Onomatopeoia Art

This is a fun lesson to do with those 6th graders who are just too "cool for school", lol.  I showed the students this You Tube video where Batman & Robin are fighting the bad guys and on the screen are onomatopeoias (the kids LOVED it):

Next, I had my slideshow playing on my new, fancy projector.  I had the definition of onomatopeoia, sample artwork, various words they could choose from, and comic book fonts.  I also had this handout printed out for kids to refer to:

Here are the samples of artwork that I showed the class before we began our artwork:

And, of course, I HAD to share the art of Roy Lichtenstein with this project:

As you can see, these samples are layered with text and color, so for our assignment, students cut out black and white text from magazines and glued them all over their 9x12" paper.  Then, they sketched out which word they wanted to put on their art.  We used scrap paper to sketch out our ideas so they didn't mess-up their 9x12 collage work.  When they were ready with their final idea, they used a sharpie marker to draw their words and details that describe their word on their paper.  We didn't even get to the color part of this project yet today, but they are so excited about this one!  Give it a try!  If you want the slideshow, leave me a comment and I can e-mail it to you :)

Fall Landscape Reflections

For this project, I must have been hopped up on caffeine to be able to complete it in the allotted hour time-frame.  First of all, I had to set out oil pastels, watercolors, watercolor brushes, acrylic paint, acrylic brushes, and paper towels for each student...whew.  But, the results are so stunning, I felt like it was well worth the extra effort on my part.  Here were the steps:
1.  Fold the paper to create the horizon.  2. Draw the clouds with the white oil pastel, the tree trunks with the brown oil pastel, and the water waves with the blue oil pastel.  3. Use watercolor paint to paint the sky and the water.  4.  Use the acrylic paint to 'dab' the foliage on the trees.  5.  Re-fold the paper to make the reflection in the water.  6.  Use a slightly wet watercolor brush to make short horizontal brushstrokes in the reflection to make it look like water.

I worked while the students did so they could follow one step at a time and see how quickly they needed to work to move on to the next step.  Here are some finished paintings:

 Zalyn's Landscape

Tyler's Landscape

Ra'jai's Landscape

 Kayla's Landscape