Inspired Monet Lily Pads - Oil Pastels

I've seen this project done multiple times on the internet, but I've never asked my students to try it until my latest art camp. These pieces are done with oil pastels.

Our first step is to do the background with oil pastels, creating the motion and softness of water. I encouraged them to use a white oil pastel for some of the color blending. Some students decided to use a cotton swab.

They then drew on a separate paper three or four lily pads of different sizes. They colored those in with oil pastels and then cut them out.

Their last step was to use a liquid glue to adhere both the lily pads and the tissue paper flowers as well. One student liked my bag of buttons and decided to make those the center of her flowers.

Oil Pastel/Collage - 2nd Grader 

Oil Pastel/Collage - 1st Grader

Oil Pastel/Collage - 8th Grader

Oil Pastel/Collage - 4th Grader

Oil Pastel/Collage - 1st Grader

Stained Glass- Cubist Inspired Candles

We did this piece with watercolor pencils. I think I might use crayons and liquid watercolors if I did it again. The results are still cool, kind of rough and grainy like old stained glass.

I had the students begin this project by drawing the candle. With young artists, I remind them to make their candle large on the page, if I don't remind them, they will usually draw it relatively small.

With a ruler, the students then  draw lines at angles across the page, crossing through the candle.

I asked them to use warm colors for the candle and cool in the background.

6th Grader

My Example

4th Grader

2nd Grader

Oil Pastel Perspective

The base of this was sketched with pencil, placing the bushes in the forefront, the tree in the middle ground and another bush in the background. The leaves vary in size to appear to be blowing towards the viewer. A lovely perspective piece.I remind my students how different oil pastels are from crayons and to take advantage of the capability of blending colors and mixing colors when using oil pastels.

Oil Pastel - 5th Grader

Oil Pastel - 4th Grader

Oil Pastel - 1st Grader (I love the freedom in this one)

Oil Pastel - 3rd Grader

Holiday Tree

I saw this project on Pinterest. I loved the simplicity of the lines and shapes. 

The instructions:

1) Draw a base of snow or ground for the tree to sit on.

2) Draw the triangle of the tree.

3) Draw circles of different sizes making sure some of them overlap the tree and the background.

4) The tree triangle needs to be greens,but the circles need to differentiate in color.

5) The rest of the coloring and background was individual and unique as you can tell by the examples below.

Markers - 2nd Grader

Markers - 4th Grader

Markers - 5th Grader

Markers - 3rd Grader

Aboriginal Acrylic Dot Painting Inspiration

Today I introduced my love for Australian Aboriginal Acrylic Dot Painting. I've studied this art form for years. It has been the inspiration of my own modified method of painting. When I introduce this technique I share examples of real Aboriginal paintings and photos of some of the incredible artists that produce unbelievable work. 

Each Student for this project had a few instructions to follow and then they were off on their own. 

1) Draw a simple outline of a lizard and paint it black.

2) Then paint around it with dots. They could use either the back end of the paint brush or a cotton swab.

3) They were told to explore color patterns and try to keep their dots consistent in size.

I was very proud of the results:

Acrylic - 6th Grader

Acrylic - 4th Grader

Acrylic - 4th Grader

Acrylic - 5th Grader