Category: Animal Art

Llamas Vs. Alpacas

1/14/2018

Since Llamas and Alpacas are all the rage this year, I knew I wanted to feature them in an animal art unit. Our library did not have very many books about Llamas, so if you want to make a buck, you might consider illustrating something for ages 10-13.

To introduce the difference between Llamas and Alpacas, we watched youtube video by an alpaca farmer. The video has a curse word at the end, she says that llamas sometimes spit for the 'hell of it'. It was one of the few resources I could find with great images so I just muted it when she said that and asked a few questions of my students like: have you ever petted an alpaca or a llama? etc. If you did not want to use the video, you could show this site which has tons of facts and photos of Llamas.

For the actual art making, we did a few practice sketches in our sketchbook after decided if we wanted to draw an alpaca or a llama. Most kids agreed that alpacas are cuter than llamas. We lightly sketched our design on 18X6 watercolor paper and traced in sharpie. I always have my students color small details with crayons before we use watercolor paints. We used liquid watercolor for this project AND regular watercolor if they wanted it for the black and brown. I also showed them how to make tan and grey, using the lid of the watercolor set as a mixing tray.

Several of my students drew their llamas with buck-teeth. After doing a little research, we learned that they don't have front teeth on the top, it is the bottom teeth that jut forward. Just FYI.

We pretty much left everything on the table each day while we were painting.

Painting day!

Sargent paint storage containers for liquid watercolor.

Supplies:
18X6 Watercolor paper
8 pan prang watercolor sets
Paint brushes- a variety of sizes
Liquid Watercolors
Sargent 6 Ct. Paint storage tray
Water
Pencils
Sharpies
120 crayon sets

Practice Sketches in Sketchbook

Since we didn't have a ton of images in books to use as reference, I created an 'inspiration' wall with some step-by-steps, and pinterest images. I also had a couple of fluffy mini alpacas for students to 'pet'.

IN progress, before paint, adding texture for fur. I showed them a few ways to add fur with a sharpie.

We had TONS of super hero llamas, but I really like this Beatles band.

A few links I referenced before starting this unit:
Standing Baby Alpaca--So soft, so cute!!
Douglas Toys Llama--I ordered him and had a contest to 'name' him
Art Projects for Kids How to Draw an Alpaca
MaryMaking Llamas with Peruvian Textiles.
Small Hands Big Art Llama Drawing project

Caution: Your students will probably know this rhyme

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Cardboard Masks

4/4/2017

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When planning for this project, I scoured the internet for a tried and true lesson plan and template to follow.

What should students do first?

What is the most important students needed to know when working with hot glue and cardboard?

A lesson plan like that just doesn't exist.

I had to start from ground zero with this project.
While I did use a few things I found online to help with the planning, for the most part, this is an original project.

PipdoArt has a few great african mask pictures on instagram. Creatively Hamish is currently creating steampunk superhero helmets that are absolutely incredible.

It was artroomadventures who mentioned the artist AJ Fosik.
Bingo.
That was the most perfect artist to reference for this project, and her 7th and 8th graders have some amazing masks on her instagram feed.

It was exactly what I needed to inspire the project to move forward in a way that would make sense and be relevant for my young artists.

Day 1
We began the unit by looking at the artwork of AJ Fosik. First, I showed my 5th and 6th graders an artist profile video on VIMEO. Then I made a slideshow of pictures of his work. We talked about 3D and how that is different than drawing.

I explained that students would be creating a mask sculpture that could be inspired by folk art, mythical creatures, or animals. I showed them a couple of examples of masks and folk art artifacts that I have on my shelves (a totem pole, a couple of oaxaca animals, African and Maori masks). I used a Chinese Dragon as a reference for my example. I had tons of Zoo Book Magazines that students could use as references.

I explained that folk art means that is usually hand made and only found in certain regions, usually created by tribes of people.

Then students had time to begin planning their masks.

I encouraged them to separate their sketchbook page into 4 sections, and draw 3-4 ideas and select the BEST idea for the project.

They should think about creating their masks symmetrically and then color the one they plan to use.

Day 2
(Once students have had a chance to draw) Today we talked about symmetry and using cardboard to create their masks. I explained that they might want to consider making the 'eye hole' for the mask where the mouth is, like on a mascot or a costume, so that it can be bigger than a humans head and extend above their own head....also, it is much easier to cut one hole behind the mouth than to cut two identical eye holes. Most students listened to this advice.

Today, students used thin newsprint to create a symmetrical template for their mask. They had to fold the paper in half, and draw half of the mask along the fold. It helped that they had recently done this on a previous project!

Once they had made the template, I was waiting for them at the cardboard store. I had them show me their template and I helped them find a big piece of cardboard that would be a good fit. Then they took the template and cardboard back to their seat and traced it and began cutting it out. This is the hardest part, cutting out the big base of the sculpture, especially if they made it very spikey or furry (like my example). I had big 'adult' scissors available for this step because it was hard to cut the cardboard for some of them.

If they finished that, they were to put their name on the back, and they could use the mini glue guns and small cardboard to begin making things on their mask. I told them that I would share some techniques next time if they aren't sure how to start, not to worry!

Day 3
Learn basics of making the mask 3-D, add details.

This was a great day for my principal to observe me! I had created a DIY video, in which I show the basics of how to make some things on the mask 3-D (Flange, hinge, pop up, tabs, etc.) It is kind of a boring video....but it helped me show them some stuff that really made all the difference in success.

I learned really quickly that I should have had gardening gloves for the students to use while using hot glue guns. Since I have up to 36 in a class and I was trying to help some of them find bigger pieces and cut their bases, for the most part, students were on their own at the hot glue stations. I had 5 mini hot glue guns set up for them to use. I also had small pieces of cardboard and paper towel tubes.

