Kindergarten: The Snowman by Raymond Briggs

In preparation for the holiday, kindergarten students watched and drew The Snowman. I rarely use stencils, especially to make circles, but I thought this lesson would overall be more successful if they traced for their circle. After a few basic instructions for the snowman, students colored him or her in with colored pencils and the background with soft pastel. The snow was made by dipping a q-tip in white paint. I think they came out super cute!

Kindergarten: My Wild Thing and I

                                  

I adore these drawings! We read Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak and drew one of the wild things simply using shapes and patterns. 

Third and Fourth grade: Meshon Maps

Aaron Meshon is one of my favorite illustrators whose maps delight the senses! Every time I look at them, I discover something new. As a preliminary step, students imagined and sketched out their own world filled with fantastical structures. The problem they had to solve was how to fill their drawing with information, but design the composition so that the eye moved around the space. They did a great job using size, color, and streets to create a breathable, yet engaging drawing. My students loved looking at Aaron Meshon's maps and made sure to fill their own maps with quirky characters, bright colors, and wonderful personal details.

First-Second grade: Mary Blair's Giraffes

Mary Blair designed the concept art for It's a Small World ride at Disneyland, including many classic Disney animations and children books. We had a lot of fun drawing this one!

First grade: Drawings of Flowers

This was a rigorous lesson on color mixing using colored pencils.  Unlike mixing paint, colored pencils are mixed by adding multiple, even, layers. The preliminary step was to fill out a tertiary color wheel making sure to color inside the lines, mix colors evenly throughout a section, and layer their colors so they can produce a wide range of colors, not to mention bright saturated colors. Are you tired of the word "color" yet? ;)

Students chose a reference photo and sketched it out on drawing paper. I did multiple demonstrations on how to blend colors, layer colors, and emphasized how important it was that they really look closely at all the subtle color gradations. I tell students they can color in multiple directions (sometimes you have to!) as long as they blend them together in the end.  The drawings came out beautifully!