I used to do a LOT more step-by-step drawing project with my younger students. Now that I teach 5th and 6th grade, I try to give them a lot more options so rarely is a whole class drawing exactly the same thing. However, I do slide in one or two Art Hub for kids drawing activities a semester. They are good because it can give some students a little confidence if they don't think they are good at drawing, usually they can draw along with a high level of success. Also, most kids can usually finish this in a day or two. See our Monster Trucks last year!

This year, with spring on the way, I decided to try out some of the bird drawings. I have done the Cardinal several times since that is our mascot, but I wanted to try some of the other ones on the channel. I had a couple of classes do the robin, and a couple of classed do the hummingbird. Those were both REALLY successful. I only had one class do the hawk, one class the peacock and one class do the Phoenix. I though they would really love the peacock and the Pheonix but the details were harder to implement and a few kids got a little frustrated in each class. 

I like the bird videos because they use GOOD colored pencils (or oil pastels in the peacock video), and it gives me a chance to show my students how much nicer Prismacolored pencils are...and I encourage them to ask for a set for Christmas/Easter/birthday if they are really into drawing, those colored pencils are so much better quality. Also, the videos demonstrate blending and it is cool to see kids really try to make their birds look realistic. 

I gave the students 8.5X11 white drawing paper so we could mount on 9X12 construction paper for the display. I also let them draw in pencil first and then trace in sharpie. 

I always like the results of step-by-step drawings, but I'm not sure if it really teaches drawing skills. I do like using this project for learning how to shade and blend colors. It is easier to demonstrate layering the color when everyone has the same subject, the layers would all be in the same places. When everyone draws a different animal, it is harder to explain without a demonstration for each one. 

In 2015, I was feeling my way through the whole middle school process. Most kids enjoyed looking at optical illusions and I knew I wanted to create an optical illusion unit for the first time. I was also trying to figure out a good way to incorporate a LITTLE bit of technology into the project. 

So I created a SMORE flyer with tons of step-by-steps and guides on how to make optical illusions that I had collected around the internet, mostly via pinterest. The idea was that students could 'explore' and narrow it down to one that they were interested in making.

In theory, this made tons of sense. But in reality, most kids picked the one that looked 'easiest'. And then wanted to play on the iPads as soon as they were finished. I've phased out using technology as much in this way....because it just didn't yield the best results and I felt like I was trying to control them a little too much, which I was. Also, I only had a dozen ipads so kids still had to have OTHER visuals, books and some printed step-by-steps in order to have access to enough materials for each kids to use. 

Day 1-3
Introduce the idea of optical illusions. Look at examples. Scan QR code which takes you to the smore flyer 
Sketch idea on white drawing #80 paper in pencil. Use 9X12 or 12X12 depending on design. Color with markers, colored pencil or crayon. Use willow chalk to add light shading on marker. 

Supplies
 pencils
rulers/circle templates
erasers
9X12 and 12X12 paper #80
markers
colored pencils
willow vine charcoal

Every time I do this project, I am a little disappointed with the results.

Students can learn a lot about perspective, texture, color and drawing by selecting a magazine image and attempting to draw the other half. For this project, they had to choose an image that was a half page or full page, and then I used my paper cutter to cut it in half.

They saved the other half with a paper clip clipped to their drawing paper and used a glue stick to attach the main half to their paper. They always have trouble 'finishing' the drawing so that it fills up the page. 

After lightly sketching out the rest of the image and adding other things to fill up the paper, we used colored pencils to color, attempting to match the colors as closely as possible by layering. This colored pencil technique video was very helpful in explaining how to layer color. 

While gone for a field trip in May, I needed a fun sub plan for my students. This project took about 30 minutes, so luckily I had a Mother's Day card/coloring sheet available for early finishers. A few kids wanted to make more than one. 

I had markers and white paper, but I also had a LOT of extra black and colored 6X12 paper so I had construction paper crayons and colored pencils available. I encouraged students to sketch idea lightly in pencil and then outline in sharpie so they did not waste paper. Got the idea for this project here. 

I love the 4 piece band by one of my 6th graders, very creative. This was a great end-of-the year project as students could take it home the same day, and it is very cute! 

At the end of last semester, I taught my classes about zentangling with a zentangled animal silhouette project.  It went really well and they LOVED using the pen and ink.

