Art from Books Series: Owl Moon

This is a great winter book for lower elementary. It's a cute book about a dad and his daughter hiking in the woods to call to the owls. A right of passage in their family. I love it. I first heard about it from a second grade teacher. She read the book and did this art project with her students.

You can find the book here http://www.amazon.com/Owl-Moon-Jane-Yolen/dp/0399214577.

After reading this book, the art project is fun and easy for students. All you need is some blue and white paint, brown water color, a round sponge, a paint brush, and some painter's tape. A piece of paper is helpful too.

Start by drawing a line across the bottom third of the paper. This is your snow and horizon line.

Next, grab some painter's tape. Cut lengths of tape long enough to reach from the top of the paper to the line you drew. You need about 3-4 pieces per picture. I wouldn't do more then 4 pieces.

Here's the hardest part, you need to rip the tape into two pieces. It needs to create two skinny pieces of tape not the easy was of two short pieces. Once you do that, lay a half a piece of tape down on your paper, then lay the other half down next to it with the clean sides towards each other. This is your tree. Repeat for all the pieces of tape you have.

Grab your blue paint. Paint over the top portion of your picture. Go ahead and paint over your tape. This is your sky.

Once your blue is dry, take your sponge and sponge paint the bottom portion of your picture with white paint. I know, white paint on a white paper, it doesn't make much sense. You'll still get texture though. Once you have covered the area (feel free to cover your drawn line too) dip your sponge in the white paint and put one sponge mark down on the blue to be your moon.

Once your picture has dried remove the tape. Go back with your brown water color on the spaces left by the tape. The tape mark leaves lines that look like winter trees. Water color is good for this because it gives the trees more depth.

Let it dry and you're all done. There is your winter scene just like in owl moon.

Mummy Grid Art

Ancient civilization, a big part of 6th grade social studies standards. I was a special student then. I lacked the ability to figure out grammar and spelling rules. I'm sorry if you come across any of those today. My teachers always said I would catch up when I was in elementary school.

In 6th grade my teachers pulled me out of social studies to put me in a special class to refine these skills. I think it was a waste of time but they were trying. Unfortunately for me, I missed most of social studies that year. Thus, I can't tell you much about ancient civilizations. Sad, I know.

So Little Brother was in 6th grade last year and I was trying to give him a head start and more knowledge on ancient civilizations. A little hard to do when you yourself have no background knowledge.

Around the University's Education department halls are work student teachers did with students. Actually there are only two different projects hanging in the hallways. One was this project. Students used grid art to create a mummy mask. They are so cool looking so I took what I read from the samples I saw and expanded on it for LB.

I modified a lot for LB because we only meet two hours a week but I'm going to tell you what I would do in the classroom if I did this project.

I would have students research mummy masks for homework or during computer time. They will find a mask they like that has a picture from the front and has an identified mummy they can later research. Students will print a picture in black and white and write down the name of their mummy.

In class we will add grid lines to the picture. There's math involved now. Students need to calculate how many evenly spaced out lines they need to make and create a square grid on the picture.

Next, students will be given white paper, I like ledger size, and will add the same number of lines as the picture to create a larger grid.

I'm sure you've done grid drawing before, they are often found in coloring books in the activity section. You simply focus on one box at a time drawing the image larger. I strongly suggest using a ruler for strait lines.

When the drawing is done you need to copy the image onto black paper. This can be done one of two ways that I know of. For LB we put carbon paper between the drawing and the black paper and Little Brother traced his whole drawing. I like this way because it's so much easier and the same piece of carbon paper can be used a couple times. LB liked looking at the carbon paper and seeing his drawing on that too.

The other way is to have the students use a pencil and color the backside of the whole drawing paper. It's a long process and my least favorite part of middle school art, aside from actually doing the drawing. My teacher once asked me why I couldn't draw like the girl next to me. Really?

Once the back is colored, place the drawing paper onto the black paper and trace the drawing just like you would with the carbon paper.

You should now have transposed the drawing onto the black paper. I had LB go over the tracing again so that it would be darker and he'd bee able to see it.

Next he used chalk pastels to color the whole mask in. I didn't want him to see a colored picture because I like bright colors and I wanted him to make it his own. If you want it more realistic, have the students research the actual colors, but after looking at mummy masks, some are lacking a little in color variations.

Last step for the art, use puffy paint to go over all the lines in the drawing. I told LB not to do anything in the face but it's up to you. The pictures hanging in the University went over all the lines. I kinda like the face without it because I think it makes it really busy to do the face too.

Last step, which really makes this a learning opportunity is for students to research and write about their mummy. I had LB add a picture of his mummy, not the mask but what his actual mummy looked like (do the best you can, sometimes the mask is all there is and that's ok), and write about the mummy's life before he became a mummy. It was great when we were done because people loved the picture and wanted to read what he wrote to learn more about his mummy.

Here's the final product. He ended up bring it to school because he was so proud of what he made and presented his work to the class. I think he did a great job and even my middle school art teacher would praise him on his work. 

micro phone lens

Have you seen these?

Micro phone lenses. They're $14.99 on amazon. Here's a link. http://www.amazon.com/Micro-Phone-Lens-Smart-Microscope/dp/B00GXR2W7S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1403649640&sr=8-1&keywords=micro+phone+lens

They're amazing. They attach to the lens of your camera on your phone. They use static to stick so no adhesive to ruin your phone and you can pull it off and attach it over and over again. They worked on apple devices (iPhone, iPads, and iPods) as well as any other mobile device that have a flat lens the same size as the  Iphone lens.

You need to put the lens right against the object to get it into focus. Give the kids plenty of time to play with the lenses, trust me they are fun to play with.

This is a flower up close using the lens. You can really see all the details. 

Now let's make this an art lesson. Have the kids choose a favorite picture or you take a couple and print them up in black and white. If you take the picture, ask the kids what they think it's a picture of. The kids will love to guess and find out if they're right. 

Give the kids some pastels, chalk or oil, and let them color the picture. I like bright colors but some people like it realistic. I say give little direction on how to color and see what the kids do with it. The final product is amazing. 

Here are two finished products. Can you guess what they are pictures of?

The top picture is the back of a penny, the bottom I believe is a plant, probably a leaf. I told you the bright colors turned out awesome.

These lenses are great for science but I love how you can integrate science and art with one relatively cheap product. Happy coloring.

On a real happy note as I'm posting this, I just got offered a job yesterday morning so I may be moving North for the summer... fall, winter, and spring. So basically, forever.