I Last spring, we made Chris Uphues Happy Collages for Valentines day. Students made individual 12X12 collages, and created an additional 'character' for a collaborative mural. For their individual collages, we used the chalk stencil design method to create a background. This year, I wanted to use the same idea to make collages for halloween. I think I like them even more! 

We focused on symmetry and I had a few specialty papers available for students to use like halloween scrapbook paper and white sheet music.  I showed them a couple of examples of Target 'cute' halloween stuff and encouraged them to make something 'cute' as opposed to gory, bloody, scary. I had a few try to argue that Halloween was supposed to scary, and I said listen, "You are making these things to display in a children's school, not a haunted house." Most of them could agree with me after that. 

I did show how how they could cut the eyes out of a skull or they could just cut black paper and glue it down for the eyes. Also, I demonstrated how to draw half of a pumpkin along the fold and then cut it out so it would be symmetrical. Most of them 'got it'. The candy corn was the hardest thing to make symmetrical! 

I had an inspiration board that had some basic fall and halloween symmetrical shapes. A few of my students do not celebrate halloween, so I encouraged them to do a leaf or an apple since those things are symmetrical and seasonal during autumn. 

Supplies
Day 1
(We made the chalk stencil background this day, I told them if they wanted to make a black figure like a cat or a bat, they might want to use gray for the background)
12X12 Paper (we used gray or black)
Chalk
12X12 paper for the stencil (again, gray or black)
Pencils for name
Scissors

Day 2
Chalk Stencil Backgrounds finished and ready for collages to be added on top
Scissors
Glue Sicks
Markers
Pencils
Colored Paper in all shapes and sizes and colors (Lots of orange and white)
​Trash Tubs for each table
Mural Paper
Hot glue gun to hot glue each figure to the mural

Overall, I would say that this project was very successful for every student! I enjoyed watching them use symmetry and plan their designs. I told them that LOTS of kids were making pumpkins and skulls, so if they chose something like that, they should think of a way to customize it and make it unique, or else choose something that NO one else is probably attempting like an owl or a witch or a spider......I really wanted them to cut out as many elements as possible, but many of them drew stuff on which was okay too. 

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:
​

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. 
​
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!

Full disclosure. I've never actually taught anyone how to use perspective. I rarely use perspective. By teaching 300+ students how to use perspective, I've gotten a lot better at it myself and I can now figure out what they are getting or not getting and I've also learned how to show it one-on-one with some of them, when the whole group instruction wasn't making sense. I watched several youtube videos on how to do it, and it really helped me to simplify the instructions for my demonstration. 

For some reason, I decided this would be the year that I finally teach my students how to make things (besides spheres) how to appear 3-D. 

We started by drawing 3-D cubes in our sketchbooks. Some groups struggled with this----5th graders aren't ready in October. 6th graders did okay. 

Then, I had them get into pairs.....they loved working with a partner!

With their partner, they used the planning sheet to design a structure using perspective. They could use 1 point or 2 point perspective, and it could be spooky or not...since it was close to Halloween, I always like to do something with spooky architecture if I can. I have many visuals of Victorian houses, barns, pagodas, etc. for reference. Some of them are on this Smore flyer and I let my students access them digitally for this project. I also put 2 QR codes on the sheet, and let them watch the perspective videos we watched in class again, if they really struggled with the concept. (Flyer on Haunted houses and on Perspective)

After they had a plan, they drew the structure on bigger paper---brown, gray or white paper. They outlined with a sharpie and could color with either colored pencils or construction paper crayons. 

While they were working on drawing and coloring, I called them over to a special art station to make painted paper. It took 2 art times to get every over to the center---which is about what it took for them to finish drawing/coloring. 

At the special art station, students smeared shaving cream+acrylic paint onto paper with a pallete knife. One student in each group did a paper for them to use as their sky (had to pick between red+yellow OR blue+purple OR white, for a hazy smoky sky). The other person in the group created a textured paper using the same process, but their paper went into a community pile for everyone to use. The community pile had lots of shades of green, blue, purple, grey, brown, and tan. I did different variations for each class depending on what I thought we might need for the finished collages. 

All of the 'sky' pages were created on black construction paper. The combination of the acrylic and the shaving foam gave the paint a thickness that we don't normally find in school grade paint. The pallet knife technique was very fun for some of the students, I stood right by as they created the textured papers. The other colors were made on dark green, purple, grey and light green construction paper. I don't have a photo of the station with students using the plastic palette knives and shaving foam, but we scraped the excess off the knife and onto a cookie sheet, so that it could be reused over and over. I let the students spray the shaving cream and squirted the paint. It was sort of like an assembly line. 

Once all of the textured papers were created, it was time to put everything together. I encouraged students to think about the foreground, as well as the middle ground and the background for their collages.

​Small details could either be drawn with black crayons (sharpies would not work on the texture paper) onto the background, or they could be drawn/colored around the edges of their structures, since we were planning to cut those out and adhere them to the sky paper. 

I also had to stress to them, DON'T cut the the 'sky' paper that is the 'canvas' we will be gluing everything to! 

I was very proud of the variety of structures----there were tree houses, bird houses, stadiums, churches, schools, mansions, pagodas, and one group even re-created Alcatraz! 

The spooky texture on the house above was made with a slightly dried out marker---a cool idea from one of my students!! 

We did spend at least one day practicing trees, before the final day of the project--it really helped them to get the hang of creating realistic looking branches. 

Hey Look! I'm a Magritte!! 

This was an easy costume to pull together. I had everything...except the bowler hat, which I picked up at a costume shop for $10. 

I attached the apple and leaves by wrapping a black piece of wire around the hat and twisting it around the FAKE apple stem and leaves. The apple is styrofoam so it was very light weight. I DID carry a copy of the painting in my pocket as a reminder to my students (and an art lesson to my co-workers). The older kids recognized me, as we have just finished a unit on surrealism. The younger ones thought I was an apple tree. HA!

Surreal selfie!

Source. 

*EDIT: Did you see Cassie and I had the same idea this year? Cassie's cloud tights are waaaaay awesome!!

Back in the day....I was an avid scrapbooker. I still occasionally dabble in cards and memory albums...but my former obsession has me OVER stocked with pretty papers and embellishments that I will most likely never use. I decided to purge some of these items by donating them to my art room. I had a large amount of Halloween stickers, ribbon, and papers so I decided to design a craft project to incorporate them.

Since I really only have enough of these materials for one or two classes, I decided to spoil my after school art club. I know they are the ones who truly appreciate all the 'extras' on a collage like this one. 

I had found a really cute witch on Pinterest and put it on my 'art ideas' board. This sweet little witch was the perfect project! I totally stalked this artist's Flicker page for TONS of cute collage ideas. She is one of my new favorites.

For the background, we used 'painted paper' that had been created during the 1st month of school. I had 25 'orange' pieces in my collection so I allowed them to choose one for the background...some are more pink or yellow, but it works. My students had made elf shoes last year, so they were able to make the boots pretty easily.

I gave a short demo on how to cut the dress, head, and explained how to make arms and legs. I had a parent volunteer in charge of cutting yarn for hair, and ribbon for trim on the bottom of the dress or around the hat. 

As a finishing touch, I allowed them to paint glitter glue on to some spots with a small brush, and add a few halloween stickers to act as buttons. I encouraged some students to draw bats or spiders in the background if they wanted it a little more spooky. If they were going for glam, I told them to color the lips/blush with crayons. 

If you decide to try this project, I would love to see! Please post a link in the comments.