Mother's Day Bouquets

     I LOVE coming up with Mother's Day Projects! Here's why:
                 

                  1. Mom's rock. They are amazing, superheroes.  2. The kids really get in to making something special for the mom in their life. As an art teacher, this is rewarding to see. 3. I'd like to think I'm putting out good Mother's Day craft karma. When my daughter is big enough, I want her to proudly hand something like this to me.

     These adorable bouquets were definitely a hit! What started as a second grade project, quickly became a school wide craft!

    The great thing about this craft is that it really has limitless possibilities! You could experiment with color, texture, pattern, and so much more! Here is what we did:

what to use:

8 1/2 x 11 card stock

green tissue paper

various shades of green construction paper

watercolor dyed coffee filters

pipe cleaners

glue stick

hot glue

how to use it:

step 1: Make a cone

To make the cone for the bouquet, grab the upper right hand corner and the lower left hand corner of your cardstock and bend them towards one another. Your paper will start to form a cone shape. Secure with hot glue or glue stick

(Depending on what age group you are working with and how much time you are working with, you may want to do this step ahead of time on your own.)

step 2: Add greenery

To give your bouquet some fullness, you will want to add a piece of tissue paper in to the cone. You can secure this by using a glue stick on the end of the tissue paper that you are stuffing in the cone. You also want to add leaves. My students cut out  5 or 6 leaf sizes and shapes. Fold the leaves in half  lengthwise and glue them to the inside edges of the cone with a glue stick.

step 3: Flowers and finishing touches

Time to add the flowers! You can do this in a variety of ways. We used painted coffee filters that we had lying around the art room, but tissue paper would work just fine. Or you could get super fancy and make some origami flowers to stick in there.  You can crumple up your coffee filter or tissue paper and secure it into the cone with hot glue. For a finishing touch, wrap a pipe cleaner around a pencil to create a "spring". Cut this in half, and hot glue the "springs" around the inside of the cone. You can also add ribbon and label to allow a space for a sweet Mother's Day message!

 

Happy Mother's Day! 

                                                    

1st Grade: Birthday Cakes

  Check out these awesome birthday cake's my amazing CDS first graders created! They loved looking at Wayne Thiebaud's sweet paintings and were inspired to make their own!

What we used:

18x24 white drawing paper

cardboard ellipse template

pencil

sharpie

tempera paint

watercolor paint

oil pastel

How we used it:

1. We used our ellipse template and traced it on the middle of our page with pencil. We drew a vertical line on each side of our ellipse for the side of the cake. We connected our lines with a curved, horizontal line for the bottom of the cake.We also added  a horizon line to the background.

2. Next, we added candles and decorations to our cake. After we had them looking snazzy, we outline everything with sharpie.

3. Our next step was painting our background. We used liquid watercolors for this. Then we painted our cakes with tempera paint. For this stepped we talked about how we could create a tint by adding white to a color. We added white to our colors of choice and used the tint to paint the ellipse. We used our regular shade to paint the bottom of the cake.

4. Finally, we used oil pastel to color in our decorations and add shadows under our cake!

They turned out beautiful!

Christmas Collage Wreaths

My favorite time of year is here and our Christmas projects are in full swing! CDS 6th, 7th, and 8th graders are currently working on these fantastic Christmas Wreath Collages!


Here is a quick tutorial so you can try this at home:

What you will need:

construction paper in an assortment of colors

scissors

glue

hole punch

Step 1:

Choose a background color and draw your wreath template. Just think of drawing a big doughnut on your paper. You could always trace a plate or any round objects you have lying around.

Step 2:

Time to cut some shapes! I chose rectangles, but any shape will do! Make sure you cut out different sizes of your shape to give your wreath some variety. You can stack your colored construction paper on top of each other to cut multiple shapes at once. You could also use a craft punch to save yourself some time on more complicated shapes.

Step 3:

Now you can start gluing your shapes onto your circle template. Have fun overlapping and layering your shapes. It's also a good idea to let some of your shapes peek outside of the circle. I think it makes it a little more interesting.

Step 4:

You can add a bow in a contrasting color on your wreath. Start by cutting the two hanging ribbons of the bow and gluing them to the wreath. Then,  cut a long strip of paper and fold the ends toward each other, meeting in the middle. Secure with glue. Wrap another strip of paper around the center of the bow.

Step 5:

For a finishing touch, punch some holes in your contrasting colored paper. Glue the circles all around your wreath.

Simple and beautiful!

Merry Christmas!

Winter Workshops

The deadline to sign up for CDS winter workshops is this Friday, Dec. 7th! Limited spaces are available so sign up today!

Fall Decoration Workshop (3-8)

The deadline to sign up for the Fall Decoration Workhsop is Friday, October 26th.  This great, three session workshop will teach your students a variety of art techniques and will also provide you with beautiful fall decorations that you can use in your home for years and years to come!

*CLICK HERE* to e-mail Mrs. H for more info and a sign up form!

Pumpkin Patch Workshop (K-2)

 

The deadline to sign up for the Pumpkin Patch Workshop is Wednesday ,Oct. 17th!  *CLICK HERE* to download the info and form. There are a limited number of spots available so sign up today!

5th Grade: Tulip Fields

 CDS 5th graders just wrapped up their first nine weeks projects! We took a look at some amazing images of tulip fields in Holland and discussed how we could use color and size to show depth in our artwork.

What we used:

18x24 white multimedia paper

oil pastel

white,green, red, and yellow tempera paint

blue liquid watercolor paint

How we used it:

Step 1: Our first step was to draw a horizon line about 1/4 of the way down our page. Then we discussed how to mix tints and shades of a color. We used white, black, and green to create 5 hues of green. We used our lightest tints at the bottom of the field and incorporated our shades as we got closer to the horizon line.

Step 2: We used white oil pastel to add clouds in the sky above our horizon line. Then we used blue watercolor paint to wash over them.

Step 3:  After our backgrounds were complete, we used white tempera paint to add in our tulips. We started by painting BIG egg shapes at the bottom of our tulip field and made them smaller and smaller until we were adding tons of dots along the horizon line. (We used white paint as an underpainting for our red and yellow tulips. If you don't use white first, the green will show through the tulips.)

Step 4: When our underpainting was dry, we went back with yellow and red tempera paint and filled in our tulips. We skipped around our page to balance out the color.

Step 5: For our final step, we used oil pastels to add in stems, leaves, and details into our tulip fields. They turned out amazing!