Week 2: Apples in colored pencil

For the older kids, I got the colored pencils out.  It was Johnny Appleseed's birthday and I got each kid an apple for them to draw.

The main focus of this lesson was for them to really look at the apple and see that it is not just one color, but a real mix of colors, which suited colored pencil very well.  The streaks and stripes and blemishes all work with the form of the pencil. Plus, the pencil allows for some nice layering of color.

Week 2: Paper plate apples

Since it is apple season, I wanted to do  a project with apples. Sebastopol is apple country as well, so it really is a nice tie-in.  For the younger kids I had them paint an apple on the back of a paper plate that was glued to a color paper.








The key to this project was getting the kids to really look at the apple and realize that it wasn't just "red" but that really it was yellow with red streaks and even some green spots.

Their favorite part was eating their model when done!

Week 1: K-2 Hand prints

As a way to ease into the new art year, I had the kids in the K-2 class draw some handprint outlines on paper and color them in fall colors.  The trick was to overlap the hands to create lots of little shapes, both positive and negative. This way it became a work of astract art as well as something that related to them.

Once they got 5-6 overlapping handprints done in black pen,  (the kids did get a lot of pen on their hand!:-) I had them select 3-4 crayon colors, with an emphasis on fall colors like red, orange yellow and brown. I asked them to color in each shape with a different color. Little shapes and big shapes.

This ended up being a brain teaser to have the kids stop when they got to a line and choose a new color. But that was the whole point!