Mini landscape collages inspired by Ted Harrison, 4th grade

Fourth graders looked at the work of Canadian artist Ted Harrison to inspire our mini 5x8” collages - they admired his bold color choices and layers of organic shapes, and we borrowed those ideas, as well as the use of a focal point in the landscape. Students were encouraged to try tearing the paper as well as cutting, and use texture boards to texturize the papers. We also spent a good bit of time experimenting with the placement of our papers before gluing anything down.

      

  



   



      

Sunflower still lifes, 1st grade

Vincent Van Gogh's sunflowers are my go-to for teaching still life in first grade each year - also part of my Nouns in Art unit. We started with watercolor for the background and smoothed out our brush strokes. Next, we switched to liquid tempera and made bold strokes like Van Gogh. A couple of classes added some oil pastel strokes as well. Each and every one is a lively, colorful success!

I have a lesson plan for the still life and the Nouns in Art in my Teachers Pay Teachers store if you'd like to try it!

"Monster picture day" portraits, Kindergarten

So much good stuff is covered in this adorable and expressive lesson - mixing paint colors, collage, texture, using your imagination, and a fun book connection - Jeepers Creepers: A Monstrous ABC. After reading the book together, we brainstormed ideas for imaginary creatures and talked about how they might look on school picture day, since we just had ours and everyone was all dressed up.

Fall landscape paintings, 3rd grade

Third grade learned a few tricks about painting and space in this vibrant fall landscape. We started with black and white, then added red and yellow paint - we painted on construction paper rather than white to bump up the color effect. We used our leftover paint to make some painted scraps, which we used to cut and glue our collage pumpkins and little house in the background. Thanks to Painted Paper Art for the inspiration.