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'...

"Here I Am!" by Kindergarten

     How cute are these little faces? They are just the sweetest kiddos!!! They had so much fun creating these portraits. First they drew their faces and then traced over the lines with sharpies. Then they used crayons to color their faces. When they finished, they glued foam shapes around their faces and painted in any remaining areas with water color paints.
     I like the use of different materials on this project. The combinations of different mediums adds a lot of visual interest to the artwork.

"Winter Birch Trees" by 8th grade

      I found this lesson on Deep Space Sparkle blog a few years ago, and have been doing it with my 8th grade students ever since. Since then, I have seen many blogs do posts on the same project and I'm always interested in seeing how they do it. Often, teachers make small changes as they go and the project comes out a little different for each class.
     For example, this year, instead of leaving the snow area on their paper pure white, my students added a wash of the lightest purple watercolor we could make. We combined water with a few drops of purple liquid water color paint to achieve the super light color. I love the way it changed the overall look of the artwork. I did keep the tissue paper sky in the background, but one of my students missed class the week before, so I gave him some materials and said, "See what you can do!" His came out great!! You will be able to tell his apart from the others. It is the only one with a painted, solid blue sky. It makes me think I might need to create a spin-off lesson for another grade.
Here are some of the finished ones...

"Close, Closer, Closest Snowmen" by Grade 7

This is a cool perspective lesson that I have been doing for a few years. I remember getting the idea a few years ago somewhere, but I can't remember where, so I apologize if it was your idea and I don't give you credit. Feel free to comment and let me know! Although I only have 24 followers (sad face) so I somehow doubt the original lesson planner will stumble across my post. If you are reading this and are not a follower of my blog, please join! I'd love to feel that my students' audience is growing.

Anyway, the object of this lesson was for my students to draw the SAME snowman three times as if they were digitally zooming in on a picture. They needed to take the whole picture into consideration, and also add more details and texture as they got closer to their snowman. Many of them found it was not as easy as it sounds! Some of them were quite successful.