Fun with Self-Portraits II E-book Giveaway!

Posted on December 31, 2009 by artlessonsforkids

I love holidays because they give me a chance to do things! I have managed to put together some of the self-portrait lessons I have taught this year and compile them into a new e-book. To purchase a copy please click any of the images below.

One lucky reader will get one copy for free. To enter, leave a comment on this post by midnight next Thursday. Be sure to have a link to Art Lessons for Kids on your blog or website to be eligible. I will announce the winner next Friday. Good luck and Happy New Year! May 2010 be a year filled with many wonderful teaching moments.

Cover page of E-book

Sample page from 'Mosaic Self-Portraits' Lesson

Some Back to School Art Ideas: Self Portraits

Posted on August 20, 2009 by artlessonsforkids

The holidays are sadly over and it’s time to think about what to do the first week back at school. It’s always exciting to start a new school year but I need some inspiration soon as my brain is still at the beach in Thailand!

Anyway, I thought I would share with you some ideas I started with my previous year. All About Me themes are always popular in the elementary grades so here are some self portrait ideas that I hope will inspire you. I would love to hear some of your ideas too.

Here we go…

Giant self portraits in grade four

This was a fun project the kids loved. These self portraits were HUGE and a bit time consuming but very worth doing.

Cardboard life sized self portraits in grade five

I love cardboard and I remember the school was brand new at the time so there was tons of it everywhere. Being the recycle queen that I am ( and ALL art teachers are ) I decided why not make life sized self portraits with the grade five class? It was a hit!

Self portraits with construction paper in grade one

Grade ones loved making their life sized portraits with butcher paper. Get the kids into pairs and have them outline each other. This is also a great way for them to get to know each other. The kids paint in the details and then add a life sized photograph of their faces and you have a winner here!

Progressive self portraits in grade two

These self portraits were awesome and showed a real improvement in facial placement. The grade twos did three progressive self portraits and were quite surprised to see how they got better with each try.

Need more ideas for your portraits and self-portraits theme? Check Fun with Self-Portraits and Fun With Self-Portraits II e-books you can download now and save tons of planning time.

Have fun!

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Oil Pastel Cats in Grade One

Posted on July 18, 2009 by artlessonsforkids

Get your oil pastels ready because this is a really great lesson you can adapt for any subject matter. The kids voted on cats but you can do dogs, fish, butterflies, etc.

We looked at several cat pictures and talked about what we liked about them. We discussed characteristics such as what they look like, colors, shape of the eyes,etc. It is so important to discuss all this prior to beginning a lesson because it sets the mood for the kids. If you can create a slide show with different kinds of cats then this is a bonus! Google images has plenty of pictures for kids to look at. Don’t forget to also show cats in art so they see how artists also liked to draw, paint, sculpt cats.

I gave out 12×18 white paper–because I believe kids need a lot of space to draw. All our cats were to be drawn in a sitting down position. You can do running cats, sleeping cats, cats on a chair, on a rug, etc. After a quick demonstration how to ‘sketch’ the cat face and get proportions right, the kids were eager to start on their own cats.

Details were added like stripes, patches, dots and zig-zags . The cats could also be unreal and have details such as swirls, different shapes on them, etc. The pencil lines were outlined with a black marker and the cats colored in with oil pastels. If your students want to color in a purple cat, blue cat, let them go wild–this is art class!

The background was painted with watered down tempera paint and left to dry. Final details such as bows, ribbons in the ear and borders were done with scrap pieces of tissue paper.

Didn’t these turn out gorgeous?

My son’s cat!

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