Review- mixing colors

Aaaah- "review".....I have to admit the beginning of the year is tough for me. I am so ridiculously excited about jumping into everything that I have planned to make with my kids but I am held back by the need to run through "boring" things like procedures, art room rules and "how to" use the sink, clean paintbrushes, put lids on glue sticks, etc. etc.....my one silver lining is reviewing color. Color NEVER bores me!!

We have reviewed color in a few ways already in the past few weeks. I took these shots of some of the younger grades color wheels that they made by mixing oil pastels. I have to confess that I switched to mixing colored pencils instead of pastels mid-week because the mess was already getting out of my hands ;).....I have many messy months ahead of me! The mixing skills were pretty impressive though- well worth the mess!

Kindergarten potato prints

I did this intro to printmaking lesson with the Kindergartners just before we broke for winter break. I am hoping that by the end of the year we have quite a few printmaking lessons under our belt!

For our first printing session we did good old fashioned potato prints ;). They carved into their potato with skewers and then used stamp pads to print. After they made their print design they were encouraged to use oil pastels to complete their piece.

It was very interesting to see how the students approached this so I included some in process pictures. Some of them drew first and then printed, some created intricate patterns and designs with their prints and others turned theirs into characters to tell a story or event.

It never ceases to amaze me to see the individual ways they approach a visual problem!

This is super easy to do at home so I encourage you to cut some potatoes and let your child play ;).

Collaged self portraits with painted papers

Here is a small sample of some of the self portrait pieces made at the beginning of the year (these particular pieces are Kindergarten and First graders). I wanted them to get good exposure on the basic techniques- mixing colors, painting, cutting, gluing and drawing) in our first lesson so I included them all.

We did a color mixing intro (I covered the tables in paper and let them paint on the table- that was a huge hit ;)) then we cut up the papers and used them in our collages. To finish up the piece they used oil pastels (for some of them it was their first time using these).

We talked a lot about the difference between a portrait and a self portrait as well as looked at
portraiture in art history......I think the paintings that interested them the most were by Basquiat :) (how could they not love him??!!). Looking at his work seemed to catapult the kids into getting more energetic and loose with their own self portraits.

I adored this lesson! It gave me insight as to where the children were technically and how they liked to work as well as let them "talk" about themselves a little since the work was about them.

Happy creating!!