Up Up and Away...

After seeing something similar on Pinterest, where else, I decided to have 3rd graders create these balloons. They did trace around a template I had made and then I let them choose a pattern for their balloon after looking a several different designs. They drew in pencil, painted line in black paint for the first class. Day 2 they used oil pastels to color in their designs, cut and glued onto black construction paper. The balloons were drawn on 12X18 and the large paper was 18X24. Original Balloon Idea Here

Victorian Haunted Houses

Always a favorite with my 5th grade students! We discuss the Victorian era of Architecture and how times were about 100 years ago. We compared several styles of architecture: colonial and their symmetry; cape cod style with their dormers; and bungalow homes with overhang porches. We also looked at present day style of homes (Ranch style) and how things have changed --attached garages, one story with basements, & central air. There were a few great videos on YouTube that showed the gorgeous details of these Victorian style homes, some even showed the interior.

I showed the students how to break down these homes into geometric shapes and then add spooky details, but not too many or it could get cheesy looking. I bought some architecture texture plates for this project and am so happy with the results! Students used colored pencils for the color and the texture plates only in the facade. Fun, fun, fun!!

Secondary Color Mixed Pumpkins

First graders mixed colors and painted lots of paper for these fun little pumpkin collages. Day one the students were only given the primary colors and had to mix to make the secondary colors. Orange & violet on 9x12, & the green was 6x9 size white paper. Today we cut the violet into 'horizontal' strips and glued onto a 12x18 purple sheet. On the orange they drew a LARGE oval for the pumpkin & added their own face creation from the black, white and brown paper I had for them. Last they used 'vertical' lines for the grass. Nice job kids! So fun to see these in the hall! Happy Friday Y'all!!

New Twist on an OLD project

This project has been around for ages...or as long as I've taught art ;) and I have always used torn paper see old TORN OWLS <------there. Since kindergarten just did torn paper Grovers HERE, I thought we'd do a little something different. Based on all of our cutting and gluing practice that's been taking place I knew the kids would do well with layering and over lapping. I had them trace and owl template I pre-made, then gave them several light, medium and dark browns (2x3) pieces to cut the bottom corners and little corners to create a "U" shape. Students glued the Tufts on first (pointing upwards), and then I came and made glue lines so they knew where to start at the bottom and layer the feathers upward. Finally we added eyes, beak and sharp talons ;)! This took about 55 minutes including a little 5 minute clean up. The last 5 minutes we talked about the life of and owl, discussed predators & prey as well as learning some parts of the owl. A nice little once day-er as I like to call it! Happy Wednesday Artsy Peeps!

Pumpkins with Glue Lines

Happy Happy Friday All! Here is a little project (2 day-er) I did with my 4th grade students this week. We talked about contour lines, how a raised surface from the glue creates a shallow relief, secondary colors and last how to make a lighter or darker shade of color without using black or white. I used this Pumpkin Tutorial to help guide them a bit. Sometimes I find my own demonstration is even better with another visual option...for all you visual learners out there! I got the inspiration pinspiration from HERE, she did the project with older grades. Love these, really brings some fall to the air hanging in the hallway! I'm outta here! Happy weekend Peeps!

Painted Sunflowers-Kindergarten

Kindergarten started this two day (1 hour per class) project by painting 4 pieces of paper- 12X18 blue, 9x12 yellow/orange, 2x12 green & 6x9 brown. I thought it was going to be too much but they did really great! We worked on brush strokes, pulling rather than pushing paint & washing out our paint brushes. On day two I had pre-cut the yellow-orange sheets into 2x3 rectangles so the students could cut off corners and round edges for an oval shape. I also had them trace a small circle lid 3 times in order to see where to glue the petals, a circle was traced for the brown centers, stems added and a they fringed the grass. This could be used for an Eric Carle project as well. Fun stuff y'all!