Most of the small details can be cut out with small scissors. If they needed to cut a hole in something, I encouraged them to draw the shape and then I used my box cutter at a cutting station to help them cut out a hole or at least make scoring lines so they could get their scissors in there. I encouraged them to add layers of cardboard to make their mask more 3-D. They could add extra fur behind the mask on lion's manes and a tongue sticking out.

Some students created more of a helmet---which became a challenge for storage but I really like how they turned out!

If their piece of scrap cardboard had black writing on it, I reminded them to try to make that the back--so that it would be easier to paint over the brown than it would be the writing. It would be annoying if their mask said 'Charmin Extra Soft' across the front or "Alpo".

Day 4--- Last day for construction, if students were absent, this is their chance to get caught up. If someone is done, they can help others, or work on a free choice activity. LAST DAY FOR CONSTRUCTION. Create a base for the mask so it can hang on the wall. Put name on back.

For the frames, I wanted their masks to have one more layer but I didn't want to scavenge for more cardboard so I created some templates and allowed them to choose a tracer for the shape that would work best for their mask. They simply selected the template they liked (they could hold their mask up to the shape and see if it fit well) and then found that tracer and traced it on 18X24 paper. Then they could collage more paper on the frame to make it more colorful.

Day 6---Paint mask. Go over procedures for painting.
For the first day of painting, I really wanted them to paint the base of their sculpture. First, I told them to pull off the hot glue 'cob webs'.

I had lots of color choices including neon and metallic colors. I encouraged them to use gold, baby blue and white first, as those might need more than one coat.

Using tempera paint means letting some colors dry before using other colors nearby, as the paint can smear easily. Since I allowed them to refill their own paint pallet, most of my lesson was about how to get a water bucket, how to select a pallet (I have 6 classes a day so they did not get a clean pallet, they were supposed to pick more than one pallet if necessary and use the paint that was already poured out). I also had to talk about not tapping the wet brush on the side of the water container.

I also told them not to mix more than 2 colors. We haven't spent a lot of time on color mixing, so it was a real pain if they started mixing every color in their pallet. But I DID let them mix to make tints and shades of the colors.

SAVE BLACK FOR LAST!!!

The hardest part of this project, was transitioning between classes. Since the masks were so big, they would not fit in my drying rack. I had the custodians set up 8 FT tables in a neighboring room. Each class had 2 tables and at the end of the hour, they had to carefully take their wet project to the room and set it on the table. It was a logistical marvel.

For Day 7---Paint additional layers.
Today I provided black in small cups. Students really needed to save black for last---cheetah spots, eyes, etc. look best if the bottom layer is dry and then they add the black on top.

Day 8---Final day for painting, attach mask to the base/frame. Add any painted details to the frame. Write a reflection on the success of the project.

Today, students needed to finish painting the mask first. Then they needed to make the frame if they did not do that previously. They also had the opportunity to add embellishments. I explained what embellishments were. They could shop at the store for those---if anyone ever asks me if I think they should attach googlie eyes...my answer is always YES! I love them! I also had TACKY glue---NO HOT glue on things like feathers and sequins. Other things in the embellishment store: paper straws (for whiskers), cotton fluff balls, plastic gems, scrap craft grass and yarn. For embellishments, I told them they could have as much as they wanted, as long as they attached it to the frame or the mask. They could not take a handful of goodies home. Sorry! I did not have enough for that!

Once their mask and frame were complete (add some paint to the frame so it matches the mask), they were to bring the mask to me so could use my big super hot hot glue gun to attach the mask to the frame. If they wanted the mask to be removable from the frame, they should have put strips of masking tape on the back to signal that they want to eventually wear the mask and they plan to remove it from the frame. I wanted the frames so that they would make a more impactful display!

If they had free time, I let them use up some of the paint and 12X18 paper to paint 'frames' for another project later.

Takeaways and reflection:

This is a project that spanned the course of 8+ class periods. Nearly 400 students created 3-D masks.

This project incorporated critical thinking and the use of sophisticated materials that middle school aged students should have an opportunity to utilize at school. When I polled each class, most kids raised their hand that they had used a hot glue gun before.

This project was a massive undertaking to initiate and I have spent hours scouring for cardboard, cutting it to size, and planning each station to make it safe and accessible for multiple students. Most kids are VERY careful around the hot glue because they understood the danger.

I understand that using hot glue is dangerous, just as scissors are dangerous.

Safety is always something that I stress in my lecture when starting a new project, it is always part of instructional input when I cover the routines and procedures for a project.

Students could get a bad paper cut that would hurt just as bad as the glue gun burn, it happens, and there are risks for every single thing we use. I know that this risk falls on my shoulders and I don't take it lightly, but it comes with the territory.

The students responded so well to this project, most kids are thrilled to walk in the door and get to work on their mask, (which does not happen with every project we do).

There are students who haven't had success on anything ever before, making the most special and wonderful creations. To an adult, the designs may not look like much, but the thought process, the vision and the application of skills are really quite incredible, it just can't be replicated through other process like drawing or painting.

The risk involved with using hot glue guns was quite minimal in my opinion. We did have a few minor burns, but I encouraged them to use the old gardening gloves and always put the hot glue o the BIGGEST thing they were gluing, not the tiny thing they were attaching. Also, if they got a spot of hot glue on their hand, the worst thing they could do would be to wipe it----they should rush to the sink and run cold water over it---then peel off the hot glue.

I would definitely do this project again without many changes. It was a lot of work to get the cardboard ready and the tables set up to allow the masks to dry, but it was worth it.

