Street Art Sketchbooks

This is a great lesson to kick off a new year, quarter, or semester, for a few reasons:  One- it helps us familiarize ourselves with a new group of kids (name learnin' can be tough!), two: it is simple enough to provide success for just about any student (fifth grade and up), and three- it's "cool" (or so they tell me).



I have my middle school students create sketchbooks at the beginning of the quarter (I have my kids every day for one quarter, and then we switch groups).  This helps for the lag time they have in the morning as they are just walking in, big time.  It is also a good space to help them plan out their art before a big project, and to get the "creative juices flowing" through interesting prompts.

For their covers, I though it would be nice to be able to see their names BIG and BOLD right on the front.  This usually takes 3 to 4 45 min. class periods, along with introduction to the room, procedures,  and the rubric I use.

I have the students glue the list of sketch assignments right into their books, along with a link to the class Instagram, and a copy of the filled out rubric.





After this, the kids begin by drawing a big "comic book shape" that takes up their whole paper:



I then demo how to draw TALL, PLAIN block letters.



From there, the kids can decide how to "jazz" up their letters, using the regular block letters as a base for the future design.  In the past, I've shown this video to help demonstrate this technique.



Once they have it how they like, I have the kids trace the fancy letters with sharpie, and then erase the original block letters.



Some also choose to add heavier lines on one side to add dimension to their name.



From there, it is time to color.  We used Prisma colored pencil for these, taking a peek at the color wheel to see what would look best.  I let the kids get as creative as they like with this.  Some add pictures, or a design in the background, and others keep it plain with a solid background color.



After coloring, students cut around their "comic shapes", glue them down onto the front of the sketchbooks with glue sticks, and then give them a coat of Mod Podge, for good measures.









And that's that!  Thanks for stopping :)

Sacred Hearts of Mexico

Although seasonal art can be fun, I sometimes struggle with its importance, as it relates to art, so I always try to have a tie-in that incorporates new techniques, as well as some sort of art history.  This lesson is perfect for February, with Valentine's Day right around the corner, as it features heart.  But I like it because it is an excellent look at Mexican folk art.



I also like the fact that it allows for tons of personality to shine through in each student's piece.  In fact, I started this lesson by having the kids note some similarities and differences among lots of different Mexican sacred hearts.





The students noted that most of the hearts included PATTERN, BRIGHT COLORS, LOTS OF DECORATION.  They also noticed that those decorations tended to include flowers, crowns, flames, and sometimes birds.  This is important in keeping our designs in line with some of the traditional look to these hearts.

As most of you know, these are actually religious symbols.  I teach in a public school, so I did not touch on this TOO much, but instead of focusing on the religious aspect and Christ's love (as they traditionally represent), we instead discussed love as an overarching theme.

Now to the art making!  The first step was to draw (with sharpie) and cut out a heart from a 5x6" piece of foam core, using as much of the space as possible.



After cutting from the foam core, students traced a larger version of their heart onto tag board and cut that out.  We glued them together with regular school glue, and painted everything with black acrylic paint.  The good thing about this is that the hearts can look a little "wobbly" and they still look authentic and beautiful in the end.



That is the end of day one for this lesson...after writing names on the backs, of course.

The next class period is the day where we achieve that "crackly" look.  Now that the black paint is dry, it is time to add a thin coat of school glue.  Elmer's, crayola, or pretty much any other brand should work just fine.



To achieve smaller cracks, we just thinned out the glue by dipping our brushes in water first before spreading the glue out.  Once the glue is about HALFWAY dry, we used bright fluorescent acrylics on top of the glue coat.



As the paint and glue dry, the crackling begins...



While students are waiting for glue to dry HALFWAY, they can begin thinking about and planning for their decorative "frame", which will complete their project.  I had lots of random things for them to use, but if you are short on "fancy stuff", tin foil and various papers would be beautiful as well.  Here are some of the supply boxes I prepped beforehand...



Before the kiddos went all crazy with the "bling" we repeated the "less is more" mantra, and reinforced the importance of PATTERN.  Results, are pretty snazzy :)



Thanks for stopping, and have a fabulous weekend!