Candy Corn Dish- Fun Art 4 Kids Idea

HERE! is where I've been saving this little gem of a project for TWO years, ya! I'm back in my classroom and off the cart so by all means we are starting clay up right away! I did these little slab dishes with second grade. I also forgot to do the bisque fire...oops really busy, so I skipped a step and had the kids glaze onto the green ware...results were no different from the classes where I bisque fired and then glaze fired! AWESOME! Now I don't have to do so much firing!! Yee HOO! Has anyone else tried this!? THANKS so much for the idea over at 'Fun art 4 kids!' Love that blog!

5th Grade Colorful Landscapes

Another spin from a Pinterest link, finding lots of good stuff over there! I think I've tried new projects with every class this far from Pinterest. This was a project about fore, mid and backgrounds, balance in the composition, and of course we worked around the color wheel. We did a step X step drawing first, the students could add a little of their own flair to the picture, sharpie step, and then they used lines to follow the shapes for a little more visual interest and last we painted with liquid water color. The results are super! I just sent some to our local Culver's Restaurant where they display our schools work every month.

 Does your school do any type of public display on a regular basis?

First Grade Trees

Another little spin off pinterest. This is a 2 day-er for 1st grade. Warm color tissue paper put down with watery glue and brown scribbled paper for day one. Day two we crumpled the brown paper for extra tree bark texture and talked about how a tree starts large and then branches out with medium and smaller twigs. A little log border was a final touch. I have a group of the and I'll re post as soon as I take the picture!

Grovers-Kindergarten

Love this little project, just makes my heart happy. Actually I was SO excited to put them up you can still see a little glue dripping from the group picture. Last year I had the kindergarten do Elmo, but decided to switch things up this year by another teacher suggesting I do Grover instead. I really think they turned out great. My Kinder friends worked on tearing paper, dipping in the glue and cutting more circles and ovals! Love these! Here are the Elmos from last year, which do you like best?

Bird Cages-Grade 1

I've always wanted to do a little bird cage project so this was the year and the time. We started off drawing three birds, sharpie, color in the primary colors and then we did a little watercolor over the top. Day 2 we drew large cages and colored them in, glued the birds with a little tissue paper wing for texture and used black strips of paper for our vertical and horizontal lines. Fun times in 1st grade!

Starry Starry Night

This here folks is a little 'pinspiration'. Grabbed this little number from pinterest, gosh what did we do before? 2nd graders enjoyed learning about Vincent van Gogh. Such a sad sorry but they are always so interested in the cutting of the ear, and I'm sure they'll always remember van Gogh and Starry Night forever. We even listened to Don Mclean's version of Starry Night- funny story: I had one kid that was listening and he kept saying "gosh this singers voice sounds familiar," then I could see the light bulb all of the sudden the kid (2nd grade mind ya!) said oh " Bye, Bye, Miss American Pie!" Wowza, that kid is good!

So anyways, fun little project- background is in watercolor with oil pastels.

Self Portraits

This was a start off project for my first graders. We've done self portraits in the past but I decided to have them cut around and glue onto their color choice. We started with the 'U" shape in the middle and that's the greatest tip ever for getting the faces centered and not too terribly small. The kids did great! Sharpie outline and crayon, glue & scissors. Just a basic to get us back in the swing of caring for supplies and using basis tools in the art room. 

100 Following! Wow & Thanks!

Thanks so much for your support here at The Clever Feather! Doing my best to keep new art work posted! Thanks for looking and following!! Greatly appreciated!

Origami Mobiles

Several years ago I taught a summer school enrichment origami class. It was a 2 or 3 week course where middle school students only made origami. Our last huge project was to make mobiles. Well, I don't know really what I was thinking when I made my examples from straws...because they have warped of course...duh!  Since I have my classroom back I re-did them all over the summer. On one I used pencils which I loved and the colorful one I used BBQ stick skewers. I check into how much these things cost on Etsy and I was amazed to see they can go for close to $100! Yikes! They are quite a bit of time but so worth it hanging in a classroom, even a child's room. I think things hanging from the ceiling really make a room or classroom even more cozy cool! Do you have anything special hanging around? :)