I have spent the last week hanging all 12 classes around the building and I just love them all so much! This project had a very high success rate and I am proud of the work that my creative students have put into it.

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Winter Animals Reduction Printing

3/4/2017

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Printmaking is a huge undertaking in my opinion. It requires a lot of moving around, a lot of mess, and a lot of space for drying. Sometimes the students don't really understand the process in the beginning so its hard to explain what to expect until we actually start printing. It also means that I have to set up my room completely differently to accommodate all of the printing stations.

Last winter, when we embarked on our 'winter animal reduction' prints, I learned a LOT about what to do and what not to do. I also had a very difficult student tell me that it was his favorite thing we did all year.

I have been waiting to post this for a long time because I have felt like the final products were not very successful, but I am posting now so you can learn from my mistakes. Here is another post from last year's printmaking adventure.

Day 1
Students selected a 'winter animal' to draw. It had to be something that thrived in snowy weather and did not hibernate all winter. I read the Winter Animals book to give them a few ideas. Students began by practicing in their sketchbooks. I also showed the Over and Under in the Snow book.

I had researched a couple of other reduction printing projects like this animal one and this fall leaf so I felt like things would go pretty smoothly. And for the most part, they did. But I did not anticipate the results looking so blah. Most of the great detail in their foam plates was just lost in the printing process because we used tempera paint.....and about half of my students, I didn't have enough of the good foam and the other foam we used crumbled a little bit when they tried to carve into it.

Once students had practiced their animals, I gave them a piece of 9X6 paper to start planning their stamp.

Supplies:
sketchbooks
visuals of animals
pencils
erasers
6X9 paper

Day 2
Students had some time to finish their sketches, but as soon as they had their design, it needed to go onto the 6X9 paper so they could start carving their stamp. To carve the stamp, they needed to tape the foam plate to the back and transfer part of the design to the foam plate with a colored pencil. I told them to ONLY transfer the background (keep it simple) and the outline of the animal.

Supplies
Pencils
colored pencils
6X9 foam
6X9 paper
tape
erasers

Day 3
Printing:
Since this is a reductive printing process, students only needed to transfer part of their design to the stamp initially. Then, they print 4 copies using light pastel colors. We used tempera paint for this layer. I mixed pastels (and completely ran out of white paint!) for them.

Even though I made a video and STRESSED many details emphatically, some students still got lost on this day because they carved too much or they missed a day or some other distraction made the whole process confusing for them.

Students needed to write their name on 4 pieces of white paper and keep it at their table. Then, take their printing plate to the inking station, ink it up and then return to their table to print it. We did not clean off out block between colors since they were light colors. I thought I was being clever setting up the paint on paper plates...but after 3 classes the plates were shredded. NEVER AGAIN! Also, the inking station was so covered with paint, we started using old catalogs as cover sheets, which helped but since I was printing with 6 classes back to back, it was H-E-double-hockey-sticks keeping the surface clean and ready for each class.

Instructional video for day 1 of printing (day 3 of the project).

Supplies:
brayers
ink (pastel colors)
carved stamps
pencils
colored pencils

Day 4
REDUCTION DAY

Okay, for this day, I had to make sure that EVERY kid had their 4 base colors printed before they could transfer the additional details, print with their 2nd color and then cut out their animal and print with their third and final color on all 4 papers.

Once they cut their animal out, that was it, no going back.....This is where things really got dicey, especially if someone was absent. I made a video to demonstrate this part. I added tons of other colors to the options and I found that some just did not print well and many of the final editions are not great as a result. Live and learn.

A lot of kids LOVED this day because it was a frenzy of moving around the room to the various stations, and it was UBER messy.

Instructional vides part 2 and part 3 of the reduction process. I made two separate videos but most kids did both steps the same day.

Supplies
Foam stamps
4 pieces of paper with background printed
brayers
Ink (we used paint, I don't recommend)

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Winter Animals in Chalk Pastel

3/4/2017

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Fall semester students had just created 'winter animal' styrofoam prints so I already had tons of books, magazines, and visuals posted in my room but I wasn't quite ready to start the spring semester kids off with printmaking.....

I really wanted to start with creating sketchbooks and a little drawing and maybe some chalk, similar to the way that we created the sloths earlier in the fall. I decided to combine the two ideas.

Students could select any animal that either lived where it is cold, or spent the winter hunting, for the most part. I was pretty lenient and also let them choose pets. I only really limited the 'winter' part because I wanted them to use a snow technique, and I also wanted to have plenty of visuals....and stay away from reptiles as the blending techniques we would be using wouldn't work as well on scales as they would on fur and feathers.

Anyway, we spent the first day creating practice drawings in our sketchbooks. I told them they could make the animal wearing cute hats, scarves, and ear muffs if desired. Some did, some did not.

Then we began the project by drawing with fat black crayons on 12X18 black paper. Some students struggled with the fact that they could not 'erase' the black crayon, even though I told them to draw lightly and we would be able to flip it over or color over mistakes. This was stressful for some kids. Next year, I want to use gray chalk for this step. Black is a little too messy, but I think gray would be perfect.

Next, we started by coloring anything we wanted white. Especially animals with a lot of white, and anything that was supposed to be snowy.

Also, we created a colorful blended aurora borealis inspired sky. This was a great chance to practice color blending. I loved playing an aurora video while they were working, and it gave them ideas on how they could vary the colors. I gave them a bowl with JUST cool colors (plus hot pink and lime green) chalk so they could really incorporate lots of cool colors. Also, I wanted them to create a different sky other than plain blue with a sun in the corner.

Then, we colored the animals. I gave them a demonstration on how they could color the animals with chalk pastels, and put texture on top of the chalk with oil pastels for fur and feathers. They could also outline if desired. We outlined with black oil pastel very last!!

