Winter Landscapes

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5th graders used oil pastels to create winter themed landscapes. We reviewed lots of vocabulary- landscape, horizon line, foreground, middleground, background... Students could include whatever winter elements they chose in their landscapes but each object had to have a shadow (colored in the same direction and away from the light source) and they had to make sure that they paid attention to atmospheric perspective- objects in the distance are smaller than objects that are closer. These came out great but we blew through white oil pastels!

Seasonal Symbols

I came across this idea on Artprojectsforkids.org. We began by discussing what a symbol is- an image that represents an idea. We brainstormed a list of winter symbols before students began by asymmetrically dividing their papers. They drew one winter symbol in each box, colored with crayon and painted the backgrounds.

Spooky Silhouette

This is a fun one day halloweenish project. Students began by using a black crayon to draw a silhouette of trees and night creatures such as spiders, bats and owls. They then used watercolor paint to create a wax resist by painting a large yellow circle in the center of the paper as a moon and a purple and blue sky around it.

Snow Globes

First graders designed their own snow globes. They traced a snow globe shaped template and drew a winter image inside the globe section and designed the base with decorations and phrases. When their drawings were complete and colored in they added dots of glue which glitter was poured onto.

Roy Lichtenstein Inspired Self-portraits

We began by looking at Roy Lichtenstein's comic paintings. We discussed his techniques such as using primary colors and ben-day dots. After reviewing facial proportions and how to draw features students drew a self portrait. They included a speech or a thought bubble with a work or phrase that was important to them. Drawings were painted with primary colors and one area had to be filled in with ben-day dots. The results were very graphically strong.

Reflective Self-Portraits

For this self-portrait, students drew themselves from the front and back. They began by tracing a circle template on one side of their paper. In that circle they drew a self-portrait after reviewing proportions and how to draw facial features. Next to the circle they drew themselves from behind with an outstretched arm holding the mirror. In the background they were to draw a room setting paying attention to size to make objects appear to be off in the distance. We reviewed colored pencil techniques such as blending before they colored in their art work. In the future I might consider using crayons instead- the colored pencils took a very long time for this project- they would work better with a smaller sized paper.