Heart Art by 1st & 7th Grades

Both first and seventh grade art classes had a little fun with the heart theme before our February break. Although they are two different lessons for two very different age groups, there are some similarities to be seen in the final products. The most obvious similarity is the artists' personalities come shining through in these projects. I gave them all some basic instructions and then told them to kind of turn it into their own thing. I think they were all very creative.

Here are some first grade finished pieces...

Here are the some of the seventh grades'...

"Haunted Houses" by Fourth Grade

So Halloween has come and gone, but my 4th graders took longer than expected to finish these haunted houses and I really want to share them on this blog. I love the way they turned out. PLUS, even though you can't see it, they used cool glow-in-the-dark paint on parts of their paintings. These areas look like they left them white in the pictures below, but the white areas glow when they turn off the light. They looked awesome when we turned off the lights!

First, I talked to them about starting with a basic house shape and then adding on to the sides and top of their houses. This seems to be the easiest way for them to create a large haunted house. It stops them from trying to envision and create a whole big house right off the bat. This way they start small and add on little by little until they have their desired house. It is also nice that they don't worry too much about perfectly straight lines because imperfection works so much better if a house is haunted.

In addition to the glow-in-the-dark paint, they painted in the rest of the house with basic watercolor paints. They work very hard on these are were excited about the project. I love them...

Falling Leaves by Third Grade

Another of my favorite fall art projects was completed by my third grade students. They used liquid watercolors, which gave the finished project a very vibrant look. First they traced leaf shaped onto their papers (12x18 white drawing paper). Then they traced over each leaf shape with a black crayon to create a wax border. Next, they painted each leaf with bright liquid watercolors. Finally, they painted in the background with turquoise liquid watercolor to create the sky area.

I love how they are bright, bold, and beautiful, and how they looks like someone just threw a handful of them in the air and now they are tumbling back down through the sky.

Check some out...