Finally, if students wanted, we sprayed a fine mist of white paint over the background. I tried to mask off the animal a bit so that we wouldn't cover their work. I also asked them if they wanted it to look more like stars, and only be in the sky or if they were okay with it being sprayed everywhere like a snowy look. They were happy with the results and there was a ton of variety!!

Next time, I think I will trim their papers down a little before we start the project so that we can create a frame around them. I think the big display is missing something.

I'm sad that is is already time to take these down. Winter is over and the snowy pictures are a reminder!!

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Chameleons

9/21/2016

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While searching for one final BIG unit to wrap up the year, I really wanted my 5th and 6th students to focus on texture and detail. The chameleon project was very successful for many of my students.

Day OnE

I had hidden a bunch of chameleons around my room years ago for a substitute and one day my students pointed them out and asked what they were for. Well, they were just for fun.

For this unit, I started by gathering books about chameleons from the library. I hung up several pictures of chameleons around the room and I created a packet of visuals with images of chameleons for students to use as reference while practicing in their sketchbooks.

We started learning about chameleons by looking at this video. Then we practiced drawing chameleons in our sketchbooks. Once we had practiced, it was time to draw the chameleon on white paper. I encouraged students to crop and enlarge the chameleon.

Day Two

After drawing the chameleon on white paper, we used skinny sharpies to draw LOTS of texture. Chameleons are covered in scales so students had to draw the texture. Also, if their chameleon needed to be grasping on to a branch, I encouraged them to draw the branch and outline it with the skinny sharpie.

Once students had everything outlined, we used colored pencils to color the chameleons. Students could make their chameleons as realistic or wild colored as they wanted. I showed them a video of a time lapse of an iguana drawing as an example of how much time and layering it takes to color something hyper realistic with colored pencils.

While students were coloring, I pulled them over to a painting station to paint a frame for the project. Students could choose between green, blue, or gray paper. At the painting station, they could use cool colors to make a design around the edges of the paper.

Day 3

Now, before getting out the chameleons in order to finish coloring, I explained that first, we were going to use oil pastels to create a background. I explained that if we were taking a photo of a chameleon, and we were using a special lens with our camera, most likely the camera would zoom in on the texture of the chameleon's scales, which would make them really in focus, leaving the background out of focus.

Today, students chose a background color of 8X10 construction paper and used oil pastels to draw and color the background. It could be a dessert, a leafy jungle, or something else, but the important thing is that they do not draw it with pencil first, as the pencil will make it too small to color with oil pastels....they can draw it with chalk first if they are afraid they will mess up. The chalk is erasable. Which makes it nice.

If anyone did not paint the frame last time, today is the day to paint the frame.

I saved the chameleons over the summer and used them to make a big back to school display in the cafeteria for open house.

Day 4

If students need to color the background with oil pastels, or paint a frame, they need to do that today. Also, if they need colored pencils to finish coloring the chameleon, they can use those to do that. Finally, if they are done with everything else, they are ready to cut out the chameleon and glue it to the background. I brought in my very small detail scrapbooking scissors for students to borrow if they needed them. Once they used a glue stick to glue the chameleon to the background, they used regular white glue to attach it to a matte, and then to the frame we painted a while back. I encouraged them to add details on top of the paint on the frame with oil pastels, but most of them did not do that.

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ZentangleD Animal Silhouettes

9/21/2016

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I love zentangles. My students love zentangles. My students love to zentangle so much they go home and zentangle more. The one above is from a boy who made 3 more mini zentangles at home!

My students also love using India Ink and calligraphy pens to create a zentangle. This is seriously one of the first art supplies I have found that nearly all of my students are impressed by. I put the India Ink in a little glass jar and give them a calligraphy pen with a cover sheet on the table to help with clean up and they are in heaven, some of them even attribute the feeling to 'back in olden times' or 'what they used to sign the Declaration of Independence." They really feel special, and it elevates the project beyond just using sharpies.

Day One

For the first day of this project, students practiced drawing an animal silhouette in their sketchbooks. A silhouette is harder for some students, because they have to get the contour line right, or else it doesn't look anything like the animal. I purposely made the silhouette handout have super tiny silhouettes so that they could not trace their design, this was about observational skills.

After practicing the animal, they were to redraw it on white paper and outline with sharpie. For this project, we were not coloring the animal, we left it white, and created zentangles all the way around.

To make a zentangle, you bascially just make lines or 'tangles' around the object, all the way to the edge of the paper to break it up into sections. You fill the sections with structured patterns.

Day 2

Now that they know about making a silhouette, it is time to learn about a zentangle. A zentangle is a design made up of structured patterns. I have another packet for students to look at today, comprised of mini optical illusions, patterns, and cool looking zentangles they can reference as they work.

Zentangling can be addictive. Some of my students loved it so much that they went home and zentangled more.

We used skinny and regular sharpies along with the black india ink and calligraphy pens. Some students did not like using the calligraphy pens because of the unpredictability. That was okay with me, as long as they tried it. Also, if they accidentally dripped the ink in the wrong spot, I told them to just leave it and turn it into a happy accident.

While students worked, I pulled them over to an art center to paint a frame for their zentangle. Next time, we would attach the zentangle to the frame.

List of zentangle reference books that I love:
Zentangle: The art of Inspiring and mindful drawing method
One Zentangle a Day
The Art of the Zentangle (I got the idea for this project on page 51)--I also show them those examples, in order to get some of the kids to go back and add a few BOLD designs for more CONTRAST. If they don't add contrast, the designs don't pop.

