Artists are introduced to The Art Instructor Color palette and the basics of paint mixing. Then they begin the first week of a 2-week fun color collage project using a 3-color scheme and cut shapes similar to Matisse cutouts. It’s a great way to get into paint for the first time or after a long break. The work is finished next week.

In the first half of the lesson, students will finish the collage begun last week. They try several design ideas, which connects experimentation in composition with quick thumbnails using only big shapes. The second part is all about using Big Shapes and guidelines, but in the context of an artists’ choice pencil drawing, working from specialized reference of animal photos.

Students will work on deconstructing a diagram of an image, working on it like a puzzle. Beginning with the Frame first, they learn how to work on the rectangular proportions, before moving to the second step, Big Shapes. Details are added last, completing the 3 Steps to Accuracy.

Students will choose from a set of landscape photo references, and paint in acrylics on canvas. They’ll learn to show depth by using atmospheric perspective, working from farthest to closest, and top to bottom. Two color techniques are used: 1) mixing colors from other parts of the painting into each color for harmony, and 2) Color splitting. The lesson takes 2 weeks.

Students will finish painting their landscapes with atmospheric perspective (depth) by working their way down the canvas, top to bottom, which is also distant to close.

Students learn how pigments affect each other. There are 4 starting mixes, and they add to each mix 3 more times to make a page with 16 different variations of yellows and oranges. Specific pigments are used from the ART INSTRUCTOR model, which produce colors that artists most often need to know how to mix

 Students will work on a series of very small works each using different combinations of media. There is opportunity for lots of freedom and self-expression, and artists learn to focus on one work at a time while doing many. The small size and having several works in a row, takes the pressure off of each work, so students really enjoy themselves and create some fantastic work as a result.

Students will learn how to paint with watercolor, using the drop-in method and our 4 watercolor insights. First they draw some autumn leaves, and after a demo, they will paint leaves using watercolors they’ve made from acrylic paints. Emphasis is on letting the watercolor work by itself and brush technique.

Students will be introduced to painting and the use of color. Mixing is emphasized and lines are also introduced as one of the parts of an artwork.

Students will learn about shapes that are made up of air, and are in-between other shapes, and how it helps to draw things if you look at these shapes in addition to solid shapes.

 Students will learn how different motions make different kinds of artwork. Today most of the work will be with line, and some with oil pastel, as we try color-dancing, and create black and white line paintings of frogs. There is also a quick review of air shapes.

Students use warm & cool colored oil pastels in a fish drawing, working on movement and technique. The imagination is employed to invent a new idea – using household tools to create fish. They’ll finish the work using watercolors, and then use oil pastels to finish another earlier drawing.

Students will have fun drawing and painting pigs in several projects. Simple shapes and symbols help us create pig cartoons with different expressions. More realistic pigs are drawn from photo reference, colors are mixed, and then they will paint the pig using tempera.

Students are introduced to an important design element, The Most Important Spot, (emphasis). We hunt for shapes, using tracing paper to capture them from photos. Students will also work with warm vs. cool colors using oil pastels.

Students will spend the whole day creating and working with lines: line inventing; color line art; charcoal line art; backwards line art (white on black paper); and a line art game.

 Students have fun drawing leaves from photos, and using oil pastels to color them. Then a straw and blow technique is used to create ink tree branches. The last project is to draw a tree in pencil and then wet the paper. Watercolors are used to create a soft fall foliage work using warm colors that spread into the wet paper.

Students will have tons of fun learning the parts of cartoon faces and practicing how to put them all together. they’ll finish with a final cartoon in marker outlines and coloring with layers of oil pastels.

Students will continue with cartooning, and work on cartoon hands and feet. Then we move on to creating crazy creatures and silly monsters. It’s a fun day of cartoon art.

Students will look at artwork of cats and photographs. They’ll make some realistic drawings and cartoon cat drawings too, discussing the features that make them look like cats. A drawing will be used to glue yarn onto, creating a yarn-drawing print block that can be used the following week.

Students will continue our pet theme. First we’ll make prints using the cat yarn print blocks from last week, and then create dog drawings and paintings. We end the day inventing a fantastic dog house!

Students will make 3D ornaments out of cardboard and paint them. These will stand up on a table or hang on a tree and can follow non-Christmas themes if needed. Afterward, they will make their own stamps and use them to create original wrapping paper.

Students will all bring candy to create a huge candy “store” that everyone can “shop” at for their houses. A half-gallon paperboard milk carton is cut in half to make the house, which is glued to a small cardboard base. Icing and candy cover the entire house! Kids love creating this holiday tradition.

