Warhol Zig Zag portraits

This project was kind of a three-in-one lesson

1. self portrait with pencil
2. color theory
3. Pop Art/optical illusion

I was inspired by projects that I have seen that involve doing two similar but opposite drawings and then slicing them and putting them on accordian-folded paper.

I told the kids about Andy Warhol and his many technicolor portraits of celebrities. I also walked them thru drawing a face. We had already done an eye earlier in the year. The next step was to photocopy their pencil drawing, so they would have identical copies, and also not ruin their nice pencil drawing.

Once they had the two faces, they used colored markers to color the different parts of the face. My goal was to have complimentary colors like green/red hair, blue/orange skin, purple/yellow eyes. Then they had to fold/cut their portraits into 4 vertical strips, and alternate them on a larger piece of paper that could be accordian folded.

Celtic Crosses 2013

In a repeat of a project I did 2 years ago, I had the K-1 group make crosses for St. Patrick's Day. Tinfoil, pencils to emboss with, paint and some construction paper. The main concepts are pattern, and how to use paint to "antique" the metal. Fun and simple.

Kinder Bees

Being that its springtime now, and the kids have been learning about insects, I had the idea to do bees with the little kids.

This was a fun multi-step project that turned out great. I did explain a bit about the parts of a bee, and they used paper, paint, and some foam packing material for the wings.

 I'm always amazed at how much personality the kids can put into their art. It is always much more charming and evocative than the sample I show them!

Color Value landscapes

This project turned out better than I hoped. A few weeks ago, I had the kids paint 4 sheets of paper with dark-light versions of a color. Most people chose purple, blue or green. Those had to dry, so we picked it up a couple weeks later.

This lesson involved both color value and the idea of perspective and how distant objects are usually less complex looking and lighter. The kids had to layer their painted papers from light at the top to dark at the bottom. The way they chose to cut and overlap also had to attempt to get sharper and more complex shapes in the foreground and softer shapes in the background.