Day 4

The final step is to finish adding the zentangle designs and then go back and add shading. I showed my students my woodless graphite pencils and let them use them to add a little shading in some spots on their zentangles. Some used the gray shading to emphasize an optical illusion. Some used the shading to make patterns, some used it to add emphasize to certain areas of the design. I even let some of the kids that seemed really 'into' it try out my zig pens and told them where to find them at Hobby Lobby. Lots of kids wanted a calligraphy pen after this lesson!

Once the shading was complete, students could pick a 'matte' and then attach the drawing to the matte, and attach that to their frame with white glue.

If they finished early, I had copies of a different 'calligraphy' practice sheets printed so they could use the pens to practice lettering.

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Sloths of Brazil

9/21/2016

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When the school year started, I think everyone had Olympic fever. I know I did. I spent hours with the TV on and piles of files scattered across my living room floor, organizing and preparing for the new school year while watching the men's volleyball teams jump and dive.

We were back to school August 17th, the tail end of the Olympics. Assuming that the breathtaking scenes of the Amazon jungle from the Opening Ceremonies would be fresh on everyone's minds, it seemed only natural to start the year off with a unit that correlated in some way. Technically, by the time I actually finished going over procedures and doing a couple of 1st day of school type activities, we didn't actually start making our first big unit until August 29th. The Olymics were a distant memory by then, and no body was thinking about Olympic dreams anymore.

The bad thing, was that I had already spent a significant amount of time preparing my first unit before school had even begun. I had to find a way to make everything tie together in order to make it relevant.

I decided to take the advice of Michael Linsin and basically ignore everything else I had ever done. In the past, I have pasted my walls with visuals and photos and magazine clippings of beautiful artwork to correlate to my lessons and build enthusiasm. And since moving to the middle school, I have found that typically, when students guess what it is we might be doing, I am opening myself up to negativity and criticism from every one of them. I've heard students exclaim, "man, those are ugly, I hope we aren't doing that." Which can really kill my enthusiasm when I'm putting on a show every 47 minutes, six times a day.

Michael Linsin says the best thing you can do to set your students on fire with passion for a new topic is to forgo all of the fan fair and start simply with a story.

SO that is what I did.

I simply googled the term 'sloth story' and read through a few....and came across one that I could memorize pretty easily.

On the first day of the unit, I began each lesson exactly the same way, "Once upon a time, in the Amazon jungle, just outside of Brazil, there lived a sloth, in the deepest, darkest part of the jungle. This was no ordinary sloth, he was very clever. But he was actually very lazy." And the story goes on....as I conclude the story (to applause by some classes), I simply say how sad it is that the poor, slow and lowly sloth would probably never have a chance to earn a gold medal at anything, and how interesting it was that ALL of the fastest, strongest, best humans on earth were recently assembled in Rio a few weeks ago----and just outside the city, across South and Central America, those jungle sloths were hanging in trees and moving achingly slow.

It pretty much worked. MOST of my students were jazzed to draw a sloth---especially after I showed them a preview of the project, which I did not keep on the board, I just showed them the steps explaining that they would spend the day drawing in their newly assembled sketchbooks, a tribute to the lowly sloth. Several kids admitted that sloths were their favorite animals.

I had a couple copies of a visual packet for each table with drawings of sloths---some kids can draw by looking at 'coloring sheets' while others work best if they can look at photos from books. This idea came from an art teacher at a conference a few years ago. She had images of Statue of Liberty paintings her students had done and I was completely blown away. Since then, I've always tried to make my own visual packets with images for students to use as a reference. It helps provide a ton of variety in their work.

I only found like 3 books about sloths in our library, but that seemed like enough. And I had a bunch of other rainforest or Amazon jungle books to use for other animals and plants.

If someone REALLY did not want to focus on the sloth, I encouraged them to pick another animal like a toucan, parrot, tree frog or something and just put a sloth in the corner, or really small in the distance. In the visual packet, I also had a bunch of visuals of leaves and encouraged them to practice drawing those too.

While they were drawing, I walked around the room with the stuffed sloth I found on amazon, and let them pet him. "What is his name?!" (when I let them name him, most suggested FLASH, like the sloth on Zootopia) "Where did he come from?" To which I replied, The Amazon.com.

At the end of the day, just before lining up, I showed them a short video clip of the trailer for Zootopia. I cut it off right before the joke....because most of my students have seen the movie, they knew the joke anyway.

Day 2

I knew I didn't want to spend a ton of time listing facts about sloths, so today I had an emaze presentation playing while students entered the room, and after I gave instructions, I pushed play again so it would flash across the screen with more info about sloths.

For today's lesson, I encouraged students to finish practicing their sloths. I focused on the fact that they were basically creating a THUMBNAIL sketch in their sketchbook. This is a small version or plan of a larger project. Using a thumbnail sketch to develop ideas, is one of our objectives, so it really fit nicely with the goals of the entire project today.

Once they had finished their thumbnail sketch, they could get a 12X18 black construction paper and black crayon. I explained that they would not be drawing in pencil on the black paper, another reason it was important to practice in their sketchbooks first---the pencil would make their drawings WAY too small. Since we would be coloring with chalk pastels, they really needed everything to be BIG and the black crayon would help them do that.

If they finished early, I did not let them start coloring yet....I didn't even have coloring sheets for them. I just had a can of sketchbook prompts, that they could use to draw in their sketchbooks. I told them that they needed to develop some ideas in their sketchbooks, and that I wanted to give everyone plenty of time to finish their sketches and draw on the black paper before we started using the chalk. I'm glad I took the extra day to draw, most kids needed the entire class period.

Black crayon on black paper doesn't show up great---but it is nice if you make mistakes. In the future, I would use black oil pastel, I just knew I didn't order enough black oil pastel to draw in oil pastel AND outline with black oil pastel, so I had to start with the waxy crayon.

