One day Starry Nights, 1st Grade

I love this project so much for many reasons.

1. It takes ONE class and they look awesome.

2. It's simple, but the results are beautiful.

3. The kids think they're awesome and feel like mini-famous artists. They are always super impressed with their artwork!

~*~

Lesson Steps:

-Talk about Starry Night and Van Gogh a bit (have a print of Starry Night for easy viewing!)

-Give each student a 12 x18 black piece of paper (can use light blue or dark blue, too) and a pack of oil pastels

-Go through the steps of drawing the swirling, free-flowing details of Starry Night. No real rhyme or reason to it, just look at the painting to guide you along. (The kids should draw at their seats along with you...encourage overlapping the oil pastels to make different colors. They can also have free'er use of colors, too--so each look a bit different.)

[Note: I always start with the tree-like form on the bottom left, and then do the city/hills...then leave the sky for last!]

-NO PENCILS! Only oil pastels. This way, there is no such thing as "messing up".

Enjoy the beautiful results!

Van Gogh Sunflowers, 2nd Grade

I love anything having to do with Van Gogh, and usually my kids do too. Once I show them he's the guy who did Starry Night, they are hooked. That image is so etched into their minds, it's an icon to them. So, with this project I wanted to show them his famous Sunflowers painting. The sad thing was, most classes ran out of time (I am seeing the last batches of students this past week and next week), that they aren't completely finished, but this is how they are going home.

I really hit hard on overlapping, going off the paper (cropping), and making their flowers appear realistic. 2nd to 3rd grade for me is where that big leap happens. In 3rd grade we really hit home more realistic drawing.

We used oil pastels for these. Drew the vase first, then the centers of the flowers. I had them draw a total of 6...one was supposed to go off the paper, and some should be ovals and some circles. Then, we drew the stems and I do a funny little lesson on what NOT to do (or what they would have done in Kindergarten or First Grade), and it makes them laugh, and realize how silly that was. They are determined to make them look realistic and overlap after that. I like the way they turned out even under crunched time.

Flower Vases, 2nd Grade

Thanks to all you lovely art-teacher bloggers out there... the projects I am posting today resulted from your silent inspiration!

I had never done a "drawing with glue" project. I decided it was a MUST. The kids were funny, they complained more then I would have ever suspected about how "hard" it was. But, when they finally got the grasp, they were ok. I showed the students Van Gogh's sunflowers for inspiration, but they were not limited to doing just sunflowers. We used colored chalk, which...was a bit messy. Overall, they turned out nice. Here is one of my favorites:

Starry Night, 1st Grade

I love doing this project with 1st graders. They are always in such shock when I show them that they will be making their own version of this:

Starry Night, by Vincent Van Gogh

We work on bigger paper...12x18. I always choose a blue or teal as our background because it looks fine to have it showing through. They also all get their own pack of oil pastels. It's so cute seeing them so into this. One student just kept saying, "I can't believe I'm making my own Van Gogh!"

Here is the students work: