Halloween Ideas

So, you all know by now that I love love love Pinterest.  While I was browsing this wonderful site which had to have been created by an art teacher, I found these adorable monsters:

Squeeeee!  Aren't they so cute???  Here is the HOW TO MAKE...  So I decided I just had to make one of these.. and I did.  I don't have pics of mine at home, but I will post them later.  What I did instead of using the juice box and rice was just used a chunk of wood scrap, which was the perfect weight and size.  Also, while also googling Halloween ideas, I found these really cool and funky Halloween wreaths:

AWESOME, right??

So I decided I just had to make these with some kids.  My daughter is too young for this sort of thing, she's not even 2 yet, so I decided I am going to make these with kids at school.  I was debating when and how and was thinking they might be too crafty, not fit into my curriculum, etc.   So I came up with a really fun idea to have an afterschool SPOOKY CRAFT CLASS!  We are going to make these from 3:15-5:00 one Tuesday before Halloween.  I'm going to send out registration forms this week.  We also must eat some candy, of course...

Doesn't that sound like a super fun spooky spectacular time???  I can't wait.  I went to the dollar store near my house tonight to buy sparkly garland, little trinkets to glue on the wreaths, random other things to wrap around the wreaths and I stopped at the Savers to buy some orangy fabric stuff.   Hopefully I will be able to find some wreath bases that won't cost me an arm and a leg.  I'm going to go to a couple other craft stores tomorrow to see if I can pick up the wreath bases, some tulle and some cobweb stuff.  Do you think an hour and 45 minutes would be enough time to make both of these projects?  The wreaths just involve wrapping, tying and me hotgluing things.  The monsters just involve cutting and gluing felt, so that should be easy... 

Also, here's something cool... you can see if anybody pinned images from your blog by typing in:  http://pinterest.com/source/vividlayers.blogspot.com/  and then just replacing my blog name for your blog name.  I really think that is the reason why I've had a huge jump in my readership over the past month or so...

Here is a Halloween silhouette project I did last year with the kindergartners.  I'm planning on doing this again soon...

Also here are some ghosts in a bedroom:

And here are some fun Halloween thumbprints:

Alphabet Art-- 1st Grade

Art using the Alphabet

1st Grade

The 1st graders experimented with balance and design.  They learned how letters and words could be used in art.  The art of Stuart Davis was shown and discussed.  To create this artwork, the students drew letters stacked, turned and scattered.  Letters were outlined in black marker and colored in with crayons or markers.  

Think.

I realized I hadn't shown some of my personal artwork in awhile. 

I make art-like things.  A lot.

Here is a reminder for you.  It's very important to do this:

Also,  I want to say this to you,  for reading my blog:

Sunflowers are my favorite flower of them all.  How about you?

I really really love doodling.  with watercolors.  doodling with paint is just the best. 

 

Is your heart full of:  ?

If not, you need to go paint more!  draw!  doodle!  play with colors!!

This was a public service announcement sponsored by Art is Basic, Inc 

in cooperation with Dabblings and Co.

Line Sculpture-- Kindergarten

The kindergartners have been learning about LINES and discovering the many types of lines in the world.  This week, they used wire and chenille stems to create a line sculpture.  The base is styrofoam.  Aren't these fantastic?

Line Paintings-- Kindergarten

This lesson was all about lines.  The students first painted a brightly colored background with patches of color.  Next, the students painted black lines on top.  They focused on painting a variety of types of lines-- dashed, dotted, zig zag, straight, spiral, thick, thin, wavy, bumpy, rocky, loopy, etc.

Art Elements Review Part 2

In Part One of the Art Elements Review, we worked on Line, Shape, Color and Form.  This post will talk about Part Two, which is Value, Space and Texture.

VALUE:  the kids illustrated a value scale with either crayon or pencil

SPACE: This was shown through overlap, perspective, positive/negative space, filling the page, etc.

TEXTURE: The kids used texture rubbing plates and crayons to show texture.

All of these element exercises were on small pieces of paper and we taped them into our sketchbooks.

Right after I finished teaching this, I saw this post by Monument Valley Regional Middle School, which turned out very cool.  I will have to try that next year!  See... they are in circles... they are a work of art!

Pinterest

Someone asked how to find my pins on Pinterest:

Here they are!  http://pinterest.com/marciabeckett/


I pin lots of things from art teacher, artist and random blogs and online articles.  Here are some of my recent pins.

Fun!  Fun!  Fun!!   Don't you want to be part of this inspirational fun??  (and no I don't work for Pinterest!)

Scrap Faces

 The 1st graders learned about recycled art and how to use unconventional materials in art.  We read 2 books by Hanoch Piven, which feature portraits made out of objects.  The children brought in objects from home that represented aspects of themselves and we assembled the parts into faces in art class.  I had three 8th grade volunteers who helped hot glue everything.  We used foam board and matboard for the base of the faces.   Scroll down to see more examples of the artwork!

Finished String Ball Mobiles

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We made 3 mobiles out of the string balls.  You can see my posts about the string balls here.  To make the base of the mobile, we took thick cardboard rings and wrapped fabric around them.  We secured the fabric with hot glue.