If the Egg Fits...Paint it!

Thank Heavens it’s April. As a gardener, I love spring, but also as a teacher, I’m eyeing the last day of school. At this point in the school year, the teachers are worn out and the kids are jumpier than ever. A rough combination. But we’ve made it through this busy month without the wheels coming off (entirely) and I’m back to show some awesome art made by my wiggly, loud, bold, creative, eraser-throwing, growing-before-my-eyes students. I teach at a private school, so spring involves Easter art. Some has a religious feel and some of the art is simply cute. I told the kids about my brief but memorable stint as a mall Easter Bunny in the late 90s. There were mixed reviews on whether mall bunnies are terrific or terrifying...

My Kindergarten students made Easter chickies that have a stand behind them so they can be vertical table décor. These kids did a good job with cutting, gluing and coloring.

First grade made Easter baskets from paper plates. You know I love paper plates for art because they are cheap and strong.

This student didn't follow my "yellow and brown basket" instructions, but how can I get mad when I student is obsessed with color? I just can't.

Second grade colored cheerful Easter egg wreath coloring pages.

Third grade did a coloring sheet I designed. They finished the sentence “Easter means…”  Some were very earnest, talking about Easter being about Jesus, and some were more focused on candy, but hey, candy is great! I told them they could answer however they wanted to. Let’s keep it real.

Fourth grade did something that I have never taught before. I invented it for this class, and it took a little adjustment along the way. These are pop-up Easter chicks. Did you ever read pop-up books as a kid? I loved them. You move a tab to reveal something hidden on the page. These kids push up the tab below the egg and up pops a chick. They had a lot of fun and I love how different the eggs look…

The tab is stopped by a line of hot glue at the bottom so it doesn't fall out.

Just a few eggs, right? Including a waffle egg.

Now the chickies have hatched!

Fifth grade made 3-d Easter baskets. They aren’t strong enough to hold actual eggs, but I think they rank high in the fun factor. How adorable are these?

Sixth graders were asked to color crosses and I think these turned out beautifully. With the colorful tones I think they look like stained glass…

This student told me he chose blue and yellow
to support Ukraine.

Seventh grade made yarn baskets/bowls this month. They are not Easter baskets—the timing was just a coincidence--but now that I think about it, this does fit with my basket theme this month. In a way, these shallow bowls are nests, not for housing real baby chicks, but anything the kids want to put in them. Some bowls are shallow, and some appear deeper. This depended on how the kids wove their yarn (tightly versus loosely) but all of them are wonderful. Except for a few weird moments with yarn (knots, tangles, and a pile of yellow yarn cut into small pieces resembling macaroni), this project turned out well.

Eighth grade also colored Easter crosses. A few kids scribbled their way through the project, but most took their time and were thoughtful about color choices and detail. I will miss this wild group of teens. They are graduating in about a month and I can’t believe I’ve taught them for five years and they are leaving my art room nest. It’s time but I’m not ready!

And on that note, I will sign off. There is a lot to do in May but I’ll be back soon with another dose of medicinal art. Guaranteed to lift your mood. Side effects may include elevated spirits, artistic inspiration, sleepiness or sleeplessness. If you feel uncontrollable art urges, proceed immediately to a craft store.

M-ART-ch Madness!

It's the final day of March, so I am making my March post deadline with only hours to spare. March means Mardi Gras, shamrocks…and I think some kind of basketball tournament. Well, my version of March Madness involves putting the “art” in M-ART-ch—and my creative students rose to the task.

In other springtime news, have you noticed black and orange caterpillars scurrying around? At school one day, I saw a spiky black caterpillar, approximately ten feet outside the art room door. A short while later, I found the caterpillar inside the art room! This was either a brave or foolish critter, as there were more than thirty fast kids racing into the room. I’m glad I spotted it five feet into the room, as we have dark floors and it was nearly camouflaged. It was put it into a cup and relocated onto a tree. Apparently, there have been a lot of them around school, and we soon discovered that our caterpillar had a friend. A first grader told me we should name them Max and Jax (J-A-X, he spelled out, in case I was considering an alternate spelling). I’m not sure how we are going to tell Max apart from Jax but maybe we can make tiny hats in different colors for them, like people do with twins. Problem solved.

Back to art. My students have been working on lots of projects, including some for St. Patrick’s Day.

My youngest class is Kindergarten. I had them color in a coloring sheet I made (I drew the outlines and they colored in the scene). It has a St. Patrick’s Day theme, and as you see, the gold pieces in one pot of gold are happy. I love how the Kindergarteners think!

First grade did St. Patrick’s Day art, too. Their project involved taking a quarter of a paper plate and turning that into a rainbow. Paper plates are such a handy art supply. They are inexpensive and stronger than regular paper. Plus, if you are coloring rainbows, you have the right shape even before the caps come off the markers. One kiddo decided to make a full rainbow, ending in two pots of gold. I think he was hoping for a double dose of luck.  

My bouncy second grade class also decorated shamrocks with lots of pattern and color. 

In third grade art class, the kids colored shamrocks, and experimented with patterns like stripes, polka dots and geometric shapes. Pattern makes everything more exciting, I say. Then the kids rolled long strips of paper into coils to give a three-dimensional quality to their art. Yes, there were rivers of glue, but it was worth the extra fun.

The fourth grade made art that looks like giant postage stamps. I wore some stamp accessories from an outfit I made over a year ago, just to add to the spirit. 

I explained that postage stamps are like tiny pieces of art, and that we would design our own stamps, but much larger. I asked that they put the monetary value in the upper right corner, and that they cut out the scalloped line around the stamp, like real stamps have. Didn’t they do a super job? These are some imaginative kids.

My fifth grade students had a good time creating watercolor paintings of shamrocks and rainbows. This group of fifth graders is very creative. 

In sixth grade we did a project I haven’t taught before, so it was new to all of us. The kids used oil pastels to make a scene or an abstract design. I advised them to make the layers of pastel thick and colorful. We then washed a diluted layer of black paint over each drawing, waiting a few minutes to let it soak into the paper. Last, we rinsed off each piece and the effect is wonderful. There are irregular accents of black—it has the look of batik fabric—and it has an antique look. The colors pop a lot against the black, and it was a great project to try. The technique is not my invention—I found it online and adjusted it slightly for these kiddos. It’s called oil pastel resist art, because the oil pastels resist (do not absorb) the black paint.

My seventh grade class also did the postage stamp project. As you can see, they chose a variety of subject matters, and made some really impressive stamp art.

Finally, eighth grade. I gave them the privilege of using air dry clay, which is not something we do often as it is crazy messy and it is more expensive than other materials, so it is a rare treat. I told them they could choose their subject matter and that we would paint the clay next time, after it was dry. A word of caution: if you are teaching teenagers to sculpt clay, expect the unexpected. One boy raced to the sink to rinse his mouth during class, and he explained that he licked the clay and it tasted gross. I didn’t realize I had to tell teenagers not to eat clay, but okay—my bad—I reminded him it was not edible. Five minutes later the same kid raced to the sink again. He’d licked clay a second time (perhaps thinking it is an acquired taste?). He still didn’t like it. Well, third time is the charm, right? No. No more clay licking for him. Also, another word of caution: if half your students are painting their dried clay, and half are still sculpting wet clay, you will have a very, very messy classroom to deal with once they leave. Wet clay and paint and thirty three teenagers is…also an acquired taste. Mostly kidding. I love those wacky teens.

And this wraps up another month of amazing art from my wild and wiggly students. Thanks for checking out what they made, and I’ll see you back next month with more art. (Caterpillars optional.)