Merry Christmas Art Lesson Directions Bundle

I put together a bundle of my K-2  Catholic School Christmas Art Lessons directions.  As I mention in the description, the end products aren't very unique from one another when they are finished, but they are cute when done in the children's own hands. 

It's the constant struggle of "step-by-step do this and it will look awesome" vs. "have at it kid".  The end results of these three lessons come out fantastic for my K-1s especially.  I know my second graders can do more riveting things.  Parents love them and tend to purchase lots of things on Artsonia, which makes me happy.  Plus, we do learn valuable skills along the way.  Think of it as process and skills over product.  That helps me sleep better.

See more in our Artsonia Galleries:

2017 Baby Jesus

2018 Baby Jesus

2017 Advent Wreath

2018 Holy Family

2018 Advent Wreath

Shaded nutcrackers in time for Christmas! With Directions and a Rubric.

I finally got my nutcrackers in a project that I actually like!

Several years ago I came across the tutorial on Art Projects for Kids on drawing nutcrackers.  I varied the lesson each time I taught it, but was never happy with the results.  I would like the children to personalize their nutcrackers, but they would come out looking like mutant robots.  I started adding shading with oil pastels to the mix, then we had these nutcrackers with no background and a mystery light source... or worse, A CORNER SUN!

This is my daughter's.  It is a mutant robot dancer "nutcracker" floating in the abyss.

I passed out the directions to my fourth graders, as well as the nutcracker tutorial from above.  In the directions, I ask the students to follow the instructions on the tutorial, but before they start drawing too many details  I stop them.

I pass out the Nutcracker Brainstorm page next.  We talk about how the artists who designed these nutcrackers wanted them to all look unique.  Some had occupations, some were royalty, some had beautiful patterns and designs on them (the handout is 2 sided).  We talk about ways we can turn our nutcracker into a me-cracker.  Which - quite frankly - is hilarious, because the rest of the hour I have kids asking me if their project is a "me-cracker," and I respond with, "yeah, that's a you-cracker!"

When the you-crackers are drawn and traced, and colored with oil pastel, we actually DO draw a corner sun on the right side of our papers.  I make a huge deal about it and pretend like I am having a heart attack and my hair is falling out because of all the corner suns, but alas - for our art - I carry on! I tell them about the corner sun being the light source and how we are going to add shadow to the other side/left of our nutcrackers.

I demonstrate how to smear their oil pastels, and we talk about which parts, cracks, and crevices might have a shadow and which might not.

Once their is a shadow, there may be a glare. The nutcrackers are probably wood and lacquer so they might have a shiny spot!  We add that with our white.

Here is the genius part of this whole lesson.  I printed photographs of burning candles on 11 x 17" paper.  I just downloaded some stuff I found on the web, and printed on the Xerox machine in black and white.  Now, these are Christmassy, and the one is an advent wreath (I teach in a Catholic School 2 days).  I printed 6 of each and let the students choose which one they wanted.

Finally, students cut & paste, and we had our finished product.  I was so pleased to have finished looking nutcrackers for once!

Finally, students completed the Rubric for this project.  See the rest of the class at Artsonia.com

Middle School Christmas Ornaments in Oil Pastel - with PowerPoint and handout

This is my first year with my middle-schoolers, and I have had a rough time knowing what skills they have, and which they still really need to work on.

After our last value study project seemed like a real struggle, I thought I'd take it easy with a step-by-step guide on drawing and shading color values with Christmas ornaments.  This project is not concerned so much with the reflections of the ornaments.  We only concentrated on 3 parts: cast shadow, mid-tones, and highlight.  We also practiced building layers with our oil pastels and mixing tints and shades.  Also, I teach in a Catholic school - so Christmas ornaments are A-OKay.

I started with a handout full of stolen images from the Internet and a PowerPoint too.  We discussed the parts of light and shade that create value and the difference between grayscale and monochromatic color schemes.

The handout coincides with the slides on the PowerPoint and discusses vocabulary.
Next, I take the students step-by-step through the process of drawing and coloring and rendering their Christmas ornament in 3D. They do actually have an ornament in front of them to look at and draw.  The slides were up on the TV as the kids worked, so we mostly all stayed together, but some friends needed additional help.

      

Included in the handout is a rubric for this lesson.  Overall I am pleased with the results!  I only see my middle schoolers once a week for 45 minutes.  It was a learning process at the beginning of the year, and I felt I was never going to get through any sort of curriculum.  We've started working smaller and less independently, and that seems to work.  Here are some student works:

T'was the week before Christmas... Ugly Sweaters!

I felt sort of bad scrapping my K-2 plans this week.  I had a hard time deciding if I would stray away from the regular curriculum because the kids would be completely crazy the week before Christmas, or because I would be at the end of my rope and needed a break...!

We tied up some loose ends with other projects and then designed Ugly Christmas Sweaters!  I showed a few examples of ugly sweaters first, but the kids did not think they were ugly at all. Ahh, the aesthetics of 5-7 year olds.

I got the Ugly Winter Sweater template from my friendly friend, The Friendly Neighborhood Art Teacher. We drew, colored, & sprinkled with sequins.  Make sure your custodian is cool, kindergartners get sequins everywhere.  It was so fun!