This semester, I knew I wanted to incorporate zentangling again. I ended up getting really sick and had to leave part of this project with a sub. Surprisingly, zentangles are pretty easy to leave with a sub---yay! But I did not have a chance to let them try out pen and ink. Boo. 

​Here is what I had posted on the board:

Here is what I left for my sub:
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1. Today students will be drawing pumpkins! I set up a pumpkin still life by the red bulletin board, you can point it out if students need help visualizing how to draw pumpkins. (Early finishers could also sit at the white table and create a contour line drawing of the still life. I put felt tip markers and white paper on the white table just in case…..)
2. On a piece of white paper, students may choose a composition 2 or 3 pumpkins overlapping. You can demonstrate this on the board or point out my example. One of our vocabulary words is OVERLAP, so you might explain that it means that one object is in front of another object so that it is partially covering the one that is behind.
   
3. After drawing the pumpkins, students should add contour lines that start at the pumpkin’s stem and follow the curve of the surface of the pumpkins. Students can draw the pumpkins with pencil, and then trace in sharpie. If they mess up, make them use the back to retry, before giving them a new paper.
   
4. After drawing the outline, students can begin ZENTANGLING in each section of the surface of the pumpkin using SHARPIES. Students can use skinny sharpies for this step. A zentangle is a design made up of structured patterns. I have a packet for each student to look at for ideas and a couple of books with tons of zentangle ideas. If their designs are too simple, they can go in and add more CONTRAST or VARIETY to make them look more interesting. Students should work quietly, zen implies a quiet focus and should be calming and relaxing. (6th graders should not wander the room to talk to friends. I do let them get a pencil, ruler or a sharpie if they need those items, but they shouldn’t be at another table for no reason). 
   
5. Make sure names are on their papers. Remind them not to use sharpie on the back for their names because this will show through to the front and mess up their drawing. 
6. *Next time* we will color the background and attach to a frame. Students will also have a little more time to finish zentangling the pumpkins if they don’t finish today. 6th graders will probably do better with this because we did zentangling last year. I don’t want them to color the pumpkin, the plan is to leave it black and white, and only color the background so if you allow them to get out crayons/markers if they finish early, make sure they don’t color the pumpkin. I want to explain how to use secondary colors on the background.
7. Paper is 8X11 if you need to cut more.
8. Early finishers may either zentangle a bookmark or draw the still life at the white table.

 

When I got back from being sick, I explained how they could add more value to some of their mini optical illusions and to the edges of the pumpkins to make them look more round or 3-D. The ones that added the shading in pencil did a great job. I think I even spent a few minutes at the beginning of that class making a value scale in their sketchbooks and shading a sphere---just for practice!

I also stressed the importance of adding CONTRAST. I encouraged them to at least make a couple of their patterns BOLD like a checkerboard. 
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After zentangling, they were to color the background with SECONDARY colors. They could use a monochoromatic color scheme or a pattern, but I took all of the reds, pinks, yellows, grays, browns and etc. out of the crayon basket. Its amazing how beautiful the secondary colors are! I told them that I would keep yellow green, golden rod, red violet, and red orange in there to give them a variety of 'purples' 'oranges' and 'greens'. They also had to plan out what color they would use to 'matt' their artwork and they had to select a different shade of green, purple, and orange for their frames. They painted a design on the frame with black at a special painting station. 

And a shoutout to the Tap and Glue caps I debuted on this project. It was the first time many of my students had used these caps. Some were elated! Some were perplexed. Regarless, I used half as much glue! And only a few mishaps for the ones who were absent the day I explained how to use them--who tried to take the top off and spilled glue EVERYWHERE. 

If students finished early, I had them work at a drawing station. I set up a STILL LIFE of pumpkins and gourds. Once again, I did not let them draw with pencil first, and I was really happy with the results!

When my students had finished the big sloth unit at the beginning of the semester, I knew I did not want to jump right into painting. Chalk is so unbelievably messy that I just needed a simple project for a few days to recover. I was telling another specials teacher about my dilemma and she gave a simple suggestion: have them draw a jersey from their favorite team.
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Hmmmmm. That would be pretty easy....and it would give me a chance to reinforce iPad procedures since kids might need to look up team colors or information.

That could work. So simple. So easy. 

What started out as a one-day thing stretched out for two weeks. Because with me, it can never just be easy...it has to be a full blown unit.....

