Auction Art Project - Kindergarten Jim Dine Hearts Fuzzy Pillow

 I recently wrote about my cool resin and wood trays, that I made with second and third grade, making a bowl from magazine's and newspapers with third and fourth grade, and making a perpetual calendar with sixth grade.

Here's what I made with my kinders!

I had this idea for a giant floor pillow with photos of the kids' art on them.  For the photo on the pillow, I had to use a project that I knew would have super successful results.  I wanted each kid to be proud of their featured design.

Long before Valentine's Day, I busted out the tried and true Jim Dine Hearts with Warm and Cool Colors lesson.  I copied this lesson from a co-teacher I work with, but made a few edits on the handout, and my execution this year.  Normal years, the students complete the warm and cool heart in oil pastel and we usually have some sort of interesting background or frame.  I also usually let the kids do some swirly's with puffy paint or colored glue over the top.  

I made the direction handout showing how you can use crayons or oil pastels to mix and blend the colors, because I wasn't sure my kids would be able to use oil pastel this year.  But, we did!

Even without the swirl or background, they still turned out super great.

I have a budget for completing these auction projects.  I never want to get too crazy with just one class.   I was trying to find a decent personalized floor pillow to upload the artwork to at a reasonable price.  This was more difficult than I thought it would be. Like, Redbubble had the size I wanted but was toooo expensive,

I finally settled on the hilariously named "Pet Photo Memories Personalized Throw Pillow" from PersonalizationMall.com.

I went with the 18" x 18" velvet pillow.  I would loved a 36" x 36" floor pillow - but I had a coupon and the price was right!

Obviously I didn't order it with a cute yellow lab on it.  I wanted to showcase my 12 kindergartners.  I photographed each of their projects and cropped them to a square.  I tried to use on app on my phone to make a single .jpg of all 12 - but it wasn't turning out the way I wanted.  I ended up putting all 12 photos into one ProCreate doc.  I originally only made the square design with each artists' work featured large one time. No matter how I edited it, it didn't look right.

no background

faded background

 When I uploaded it to PersonalizationMall.com though - it cut off the artwork, and didn't look right.

I went back to ProCreate and made the images smaller and the pattern repeat several times.

I liked this much better.

Luckily, the kindergarten parents did too.  It sold for $180!