Freestyle Giraffes - Kid's Art Class

Some days I feel like I have the best job ever, and yesterday was one of them.  We did the most fabulous giraffe paintings in my class.

Here is my video lesson on YouTube:

We used 8" x 24" wood boards as our "canvas".  I had the kids squirt 3 or 4 colors of paint straight onto their boards and blend it with a sponge brush.  Then we practiced drawing our giraffe faces. Drawing them with the ears coming straight out from the eyes made it really easy for the kids to grasp and they were able to sketch them with no problem.  I had them use chalk to draw out their giraffes on the boards (so they could wipe mistakes off easily) and then let them loose with colored pencils, paint and oil pastels to create their own unique giraffe.

We haven't done a whole lot of totally freestyle projects in class. Most of the time I do step by step processes with them to teach techniques and such.  So this was a little frightening for some of the kids at first.  I showed them how to do sgraffito (where they lay on paint and then use a pencil to scratch off a design), and encouraged them to do lots of layering.  I had bubble wrap and other textured surfaces for them to use for printing.  But mostly I just encouraged them to be creative, and before long they were totally engrossed in it.  It was awesome! And the results were truly amazing...

Clay Creations - Kid's Art Class

Here are some of the fun polymer clay creations that my classes made a couple of weeks ago.  I printed off some cute ideas that I found on Pinterest and let the kids decide what they wanted to make.  You can see there was a lot of variety!  The robots are some of my favorites.  I made the wire coils for the arms, legs & necks with floral wire that I wrapped around a piece of clothing hanger wire.  It worked great, and the coils were much stronger than I thought they would be (since the floral wire is so thin).

 You can check out the gorgeous clay creations of HerArtSheLoves that inspired our robots below.

Name Zentangles - Kid's Art Class

I LOVE Zentangles!!  So fun.  When I saw this idea on Pinterest I just had to do it with my art classes.  I used photoshop to create an example for each student (ages 7-14) to help them place their letters.  They did the lettering on trimmed cardstock and used sharpies and colored pencils to create the designs (rulers helped too).  Then I mounted them on black mat board to make the colors pop.  It was a great, low-stress project and the kids loved the results.

 ERICA

 EMILY

 HALEY

 ABBIE

 KARLEE 

(gotta love the mustaches!)

 MYAH

 SPENCER

 BILLY

 DREW

 ADELINE

 SADY

 ELIZABETH

 KATIE

MICHAELA