Christmas Collages

Advent Collage

Teaching at a Catholic school allows for me to integrate faith into art lessons.  While this post is LONG overdue, this is a lesson is great for Catholic school teachers during Advent.  

We start off by talking about Christmas and I ask the students to tell me what they think of when they think of "Christmas."   I let them list off their various thoughts and associations and then I ask them, what is the real meaning of Christmas?  Sometimes in my first round of 'thoughts' they mention their Catholic associations and other times it revolves around Santa and presents, so this follow up question steers them in the direction of the project a little more.  We discuss Christmas and Advent and then I talk to them about how we are going to make artwork about the real meaning of Christmas from something that often clouds our focus.  We are making collages portraying Christmas scenes using Black Friday advertisements.

I let the students pair themselves up into groups.  I allow them to choose how many people are in their group, but ask that it is between 2-5 people (but I recommend 3-4 for the ease of a convenient workload for all).  Each group finds an image that they want to work from online.  I let them use iPads to google search images and I suggest they add the words "coloring page" or "outline" or "clip art" so that a simplified image comes up.  We use Reflector (a program that connects the iPad to my computer/projector) to enlarge the image and I allow them to trace the image onto a sheet of posterboard.  Since this project is more about the meaning and materials, I don't make them free draw the image.  However, at one point our Reflector program wasn't working, so I did have the kids free draw their outlines based on the images they found online.  So really, it's your call how you want to teach this...you could even have them invent an image on their own!  I can usually get 2-3 of the groups images up on the Reflector at the same time, so it doesn't usually leave many people with down time.  And if there is a lot of down time I have the kids start collecting colors.

Anyone that is not tracing their image or once they are finished tracing their image, is collecting colors.  I tell the kids to decide what colors they will need and to start tearing up parts of the Black Friday ads and separating them by color.  I really emphasize that I shouldn't be seeing whole images, it is about the color, not the objects in the ads.  I also emphasize that they should avoid faces, as a face within a collage can be VERY distracting.  Which is why I tell them that any people in their finished collage, should not have an actual human face, glued where the collage face should be.  I give the groups envelopes to collect their colors in and to keep them separated.  Once they have collected "more than enough" of each color, I have them start gluing down the colors to fill in their poster.  In the end, we get amazing collages with a good, Christmas spirit!

This is one of the commonly used images that my kids have traced.  You can see the various examples in the photos of how it became a collage (the last two finished collages both worked from this image)

Line and Shape Design Ornaments

Merry Christmas to All, and to All a Good Art Lesson!

A lot of times I avoid doing holiday themed artwork with the kids, I feel like they do enough of that on their own and even a little in their classrooms.  But I really enjoy teaching this lesson and the kids really love it too, so this one usually makes the cut in my classroom.  

I start the lesson by asking my fourth graders what they think of when they think about Christmas.  I teach at a Catholic school, so I feel 100% comfortable asking this question to my kiddos.  After we've shared a pretty good list of associations, I show them a finished example of what we are going to make.  I ask them to tell me what they think we are going to do based on our introduction and the example they are seeing.  After a few (usually pretty accurate) guesses, I explain what our focus of the lesson is going to be.  Most of them have noticed the theme of patterns and designs and most of them have pointed out that there is a word within each ornament.  I address variety as well as positive and negative space with them because few students have noticed that none of my ornaments have outlines nor are they entirely colored in, yet we still can see the clear shape of each ornament.  

To keep it simple and since the focus for me on this project is line and shape designs as well as the use of negative space, I give them stencils to use that I have made myself from poster board.  Some of them are ornaments, some are in the shapes of trees, and some are crosses.  I also give them the option to free draw their own outlines.  I just encourage them to use "whisper lines" for their outline so that we can erase it at the end.  I ask the kids to choose one word (though I don't stop them if they use multiple) in each of their ornaments and to FILL the rest of their space with patterns and designs.  This lesson usually takes the kids 2 class periods (I have them for 55 minutes each class period), so for the first class period, I have them plan out their designs in pencil.  In the middle of the first class period or at the beginning of the 2nd class period, I share my "pattern and design cheat sheets" with them (these are just printed examples).  I still encourage them to make each pattern/design their own unique creation if they are using my cheat sheets for inspiration, but I still get a few copy cats.  They finish their designs off with skinny marks and erase their original outlines.  Some of the kids really struggle with the whole "no outline" and "not entirely colored in" concept, but I encourage them all to avoid these things.  If they want them to look like lights or ornaments, I show them how to free draw strings for them to hang from, otherwise they can be free floating shapes.  Okay, enough talking about the lesson, let's get to the good stuff!  More photos:

Christmas Ornament Drawing

Tis the Season!

As an art teacher, it's hard to get away with not doing some holiday themed art projects.  My struggle is to keep them from being too crafty where they all look the same while still keeping the kids excited and wanting to share their holiday artwork with their friends and family.  In my free time while perusing the internet, I came across this art lesson from another blog--Art Projects for Kids--and decided to adapt it just a tiny bit for my fourth graders.

I started the lesson by having my students make a list on our white board of words that describe the real meaning of Christmas (I discouraged "presents" and "Santa" on this list but that didn't stop from kids saying them).  We ended up with a fantastically lengthy list from each of my 4th grade classes.  I let the kids know that we were going to be keeping those words in mind in our art project but we were also going to incorporate something else; variety.  I introduced them to "variety" and we discussed how you can have variety among lines (through type or thin/thickness) as well as shapes and colors.  This is when I showed them what we were making.  

I allowed students to trace stencils if they'd like (I created stencils of four shapes of ornaments, trees and crosses) or free hand their images.  I asked that they fit at least three items on their paper and start but drawing/tracing with "whisper lines" so we could erase them later.  We then filled each shape (regardless of what it was) with at least one word that describes the real meaning of Christmas in an interesting font and the rest of the shape should be filled with lines and shapes while demonstrating "variety."   In the end, we erased our "whisper lines" and the goal was that you could still tell what the original shape was without it being outlined or entirely colored in.  A few kids still colored their shapes in or outlined them, but for the most part, I think this gave the kids a chance to remember what this season is about and practice using some basic art elements.  The drawings came out beautifully and the kids were eager to take them home!