After clean up, I showed students this video by Patty Palmer, her lesson on Amazon Rainforest Animals greatly inspired my unit. It was a good preview of what we would be doing next time.

Day 3

Here is a link to the smore flyer I used when I was developing this unit. I ended up converting most of the info to the emaze so that it would play on my TV screen, but some of the images I did print out and hang in the room once we started coloring so that students would have a reference for color.

Today, I spent time explaining that students should color anything they might want white FIRST because white chalk is hard to add later--it just gets dirty. So white would be white feathers on a toucan, white eyes, white whatever. I also told them to save black for last. This was really hard for them, but the black chalk smears so bad that I had to end up taking out all of the black just to force them to save that step for last, otherwise they ended up doing double the work as we were going to outline everything with black oil pastel anyway.

Remind me in the future never to combine CHALK dust with ragweed season.

I was SO sick the entire time we were doing chalk, even though I told them NOT to blow it into the air, my room doesn't get a lot of air flow, so it was like a permanent cloud that clogged my throat.

At the end of the lesson, after cleaning up---which is really messy. I showed them this video, which fit PERFECTLY with my theme!!! It even showcases a sloth training for the Olympics.

Day4

Admittedly, most students were just using the chalk like a crayon. They were missing the potential. SO. I spent an hour on Friday night drawing out 13 versions of a sloth so that I could demonstrate how to BLEND and how to add TEXTURE. I know some art teachers don't condone showing students their finished product, but in this case, I really wanted one finished one and 12 'in progress' ones that I could use as my demos.

Man was that a good investment!!! After seeing how to layer colors and blend with one finger, and how to add texture over the top, the quality of work improved 1000%.

Today was the day, I emphasized that they really needed to color the entire paper, with chalk fingerprints and smudges are SUPER hard to cover unless the entire paper is covered with chalk and you have the option to touch up.

Today was also the day they could finally outline with black oil pastel. I demonstrated how to keep a 'wiry' texture with a wiry outline, and how to mimic a smooth texture with a smooth outline, and how to add a black dot back into the middle of the eye of their sloth---and add a highlight of white to keep the lifelike look.

Some students still needed ONE more day to color, but LOTS finished. I'm really proud of the results from this unit and I can't wait to incorporate the blending and texture idea into the next project.

After clean up, I read them the book "Slowly Slowly, Said the Sloth." By Eric Carle.

P.S. I wrote a letter from FLASH....and had it in an envelope. I opened it and read it just like FLASH in Zootopia to introduce the next project. The kids LOVED it!! Even though it took me forever to read through it.

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Valentine's Day Pets in Oil Pastel

3/10/2016

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Following the plan I had used for the Christmas Pets in Oil pastel, I designed a project to use basically the same ideas for my 2nd semester students, but we themed the animals to go with Valentine's day.

The main differences, were that instead of just black background, I offered turquoise, purple, pink and black. Also, I had foam heart tracers students could use if they could not free-hand the heart. I also printed out several extra cartoonish images of animals holding hearts so we could reference those. Several surprised me with their way of figuring out how to make a 3-D box for their pet to peek out of. I also told them they could make it for a family member if they weren't sure what they would want as a pet.

This was a very successful project because most students were engaged in the process and happy to follow the directions. One student, chose not to color the entire dog, and did not even try to finish the eyes---so he cut it out just like this and glued it to the background. This would be an example of a '1' on a scale of 1-3. He made an attempt, and drew the dog nicely, but did not follow through or finish the project using the steps provided.

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Plaster Cardinals

3/10/2016

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Last year I ordered several boxes of plater of paris. I've never used it with students before, but I like the fact that it sets up quickly. After finding the Paper Mache bluebird project online, I knew that multiple classes could create a bird fairly easily and I had all the supplies (except for her recipe for paper mache paste--which looks amazing to use!).

This project took some time to plan. I decided to try it out with 4 classes so that I could see how far the plaster would go and how much of everything would be used up...also I needed to stagger the lessons so that each class would be on a different phase each day, so that I would have space on the shelves to let stuff dry.

First, I had a parent helper cut newspaper, wire, and cardboard into usable sizes. Thank goodness for my parent helper! She also cut a couple of packages of paper towels into strips, so we could use them like paper mache.

The MO GLEs that are addressed with this project include: PP2A6a Create a relief artwork by joining two or more surfaces (e.g. natural or manufactured clays, paper pulp, cardboard, found materials). PP1B6a: Using opaque paint, overlap brush strokes to create a smooth and even area of color.

Day 1
Students looked at a few pictures of cardinals and sketched out a cardinal. I demonstrated how to form the body using a wadded up (don't squish it too much) 1/2 sheet of newspaper. Then, they used 1/4th of a sheet, wadding it into a ball to form the head. We taped everything together---some of my tape was not suitable for this project, it was the cheap stuff!

Students used scraps of cereal boxes and the cardboard from sharpie boxes I've been hoarding to cut out a beak, wings, a tail and if they wanted, a little feather for the top of the head, the 'mohawk'. Those things were taped on, and the student's name was written in sharpie on the belly.

Day 2
This was my favorite lesson of the project. Today, I put a strip of colored Twisteez wire out for each student. Without cutting the wire, I challenged them to make a bird's leg---since we would be using wire for the Cardinal's legs, I wanted to see how they approached the challenge and if they could figure it out without my direct instruction. Most of them had never worked with wire. After 10 minutes or so, I collected the wire and started a demonstration. I had a pair of pliers for each table (didn't the first day, big mistake!) to help them bend the actual wire, which was much harder to use than the Twisteez.

