New Mystery Drawing set and TPT sale!

Today starts a new sale in my Teachers pay Teachers shop  to celebrate the addition of my new Mystery Drawings 3 set! Mystery Drawings are fun, creative activities for teachers and students to do together by listening to and drawing clues - in the end you’ll have a really cool artwork that can be personalized with artistic details.

These are great for both in-person and online learning! I hope you will check them out. 

my Teachers pay Teachers shop

Mystery Drawing: Last Day of School Edition!

OK Smartest Artists, stretch those fingers and twist those wrists, roll your shoulders and here we go - it’s our Last Day of School Mystery Drawing!
Thank you so much to all the artists who have been sending your completed drawings to me - you have all been working hard and I am proud of you! I will be posting a few more fun art activities for you to try out over the summer, so if you are feeling creative please check in right here. Stay safe, stay healthy, and I will see you real soon. Bye bye!

Teachers and Parents, find out more about my Mystery Drawings here - Mrs. Knight’s Smartest Artists on Teachers Pay Teachers.

Mystery Drawing Monday: Mother’s Day Edition

This drawing can be a nice surprise for your mom or another special person in your life. If your mom is hanging around, you might politely ask her to look away so your drawing will be a surprise! Mother’s Day is next Sunday, May 10.

Mystery drawing packets are available in my Teachers Pay Teachers shop, and they are having a big sale May 5-6.
Shoutout to 4th grader Mason who submitted a drawing he made at home to the High Museum’s Student gallery!

Mystery Drawing Monday - April 27

Grab your pencil and paper and turn on your listening ears - it’s time for another Mystery Drawing! This one is super cute and will be fun for you to personalize with your own colorful details. Speaking of colorful, I am also reposting my “coloring tips” video and pictures below from last week in case you missed it. Scroll WAY DOWN to the bottom of the post to see my finished artwork from today’s lesson. PS - it’s not a desert if that pic came up in the preview :)

I miss you guys - thanks for drawing with me! I can’t wait to see how cute these look so send them my way. Teachers and parents- I have two sets of Mystery Drawings available in my Teachers Pay Teachers shop if you are interested.

Coloring Tips:

  

Here are some pics of my coloring and detail steps. Feel free to be creative here. Cute!

Sunflower still lifes in 1st grade

Vincent Van Gogh is one of the artists we learn about in first grade - Vincent loved the beautiful sunny yellows in his village in France. He lived in a yellow house and often painted beautiful yellow fields and glowing golden cafes at night. His sunflower still lifes are some of the most well-known paintings  in the world.

We began our versions with a simple vase and table, sketched in pencil, then added a layer of liquid tempera - on the first day we filled the vase shape and the table as well as the brown circles that would become the sunflower centers, adding black dots in the middle for the seeds, which made them for just a moment look like floating chocolate chip cookies. :) We used dry paper towels to wipe off our excess paint instead of using water cups - this helps keep the paint from getting too watery.

The following week, we added petals, stems, and a pattern on our vase. The final step was to create that brushstroke-y texture all around the picture which makes Van Gogh's paintings so exciting and recognizable. We hope you enjoy our colorful and lovely sunflower still lifes!
If you would like a step-by-step "How To" for this lesson, please visit my Teachers Pay Teachers store. 

March Monday savings in my TpT store!

Every Monday in March, my Teachers Pay Teachers shop will offer a 20% discount on everything, in honor of Youth Art Month. If you are planning an art show, I just added a free handout to help students select and prep their best art for the show.

I also recommend some of my color activities for March, like the Color Poem and Discover Color - a great way to add some art to your academic classroom, or vice-versa!

I'd love for you to stop by and shop :)

Still Life in third and fifth grades

Frida Kahlo's still lifes have been inspiring all of my students this fall. We learned a bit about her life and how many of her life experiences are shown symbolically in her art.
Third graders drew a full-size still life, mostly from observation of real objects, but they were also encouraged to include objects that represent something about themselves.

Fifth graders made two smaller still lifes on index cards. The first was completely from observation of real objects with realistic color, while the second was designed completely from memory using personal symbolic objects and expressive color. both grades used a planning sheet to help them think of ideas that represent them, both found in my Teachers Pay Teachers shop.

New #petpARTners "get-started guide" available in TPT

We have just started our second year of #petpARTners, our community service project to raise awareness of the homeless pet population at our local animal shelter. Students create art based on these shelter pets and share them through social media and in exhibits around the community. They just love it!!!
If you would like to try this in your school community, check out my four page "get-started guide" for starting a program, making the art, sharing it, and even fundraising ideas. You'll find it right here in my Teachers Pay Teachers shop!

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/petpARTners-a-community-service-project-3475456

"Art & Life" Self-portraits, 2nd grade

I am really excited about the final products my 2nd graders are completing this week - we are making self-portraits using a combo of coloring (Crayola twistables) and painting (Crayola pan watercolor) and lots of personal imagery. We looked at some of Frida Kahlo's art and discussed the way she and many other artists share their life experiences in their art, often using symbols. Earlier in the year we filled out an Art Starters idea sheet to refer to when we wanted to personalize our work - it is a list of topics that tell about our favorite things, ideas, and experiences, and we used many of these things to illustrate the negative space of our self-portraits. As we begin uploading these to Artsonia, we are learning more about writing an artist statement using prompt questions and reflecting on what we learned.

"Goodbye September, Hello October" Sale

Stop and shop for fall savings! https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Mrs-Knights-Smartest-Artists

Kindergarten Owls - solving a mystery

This activity is always so much fun and I love seeing the expressive, unique owls each student creates. We start with a mystery drawing, where I give clues and the students draw along and try to figure out the mystery from the clues - it is a great way to build drawing confidence in these young artists. More on mystery drawings at the bottom of this post!

Once we solve the mystery, students experiment with lines and patterns to show texture, as well as trying out and comparing different drawing/coloring tools. I also encourage students to make fun and creative choices with color and detail at this stage - reminding them that they are artists who get to decide how they want things to look. While we are working on this, we talk about some scientific connections such as the nocturnal lifestyle of owls. Most students are familiar with this and love sharing what they know as we color away.

Once the drawings are complete, we have a class discussion about the importance of a title and how a title can help explain what is happening in an artwork. We share a lot of ideas for descriptive words for the setting and the mood and the owl's appearance.

 If you're interested in trying out my mystery drawings, I have two sets available in my Teachers Pay Teachers store - the owl is in the first set and my second set, called "Mystery Drawings Round 2," has five new subjects. https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Mrs-Knights-Smartest-Artists