Royal Self-Portraits with 1st Grade

This is the 2nd time I've done this project with my Firsts and it is just getting better. Check out the first time I did this project here.

Each day I like to start with a book but wanted to stay away from classic Princess stories and read ones that had a little more empowering messages or were outside the box. The first day of we started with the book The Paper Bag Princess. Then with an awesome activity to kick off this lesson--I put a variety of pictures of royal people real and cartoon on the smartboard and paired off kiddos with dry erase boards. They had to work together to draw or write the details they saw that made the people look royal. I did this same activity last year and it really gets the idea generation going for them when they start to draw. After this activity, they watched my demo of drawing my royal portrait and got busy drawing and outlining in black sharpie.

The second day we started with the book Princess Justina Albertina. A few had to finish outlining in sharpie and then they spent the rest of the time coloring in crayon.

The next day we started with the book Princess Smartypants and talked about creating different backgrounds that would work well with the rest of our artworks like colors connected to their clothing or dragons if they made a knight. They used tempera cakes to paint their backgrounds.

On the last day we wrapped up the project by doing their first critique. Whenever First through Fourth graders finish a project I have them do a gallery walk, hamburger critique, and fill out a rubric. I read them the book Mousterpiece as an introduction to talking about museums and art galleries and how we act when visiting them.

For our gallery walk we lay the artwork on the tables and walk around looking at everyone's work. I put up this slide and pop in one of their artworks for a little excitement.

Then I pick three kiddos to share their work. They can say anything they want to about it before we do the "Hamburger". Whoever is sharing their work gets to pick three different friends to say the three statements "I Like (something they like about their art), "Maybe you could have (something they would have done different), and another "I like (something they like about their art).

Rubrics for 1st are pretty basic and we do them together the first few times. When they finished rubrics, if they wanted to do glitter, I showed that small group how to draw with glue where they wanted glitter to be.

I am so in love with these! Until next time!

"I Ain't Gonna Paint No More" Self-Portraits (2017)

These self-portraits are inspired by one of my favorite books "I Ain't Gonna Paint No More!" written by Karen Beaumont, Illustrated by David Catrow, an Art Teacher book must have!

There are a lot of different versions of projects based on this book out there, I love doing it this way because they really get to play with the watercolors, and it is a great intake of drawing, painting, cutting, and writing skills.

I've done this project many times in the past and it's made transformations over the years. Here are older posts if you are looking to see what I've done in the past and the project broken down a little more. Here is November 2016, October 2015, June 2015, and my first attempt in June 2014.

The only change this year was a little cutting practice before we cut out the portraits, mostly formative assessment to see what I was working with and so I could make scissor-hold corrections right away. I drew up this sheet and we sat on the floor together and cut each part while I told a story about "my friend Joe who wanted to get to the kitchen to eat all the triangle foods he was thinking about" but first he had to "weave through the forest", "climb the very sharp hills", "climb across the thick wall", and "swim across the pond". We finished with a bubble cut around him and his thoughts so he "wouldn't forget what he wanted to eat when he got to the kitchen". It was so successful one of my Kindergarten teachers asked me to draw up some other cutting sheets for her kiddos. 

Right: "Can I draw what's on our insides?"

Building Prints

This was a project that I did with my 4th graders at the end of the year last year for something quick, fun, engaging and collaborative.

This project was inspired by contemporary illustrator James Gulliver Hancock and his book All The Buildings In New York that was lent to me by one of my Elementary Art team memebers. 

Take a minute to explore his website. He is incredibly talented and does a large variety of work. I scrolled through a bit of his work with students and they loved it. I ended up buying another book of his which isn't appropriate for young students but is seriously amazing called Artists, Writers, Thinkers, Dreamers: Portraits of 50 Famous Folk & All Their Weird Stuff and I fell in love with it. You can get both books on Amazon.

So here is how the project went down, and it went fast and quick because it was their last 4 art classes of the year.

I Can illustrate a building and print it to be a part of a collaborative installation art work.

Day 1:

First we looked at crazy architecture with this video:

Then, looked at his website and listened to illustrator James Gulliver Hancock:

All the Buildings in Melbourne from James Gulliver Hancock on Vimeo.

They had to finish drawing a building that filled most of a 6X9 piece of paper, without too much detail (because it won't print), and had to remember to flip any words like a stamp. I encouraged drawing directly with pen like our inspiration but didn't require it.

Day 2:
A quick demo of transferring to a printing plate that was cut the same size as their paper (6x9) and then they had the rest of the time to complete it so they could print next class. I just use the generic packs of foam printing sheets from School Specialty and cut them down to smaller sizes. We taped a hinge to keep drawings lined up when transferring. They traced once over/on the paper to get the initial lines then flipped up the paper and did it again to make it deeper with a dull pencil.

Day 3:

Printing! A quick demo of printing from the plates and then they had to find a printing buddy to work with and to assist. I cut sheets of every color construction paper I had, black and white tempera paint, and brayers for students to use. They had to print until they had AT LEAST 3 good prints, but could keep printing the entire time if they wanted. 

Day 4: 

We passed out prints, filled out the rubric and handed in the print that they wanted up in the the farewell 4th grade village and in artsonia. If they finished that, they could trade prints with friends and make mini villages. They took extra prints and mini villages with because it was the last day of art for most!

A lot of success across the board in each step so I will likely be doing some version of this again in the future!