I demonstrated how to fold the length of wire in half and twist it onto itself. I told about how I had to make a sculpture using wire in college and I had no clue what I was doing! I set up my iPad like a document camera and projected my demonstration on the TV so they could watch closely. Students were really engaged in the lesson--they were really 'awed' by the demo, more than with other demonstrations where their dead eyes watch me but tune out my voice, they were paying close attention, for the most part. And I felt like I was really teaching them something too.

Then I explained that they should bend it like a long 'L' making the top sharp end the part that pokes into the cardinal....and fold the long part of the L into a sort of W, winding the wire onto itself to strengthen the toes. *I wish the wire would've been cut a TAD longer, some students didn't quite have enough wire. The goal was to make 2 legs by the end of class. Students wrote their name on a piece of tape, and wrapped it around their wire to save for next time.

Day 3
Some students needed this day to finish making the cardboard wings, (or make the legs or body entirely if they had been absent on one of the previous sessions), they also needed to stab the legs into the cardinals, tape things down really well and basically make sure the cardinals were put together well before we added the plaster. This only took about half of one full art time, so I had an extra activity---something that we were working on, that they could pull out if they got done early, and it gave me a little time to get those caught up that were really struggling with the wire. I also encouraged everyone to use a little glue gun to help secure the legs if they were jiggly and ready to fall out.

Day 4
Plaster. Day of reckoning. Wear old shoes, or make shoe covers out of plastic wrap.

One of my classes is 34 students. I only have 32 chairs---so it is always a little more chaotic when we are working on messy projects. It is hard to get everyone back to the sinks....the lazy kids use the clean up time to play around, instead of pitching in and I'm running around like a maniac trying to make sure everything is ready and cleaned up for my next class.

I demonstrated how to apply the plaster using the iPad as a camera, but it was hard to really convey to them the intricacies of how to work with plaster, how to smooth it out, etc. In one class, a boy spilled the plaster on his pants (after I STRESSED that they should wear paint smocks and he did not), he spent 3-4 minutes at the sink, wiping his pants off, and by the time he got back to the table, his plaster had hardened so much that he couldn't coat the paper towel strips. Ugh.

It was difficult to get around to all of the students who really needed a one-on-one helper or demonstration. This project would've been 10000% more successful if I would've had ONE other person in the room to help for this part. It was just too much for me to do alone with such large classes.

Once the plaster was done, the students needed the last 5 minutes to crumble the dried plaster off their fingers over the trash can, wash their hands, and clean up the tables. Which meant I spent that whole time running around the room, transporting the heavy, messy sculptures to the shelves, picking up discarded bags of hardening plaster, moving cover sheets, smoothing and helping finish the straggling sculptures.

Since I was so busy, the sink area wasn't being monitored, I couldn't help kids who got plaster in their hair, there was no way to yell over the chaos----it was stressful and it wasn't fun for me. Worse, I had to move everything out of the way for the next hour, which wasn't necessarily even doing the same project. And I only had 2 minutes between classes. Forget a restroom break.

Day 5
Students stood over trash cans, sanding off the crumbly bits of dried plaster. Then, everyone painted the cardinals red. The entire cardinal was painted red. We let the red dry. Next time, give them some thing to put the cardinal ON, while it dries because the foam trays we used for the plaster process were still coated in chalky dried plaster which sometimes stuck to the fresh paint and left white crumbs.

--Some students would've rather changed their cardinals into blue jays or other birds...I'm not sure I would let them, as this painting process when relatively smoothly, and I don't know how we could've added a lot of painted details without adding an additional day.

Day 6
Students used a black permanent marker to draw on the 'mask' around the cardinal's face. They colored it in black, and drew texture on the wings and tail, if they wanted to. Some students felt that their cardinals were not very realistic so I encouraged them to make it silly---I pulled out the googlie eyes and mini hot glue guns. OR they could paint the eyes with a dot of white at a painting station. I also had a yellow-orange paint for the beak, which was pretty close to a cardinal's beak color when applied over the red paint, that they could apply. I gathered a bundle of sticks from my yard, and let students choose a stick, they could perch the cardinal on the stick, but some were too heavy and spun around it like a bird in a cage----and some didn't have long enough toes to grasp the stick enough to clutch it. They tried to hot glue the feet to the stick, but that didn't work...most kids just wanted me to put the cardinal on the stick for them---but I tried to encourage them to figure it out, because I really couldn't do them all--not enough time. The sticks left bark and crumbs all over the room which was a pain. I let students take the cardinals right out the door, even with wet beaks, since I knew it would dry within an hour after class.

Conclusion
I was disheartened to hear that several students walked right down the hall and dumped their cardinals into the trash can in the next class. How frustrating to spend so much time prepping a project that I thought they would be so proud of and enjoy, just for them to not care and be disappointed.

I also had a student exclaim, 'That project sucked. It was boring and took way too long.' I thought his cardinal turned out well, and I had no idea that he was so annoyed by the project until after he said that.

After the first class told me that several had trashed their projects, I gave a sob story to the other classes about how broken hearted I was to hear that---and I encouraged them to save their cardinals for family members, especially old half-blind grandma's, who will appreciate the effort and the fact that they made it, even if they can't see the flaws, someone will love it! DON"T THROW IT AWAY!!!!

One of my professional development goals this year is to try to use more effective reflections and evaluations with my students. It is hard to find the class time to fill these out for every project. How do I know that students are being authentic, and not just writing down answers like 'nothing' or 'I don't know'. Do I give them a grade for quality responses? Do I have them re-do them if they don't give quality responses? How? When?

I found this great form on teachers pay teachers, and had it copied. Each form hold 4 self-reflections.