First, students got a message from flash. Which I read painfully slowly, like a sloth. At first they were incredulous, but then when I mentioned the word JERSEY, they got excited, especially the boys. 

Day one, students practiced their jerseys in their sketchbooks. I printed off simple visual outlines of football, baseball, soccer, and basketball jersey. I ended up adding cheerleading, volleyball, rodeo, track and gymnastics visuals into the mix for kids who needed to be creative about their team sports. 

Once they had drawn the jersey, they used 9X12 white paper to draw their jersey and 6-9 additional symbols from their sport. The symbol could be a football, a player's number or anything else that would work to represent the team---they had to draw a 'grid' to organize their symbols.

Then, everything was outlined in sharpie. Sometimes, I hate letting them use pencil first because they can never seem to erase pencil lines very well. I am very picky about erasing. 

I decided to limit them to crayons for this project in order to have adequate color options. In the future, maybe I will use colored pencils.....

I even went to Wal-Mart to buy a 105 color box of crayons because I only have one sky blue and NO brick red in my entire inventory.....how can you truly match a team's colors without using the right shade of red/blue?! Next year I am definitely ordering multiple crayon color sets.....I don't know how my requisition only sent me the standard 24 colors again this year...I really thought I had ordered the big assortment this year....all well. 

My reasoning behind this project was two-fold, I really wanted to get my sports-minded students excited about the art, and I really wanted to learn a little about their interests. Sometimes if you don't give them a chance to put the Denver Broncos on something, it will end up making its way into their artwork one way or another. The project ended up being a bit of a snooze...and it is not one of my favorites. 

I absolutely love the 'grid' layout that Kathy uses on her projects for kids. For this project, we used a similar format. 

In fact, half way through the FOREVER it took for them to color these babies, I had to take a day off. 

​It was a beautiful Friday at the end of September. I set up a bunch of shoes on the table and after practicing some contour and blind contour with dry erase markers, we went outside to draw in our sketchbooks with felt tip pens. I had them draw their own shoes outside because the weather was so nice AND because I did not want to smell their feet. 

Okay. Seriously. 5th and 6th graders can draw shoes really really well.

​I was amazed at how successful they were!! I ended up setting up a little shoe center in my classroom for those that had finished their jerseys to sit at and draw shoes on white paper. 

In their sketchbooks, I made them draw with the School Smart waterbase ink/fiber pen. 

For some reason, I had ordered several dozen of the 8 color sets. I left out yellow and orange and had red, blue, green purple and brown for students to choose from. This worked out really well....sharpie would've bled through the pages and regular marker wouldn't have had a THIN enough line. Also, since we did not use pencil, they could not erase...which was so magnificent! 

To build their confidence at blind contour without using up a ton of paper, I gave them dry erase markers and dry erase boards. Well technically I only have 20 dry erase board so I had to improvise with some dry erase sleeves. These things are the bomb. Also, I have been saving my lonely socks, you know, the ones from the dryer that have lost their partner. I use those as erasers. Shoes and socks day---OH MY!!

Also, got the idea to suggest adding a crazy sock in their finished drawings from this post. So cute!

Students really enjoyed going outside to draw, even if it was only for a little while. 

With a couple of classes, we even had time to blind contour draw the bike rack!

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

This project is a great example of showcasing student growth. Students use observational skills to practice drawing the human form using posable mannequins. In sketchbooks, students practice drawing mannequins in 3-4 poses. 

Then, they select a pose from one of their drawings, and recreate the pose in a work of art, and they have the option to keep the mannequin as a wooden figure or turn it into a character. If they turn it into a character, they can create a scene with details and a costume---if they keep it as a wooden form-man, they can create an abstract design for the background. The entire picture is outlined in sharpie and colored with crayons. 

The sketchbook page on the left is a good example of a student who was struggling with the mannequin form. In each of the initial sketches, she was putting way too many body parts, she was just struggling to SEE how simple the form was---and making the legs too short or the body too big. After realizing that several students were having that same struggle, I started taking sitting with them one-on-one, drawing the mannequin on my own piece of paper, using proper proportions, allowing them to draw it in their sketchbooks, along side me---this really helped this particular student, and several others too. You can see the biggest drawing in the center of her book, it is much closer to the actual proportions of the mannequin, and gave her a lot of confidence. Below is her final work of art---I love the messy, expressive background.