Have students use words from songs or poems. Original post here

Illustrated quotes. Again, search for positive, uplifting quotes about love and friendship. Original post here.

What's your favorite go-to lesson for February?

A lifetime of landscapes

Several years ago I needed a lesson to cover a week's absence after a planned surgery. I wasn't sure if I'd get an art sub, and started getting that awful feeling in the pit of my stomach. What if they let the kids trash the room or waste supplies? It wasn't fair to assign a week of bogus activities or make the sub feel like a babysitter. The compromise was to have students create a monochromatic postcard with watercolor pencils. All the joy of painting with limited supplies and clean up hassle. 

As I looked through my previous lessons to select which I would keep, tweak or toss for this year, I kept coming back to this lesson. There was something really fun for the kids about working small, so I thought...what if we went smaller than a postcard?

A polaroid is smaller than a postcard and it gave them a fun connection to instagram. We rarely work with squares, so that was an added compositional challenge.  

After an intro to color theory and some painting practice, I was concerned they wouldn't be able to show off the many techniques they were learning, and decided a series of 3 would help. They can fit four on a page, so it gives them an extra space for an "oops." And perhaps, because it's almost Christmas the theme of polaroids past, present and future sprung to mind.

Both lessons are available in my TpT shop if you'd rather skip the preparation. 

Britto Inspired Statue Of Liberty

This was an extra week that students could use to make up work. I gave a few bonus prompts for them to try.

This year I didn't get a chance to do any of my statue of liberty projects with my classes.

I decided this would be a great subject for our last directed drawing.

Since they may not have the supplies for the lessons I've done in the past, I switched it up to a Romero Britto style project.

I am so proud of their efforts. Even my kindergarten students rocked it. To see previous lady liberty project as a painting/collage check out this post and for repousse this one.

Chinese New Year

Last month I picked up this adorable resource from Expressive Monkey:

Every day before leaving I placed this activity on top of my desk as a potential sub lesson. It is full of directed drawing options for creating a Chinese New Year Rat or Mouse and I felt confident that anyone would be able to step in and deliver this lesson.

Chinese New Year falls on January 25th this year and I am SO HAPPY that I wasn't absent in December, because now I get to do this lesson with my classes. As I began thinking through the steps I would take to use this activity with my students, I recalled a favorite lesson from a few year's ago.

The model magic mouse paint lesson was already a remix of a very old lesson. Was it time to remix once again? With 2020 being the year of the rat, it appears that it was! The focus of the old lesson was color mixing, using primary colors of model magic. Since I hadn't planned to do this lesson, I wasn't fully stocked to offer red model magic to every student.

Last year, one of my schools was without a kiln and I quickly leaned on model magic as my go-to sculptural medium. Painting white model magic with liquid watercolors yields beautiful color saturation, and I have plenty of red watercolor. Knowing I was covered in the materials department I set to work on a sample.

Just painting the rat red during the 2nd session wouldn't take very much time. I decided that in this remix, students would need to add designs or symbols. Once again I turned to the pages from Expressive Monkey's drawing activity. They are so helpful and student-friendly that I trust my students will be able to decorate their rat with black permanent marker.

I have this lesson targeted for my 1st grade classes. Both the design and painting steps are easily accomplished in one forty-minute class.





















If you want to give it a go and skip the lesson prep, this is now available in the shop. I highly recommend using Expressive Monkey's drawing activity (available on her site or TpT). There are pages and pages of design ideas for every teacher or homeschooler's comfort level. Please tag me on instagram if you decide to try this one out. I love seeing the unique results other students produce.

Magritte's Marvelous Hat

Last year I tried a new lesson with 3rd grade. They did printmaking after reading the book "Magritte's Marvelous Hat." It was a little bit of a stretch for 3rd grade, so I may look to move it up a grade or two in the future. But I really loved the book so we did them as a straightforward watercolor painting this year and had much more success. I let them choose either a floating hat or an object in front of the face. They did a great job.

If you haven't seen this book, I highly recommend it. The illustrations are amazing with transparent pages that transform the pictures like magic.

Wayne Thiebaud Cake Remix

The Wayne Thiebaud cake lesson. If you've seen one, you've seen 'em all. That's how I was feeling. This lesson had gotten stale and I needed to kick it up a notch to keep my 4th grade artists engaged.

A few weeks ago I reached out to one of my favorite instagram artists. Anastasiya Levashova is an amazing contemporary illustrator who paints drool-worthy confections among other things. It was the perfect balance to the artwork of Wayne Thiebaud. To get started I asked the artist for permission to print some of her cake images to inspire my students. I was so delighted to hear from her the very next day and she even asked to see their work when finished. How sweet is that?

In this remixed lesson I presented Thiebaud as the past, Anastasiya as the present and suggested that they could be the next great cake artist.  Sharing a little about Levashova opened the conversation up to different career paths and options for artists today. This was the missing link. Adding the contemporary artist into the mix made the lesson much more relatable to my students. The next logical step was to move our media into the 21st century.



Our district purchased a class set of apple pencils (I know, spoiled!) for the 7 elementary schools to share. So when it was our turn, I knew I had to make the most of it. Not only were they using a stylus for the first time, we were using the procreate app on their ipads (yes, completely and utterly spoiled).



Here are some more of their amazing cakes:

 If you like this lesson you will surely want to follow Anastasiya on Instagram.



My lesson plan and support materials to help your students succeed are available here.

Caterpillar Remix

Last year I did Eric Carle's very hungry caterpillar with kindergarten early in the year. They mixed the primary colors of model magic to build a caterpillar body. Original post here. After a very successful lesson last week with first grade painting coil pots with watercolor  I decided to remix the caterpillar lesson. So this year we are reading "Pattern Bugs" by Trudy Harris and creating patterns on the model magic bodies, then adding paint.

Can't wait to share these adorable creations. Lesson available here.

Greek Vase Remix

My first grade students used model magic to make Greek inspired vases.

We discuss some of the everyday uses for the vases.

They could choose the shape and handles that made sense to them.

For this project I include a reading of the book "The Trouble With Wishes." This took my students two forty minute sessions. We created the vase during the first session. The drew with sharpie on the dried vase and painted over it with red watercolor during the second session.

This is a 3D remix of a lesson that we previously did with markers on red construction paper. As a Leader In Me school, we focused on everyday heroes and leaders. It was definitely easier for them to draw on the paper, but working on a 3D form gave them a new perspective on pottery. 

The "everyday hero" on this vase is a doctor. 

If you'd like to try the sculpture lesson, check out the two week plan and resources. Download it here.

Snowman Shadows This is the Remix

One of my favorite things to do is remix elements from previous lessons to create new lessons. This year I combined Snowmen at Night with Snowmen Shadows...threw in a little Vincent Van Gogh and we have "Snowmen at Starry Starry Night."

 I think kindergarten totally nailed it! So proud of their hard work. We completed these before the winter concert so they were still fairly new to art class and this was an intense two week lesson for them.

Remixing is a great way to get a fresh take, kick boredom to the curb and use the things that work best. It's less stressful than a brand new lesson where you haven't worked out the kinks. A few years ago I remixed the catching snowflake sweater lesson into a scarecrow weaving. Do YOU remix lessons? What's your favorite remix?

Fall Remix

This is the REMIX.

About two years ago I found the book Mouse's First Fall. It was the first year I taught kindergarten and it was a great fit. This year I remixed the lesson for first graders to make fall illustrations with markers. They created a mouse with marker, then used water and paintbrushes to pull the color into the body of the mouse. This was a great way to teach them that gray is a tint of black. It was a three session project. We added texture rubbings to some of the leaves before painting them.