Last month, while introducing the January 'Artist of the Month' a student asked an interesting question. Did Picasso invent Mine Craft?

Using my best VTS questioning skills I responded, 'What do you see that makes you ask that?'

He pointed to a large reproduction in my classroom of the Three Musicians.

Brilliant! The student had connected something in his real life with a work of art that he might not otherwise have made a connection with, and I explained his connection to all of my other classes and related the work of art to students in a completely new way.

No, Picasso did not invent 'mine craft' but in what ways is this work of art similar to your game?
How are Cubism and Mine Craft visually similar?
In what ways are the two things different?
Think-pair-share: Find someone in the room who is an expert on Mine Craft. Ask them to explain the concept of the game. Find someone in the room who is an expert on Cubism. Ask them to explain the concept.

Higher order thinking to the max!

From that point, students were directed to design a collage based on one of three of Picasso's ideas: a guitar, another instrument, or The Three Musicians. I encouraged the Mine Craft lovers in my school to use their game as a visual reference if they wanted to recreate the Three Musicians.

Students had to work with a partner to design their work of art by sketching and coloring a small version the first week. On week two, they had to make a large 18"X24" collage of their sketch. Both artists had to give input on the design and both had to work on the collage to make it look neat and well-crafted.

Some of the designs came out more 'Mine Craft'-centric and a little less 'Picasso' influenced, but it was a fun activity and it allowed students with an interest in a video game to incorporate it into our classroom. Also, some of the students felt more comfortable drawing a figure as a 'cube' like a mine-craft musician than if they had to draw a guitar or other instrument, so it gave that element of variety and confidence to many artists!

As a tribute to Pablo Picasso, our Artist of the Month, we created these 18X24 chicken paintings in 1st grade.

I demonstrated how to draw the chicken step-by-step on the big white paper using black oil pastels.

In their egg-carton pallets (shared amongst about 4 students per table), I gave them red, yellow and blue tempera paint and a brush.

First, we painted a few things yellow...then we mixed with red to make orange...then we used straight red....(we didn't wash our brush between these hot colors). Remind them not to use all the yellow, we will need it for green later!!

I demonstrated and painted right along with them, on my own version at the front of the room.

THEN I let them wash out their brushes before we painted with the cool colors.

Blue on the rooster first; then we mixed with yellow to make green. Finally, we rinsed our brushes and made purple, mixing what was left of the blue and red.

Then they could finish off the painting with any colors they wanted, I just told them not to mix every color together (it would make gray).

Last, I squirted white into their pallets and allowed them to experiment with tints to finish the background.

Finally, when the paintings were done, we used oil pastels to 're-draw' some of our mistakes and add a bit of texture on the feathers.

***Edit: I had a comment requesting a step-by-step example on what I demonstrated for the drawing. At the front of the room, using a black oil pastel, I drew a big 'candy cane' for the top of the head. Most kids could do that pretty good. The paper was 18X24 so it is much larger than anything we normally use! From there, we added the face and details, adding the body and legs and tail at the end. My quick sketch above illustrates the basics. Hope this helps!

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.