How to Draw City Buildings

The very first lesson in perspective is learning to draw depth. This is basically turning squares into cubes, and making a city skyline.
1. It’s very helpful for the students to draw on paper that has light grid lines already on it. I made my own, but you could go to Free Online Graph Paper and print your own. I recommend 1/4" squares on ll" x 17" paper or larger. Working horizontally, the students draw a horizon line and connected squares and rectangles on top of it as shown.
2. An angle line is drawn at the corner of each building as shown, taking care to make them all the same angle and length.
3. The angle lines are connected. Building details are added, and then all is traced with a black marker. Finally, colored pencils work well for coloring as they allow lots of detail work.

Maud Lewis Cat Painting

Renowned Nova Scotia folk artist Maud Lewis (1903 – 1970) painted colorful scenes of rural Nova Scotia using random art supplies and painful hands as a result of juvenile rheumatoid arthritis.
1. Wet a 12" x 9" piece of watercolor paper, and paint the background bright yellow. Let dry. Using watercolor pencils (like Prismacolor), draw the cat eyes, nose and mouth as shown with a black pencil.
2. With the same pencil, fill in the area around the eyes with short dark strokes to make a head. Add ears, and an oval-shaped body below. A tail may be added to one side.
3. Heart-shaped flowers are drawn around the cat as desired.
4. Use a small wet paint brush to go over the pencil, which will turn the color into paint. Make short strokes in an outward direction to make the fuzzy edges of the cat. Black legs may be added to the bottom. When dry, trace over the mouth lines with a white pencil, and add whiskers.

Father’s Day “Award”

I’ve sometimes struggled with imagery for Father’s Day projects as the typical tie drawing gets old. Showing students how to draw a large trophy worked well last week, and was a good prompt for them to write their own message.

1. Students made their own board by gluing 7 large popsicle sticks across 2 vertical ones. This was slide aside to dry while drawing.

2. On a regular piece of paper, they traced a box that was to be the outer dimension of their drawing. They drew along with me a large trophy shape inside, and added any message they wanted.

3. A piece of dry wax paper (like the kind you wrap around a muffin in a bakery) was taped over the top of the pencil drawing. Their entire drawing was traced and colored in with Sharpie permanent markers.

4. The drawing was cut out around the outer box dimensions. 50/50 watery glue was brushed over the board and on the back of the drawing. The drawing was put in place on the board and more glue was brushed on top. I’ve learned that it’s best to brush off any excess when complete or else the board may warp a bit. Magnets could be glued on the back to make some nice refrigerator art.

Thanks to Miranda, a talented 2nd grader, who made this beautiful artwork for her father last week.

Updated Scratch Art Father’s Day Card

This is my favorite way for students to make a scratch art picture, a black marker drawing first, and then layers of oil pastel on top. The result is a very artsy image this is 100% their own creativity.

1. Students folded a letter size paper in half (heavy stock is best) and then wrote D-A-D in either block letters or very fat stick letters with a permanent black marker.

2. My favorite Portfolio® oil pastels really do work best in the layering of color. I recommended that they choose a combination of light colors to cover the entire paper.

3. A dark color (dark blue, dark purple, or black, etc.) was used to cover the entire page again. Lots of pastel needs to be used for the best results.

4. Students used a wooden stick to scratch off their designs. This could be just lines, or patterns and writing too. Be warned, this is messy, but lots of fun! I used it for kinder through 4th graders today and all walked away with a card they were really proud of.

“Finish the Picture” Drawing

I often find that if students have an image to look at when they draw, they tend to surprise themselves in what they can do.

1. I used the internet to find animal photos that had a variety of shadows. After downloading the image and turning it black and white (thanks Photoshop!) I cropped it right down the middle and printed one side on my laser printer.

2. The students are instructed to lightly draw the edges of the missing side first, then come back and shade the sections in with their pencil. Soft drawing pencils will help them get the darkest grays and blacks possible. Encourage lots of contrast. The more range of darkness in the drawing, the better it will look.

3. I've found that students initially think of shading in just "light" and "dark" terms. They are to keep looking for details of the many shades and textures in the photo.

Handpainted “Etchings”

I found a great website that has lots of FREE art to download, and every picture looks like an old etching. If you paint over printouts lightly with watercolor, you can get a very pretty handpainted effect.
My school has a Diversity Day celebration every spring, and I need some quick art projects representing many different countries. Irecently stumbled upon http://etc.usf.edu/clipart/ and was thrilled! There are 47,000 images all made for teachers to download, and they are all tagged so it’s easy to search for whatever you need. This picture was painted by 4th graders who chose Germany as their theme. I love the old-fashioned look them, and the students seemed to really enjoy just concentrating on their painting skills.