I have had 3 classes fill out the reflections so far, and the feedback has been so-so. I wish the questions were a little more specific to the actual project, because several students didn't tell me anything to help me improve this project or the plaster process for the future. Overall, students were proud of what they had made, and I guess that is what matters in a project like this.

After this project, I have general sense of how much space and organization something like this takes. It is a little disheartening that the Cardinals are almost impossible to display in our school without a display case, I sent them all home, without any evidence of our month and a half spent on one project.

Now that I have completed this project with multiple classes, I can develop a rubric based on the student reflections below, if I choose to do a project that involves plaster, paper mache, birds or 3-D because I have a baseline for my expectations and I can gauge student success on this baseline understanding of what is possible.

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Christmas Stocking

12/7/2015

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IF YOU WOKE UP CHRISTMAS MORNING TO FIND A NEW PET PEEKING OUT OF YOUR STOCKING, WHAT ANIMAL WOULD YOU HOPE TO FIND?

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This was the prompt I asked my students right before Thanksgiving break.I explained that when I was a little girl, I would lay in bed at night and WISH that I would wake up in the morning to find a new cuddly little pet peeking up at me from its little cage. I would pray that the sweet little new hamster or baby bunny would arrived equipped with all of its food, toys and accessories.

I made a list of animals after they wrote them down and printed out a bunch of 'cute animal' visuals for them to reference. I also had them do some mini sketches to practice drawing the animal peeking out of a stocking. I opted for cute versions of the animals for my students to look at---as this project verges on toy versions of realism, and really appeals to my 5th grade students. The 6th graders are proud of their work, but weren't as sold on the project initially.

The day we started, I had the cute visuals---clip art (simply drawn versions of cheetahs, sharks, horses, and it was helpful to have several varieties of dogs since some have snouts and others have snub noses.) I also had a few color prints hanging up that showed sad, big eyed-animals. We talked about the white highlight in the eyes, how that helped give the animal a lifelike quality.

Students drew their animal on 9X18 gray paper with white chalk. The nice thing about the chalk, is that it forced them to draw big and it also erases more easily than pencil, which can tend to leave a groove in the paper when they press hard with their pencil and attempt to erase, sometimes it still shows up when they switch to oil pastels.

I also had several 2" circles punched out of tagboard on the table and I encouraged my students to trace the circles for the eyes. For this project, I encouraged students to draw the eyes really big. The eyes were a little unnatural, and many of the animals look a little bit like stuffed toys---which I think is good for this particular project.

TIP: Once students start coloring with oil pastels, I stressed to them that they should do ALL of the white first. Especially if their pet has a LOT of white, like a panda or a fox, because if they do the black first, it smears really bad! Also, if they are planning to trace the mouth or the nose with black, save that for last, after they color the fur around that area with another color, so it doesn't smear.

I printed the photos above after finding them on a Pinerest search. I would love the give the artist credit, but I had trouble tracking down the original artist. I will post the link here if anyone finds it.

Here is the paper, the tray of chalk+tagboard circles. I used my 2" punch to create the tracers. This size circle worked really well for this size paper.

We spent a little time on one of the first, day before we drew the animal, practicing shading a sphere. Many students had never shaded a sphere and the eyes were looking really flat. I love the animals that have 'gum ball' looking eyes----they used the shading technique in their coloring, and did a nice job of blending the oil pastels!

I posted steps 1-3 on the board and added 4-5 the 2nd day.
1. Trace the eyes. Use chalk. (save room for ears/hat above the eyes)
2. Draw details and add a stocking.
3. Color with oil pastels.
4. Cut out.
5. Glue to black paper, put name on black paper.

Tip: Make sure eye highlight is white. The reflection needs to be white or else it looks strange.

This is how they looked after day 1.

Lots of foxes. Some had time to color the eyes. Some waited until the 2nd day to color the eyes. I encouraged them to do the eyes open, but the closed eyes are pretty cute too. Also, I suggested that they use multiple colors to make realistic textures. Some students spent a long time drawing, so they did not get as much colored. If they made the animal too big to squeeze the stocking on the same page, I let them use a 2nd piece for the stocking. The paws were optional.

On the last day, we finished coloring, and cut out the animals, gluing them to a simple black background. This was all that some had time for, if they spent a lot of time designing the stocking or were slower at coloring. I had a few Christmas coloring pages for early finishers.

I love the side view of the eagle and the 3/4 view of the red panda with open mouth above!

Overall, this was a very successful project that we were able to finish in 2-3 art sessions. The kids loved them. At one point, I was so excited with the success: "You guys!! This room looks like a cute apocalypse, "I proclaimed with a class because there were SO many cute animals everywhere!!

Students loved this project because pretty much any animal was approved...sharks, spiders, and peacocks were all welcome, and only a little bit of the head/shoulders had to peek out of the stocking. They were able to decorate and customize the stockings, and add toys/accessories, candy canes, hats, bows and anything else they wanted to make their image.

One or two students that do not celebrate Christmas did not have to include the stocking, they could just draw the animal peeking out of its home or something. I would love another alternative if you have an idea, please leave it in the comments!

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Llamas Vs. Alpacas

Cardboard Masks

Winter Animals Reduction Printing

Winter Animals in Chalk Pastel

Chameleons

Day OnE

Day Two

Day 3

Day 4

ZentangleD Animal Silhouettes

Day One

Day 2

Day 4

Sloths of Brazil

Day 2

Day 3

Day4

Valentine's Day Pets in Oil Pastel

Plaster Cardinals

Christmas Stocking

IF YOU WOKE UP CHRISTMAS MORNING TO FIND A NEW PET PEEKING OUT OF YOUR STOCKING, WHAT ANIMAL WOULD YOU HOPE TO FIND?

Mrs. Mitchell

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