3rd grade flowers Inspired by Vincent Van Gogh

In 3rd Grade we carefully examined Van Gogh's Sun Flower series of paintings. We talked about his FAMOUS brushstrokes and the style of IMPRESSIONISM. We began creating impressionistic drawings of Van Gogh's sunflowers. We defined impressionism as painting our 'first impression' and not painting ever single detail that we see. It was super fun and every students art work looked different. The medium we used was OIL PASTLE, the kids were amazed by the ability to mix colors and color in layers. I encouraged them to "color the paper away" so that their was color on the entire page.

Here are Van Gogh painting that we examined:

I covered the desk with newspaper so the students could color all the way to the edge. I also told them to choose their own colors,  they are the artists so they can make their own artistic decisions :-)

I showed them how to add a white highlight so the vase would look "3D"

Here are some finished product:

Glass Mosaics with 4th Grade

Hopefully this is my first post of many elementary art projects!!! For the past few months I have been teaching ART to 3rd through 6th grade at Yuba Feather Elementary School. It has been an awesome experience and my creative juices are flowing.  One of the first projects I decided to do was making glass mosaics. I have a ton of glass left over from a stained glass course I took in college. I chose to do this project with the smallest class, which happened to be 4th grade with only 19 students. Here are some pictures I took along the way...

Cutting glass took FOREVER! All you need is a glass cutter, running pliers, and a willing husband. Glass cutting took way longer then I expected so Mikie and I took shifts (I probably shouldn't have left cutting for the last minute :-/). I think all of the blisters, cuts, and glass shards were totally worth it :-)

Time to glue glass to pieces of cut wood. I learned that wood glue works the best, we applied glue with a small paint brush. The theme we decided to go with was "under the sea", we made some sketches, talked about creating an image with small squares, and discussed the importance of creating contrast between image and background.

When they finished I took them home to grout them. I didn't really know what I was getting myself into here! I learned it would have been way easier to grout one large mosaic then 19 small ones, needless to say after a few hours I did it! If anyone has grouting advice I am open to any suggestions!!!

Here is a before and after of an awesome crab, made by Kylie:

Take a look at a few finished products!

Starfish

Sea Turtle

Clam with a Pearl

Shark

Their talents are impressive!

Extreme Home Makeover!

Welcome to the house we moved into directly out after our 

honey moon!  I promised pictures so here they are... Check out the sink/stove combo and notice there is no oven. Is this even safe?

So we tried to cook, the stove was super finicky it sometimes would work but sometimes we were not so lucky. I became a a huge fan of crock pot cooking!

Here was our Thanksgiving turkey! I have learned you can cook absolutely everything in a crock pot!



RENOVATION TIME!!!!

Here is a before and after of the kitchen it was finished right before Christmas, what a wonderful christmas present! Everyday this kitchen reminds me I do not have to worry about anything but by prayer and petition present my requests to the LORD! I have never felt more provided for then I do right now in this little house on a mountain a world away from my family. I am reminded daily how good and big God is.

We ended up painting every room in our house and the floors were replaced in the kitchen living and dining room.

Hope you enjoyed our 'extreme home makeover' I know this is old news but I wanted to share it with you all.