Beginning Drawing Still Lifes Are Awesome!

This year my drawing students are not allowed to rub and blend their pencil to do shading. They must use cross-hatching and other line work to show the different values in their drawings. After only a few weeks of learning drawing these total beginners belted out these beauties! I love how each one really shows the hand of the individual artist. Take a look:

Water Safety Poster Contest

All my elementary and middle school students are participating this year in California's annual Water Safety Poster contest (see details here). After a lesson on some important things to know about water safety, here are the results! I hope at least one of my students gets their artwork in the annual calendar.

Middle School:

Drawing With Scissors - Matisse Name Collages

For our first project this year I taught my middle school art class about Henri Matisse and his collages. Matisse was a prolific painter whose work is well known. Later in his life he was confined to a wheelchair and was unable to stand and paint. He started to "draw with scissors", making beautiful collages with the help of assistants.

My students made their own collages combining their names with three or more objects that describe them using construction paper. When they were finished we mounted them on a colored background frame and then on black foam core. Thanks to incredibleart.org for the inspiring lesson plan - They turned out great!