Students will learn about snowflakes, first drawing some snowflake designs, and then painting a large snowflake in tempera paint. They’ll end their lesson with a choice of working on some holiday cartoons or doing a pastel of lights at night.

After a warm-up with artists’ choice, students learn how to make light swords with a glowing technique using oil pastels. The swords do battle with hot and cold colors. Then there is a super-fun table-mural game called, Color Wars, where children will learn more about what happens when hot and cold colors mix.

Using some simple big shapes and line, artists will draw and paint a bird. There is a background done with streaked colors and then the bird is drawn, glued to the background, and painted to match. During part of the lesson, we discuss and learn about different viewpoints, showing a bird’s eye viewpoint, of course!

Balance in real life is understandable, but what about visual balance? Students learn that people like to see things that look balanced so they don’t feel like they might fall over if they were real. Several exercises, a slideshow, and projects help with understanding and practice using balance in artwork.

Students learn how the concept of harmony applies to visual art just like music. A flower is drawn from reference and painted as a spectrum in watercolor for color-wheel flowers. The arrangement of the colors is used to show harmony, along with some games of harmony color designs.

Emphasis is one of the most important aspects of good composition. However, this is a lot of abstract thinking for kids, so we say, “every artwork needs a Most Important Spot!” The lesson helps students think about what is in artwork, and to distinguish between wallpaper type designs and art that has that important spot that you see first. We begin with a fake art show using textures on paper but nothing else on them. Then we do some exercises with color. The end of the class has students taking the art show down and fixing the work by adding an important spot.

Students will enjoy a full lesson where they get to make their own choices. Instead of just letting them loose to play, we provide a framework that helps them make good choices while still being in charge. They’ll choose cards for subjects, such as “animals” or “flowers”, and cards for color schemes, and materials to use. The first project uses reference and observation, while the second half uses imagination.

Students have fun choosing subject matter as cut out pieces. They design a landscape composition by sliding the shapes around to make a collage. They make a Most Important Spot using an object. Then a painting is made, and color is also used to make a spot more important. After painting the kids can create and play a giant maze game where they are bees traveling home through the flowers.

Students will create paintings of familiar subjects using colors that are not realistic. They will also learn about using guidelines, or whisper lines, to help in creating accurate paintings, and use bold lines to outline areas of color.

Artists make trees by twisting pipe cleaners, and paper leaves are attached. Then everyone designs and creates a tiny tree house to go onto their tree sculptures. The whole thing is glued together and onto a base for a fun project to take home.

Students will start with an expressive and wild oil pastel of an elephant by looking at a photo. Then they learn how to see big shapes and draw more realistically before painting in watercolors. The second half of the lesson is about exaggerating and simplifying to create a fun cartoon. They draw it and then sculpt their cartoon out of air-dry clay. A little hat is made out of paper to fit on it’s head for a bit of whimsey.

Artists get to paint their big animals using acrylic paints. They get to choose realistic color or crazy fun color. Then the Big Shapes idea is reinforced, along with review of The Most Important Spot. They’ll create artwork in oil pastels by drawing a big shape first, such as a circle, and then creating designs inside to color. One of these is a face inside the big head shape, which previews their self-portrait coming up next week.

After a warmup and then drawing eyes, students use symmetry and mirrors, to learn insights about the face. Then with instructions, they draw and paint their own portraits using tempera paints on watercolor paper.

The first week of making a big 3D Painted cardboard project has students building an animal out of boxes and tubes. This week they’ll prime the sculpture so that next week when it’s dry, they can paint it like the animal – or in wild crazy colors! Today they also warm up with artists’ choice and have an animal prints print-making session.

Students enjoy having choice of things to do and subject matter. Stations are set up and the class will split into several groups, rotating around throughout the class

After starting with a fun name guessing game, students adopt their color name for the day. Then there are 3 games. The first is a puzzle that reinforces looking for big shapes. Next is a color mixing challenge using paints. Finally, there is a creative crazy creature where artists invent a new creature from cartoon creature parts.

Students draw 3 still life objects and color them with oil pastels. They’re cut out and the children have fun sliding them up, down, right and left until they find a good spot for each of them, one at a time. All are glued into place for a nice still life artwork. Then the objects are turned into silly cartoons and colored with markers for a fun finish to the lesson.

For our final lesson of Year A, we’ll be making and decorating a big box party bus! It’s great fun and students learn to work together. Then everyone gets to redesign their school bus, and invent a mobile house bus for the summer.