Eric Carle inspired collages

6th and 7th graders worked for a while on these Eric Carle inspired collages. I would say the results of this lesson were either wonderful or disappointing with very little in between (not posting the disappointing ones). This group of kids was hit by the flu so a lot of them were out of school for quite a few classes during this lesson which really threw off the momentum of the lesson.
Regardless we got some really neat ones I want to share with you.

she got great texture in the "grass" and I love the paper she made for the puma's body
We found using a mix of tempera and cheep acrylic craft paint helped make the best textures. Adding a touch of metalic craft paint to the painted papers really added something special.

great great job getting texture into the painted paper

Great use of bubble wrap for the background texture

was out sick a lot and it shows....but he had a good start

this is great work for this student, she worked very hard on it and was very proud of it, I love the jellybean print paper she brought in for her rainbow

my photos are not doing this one justice, she did such an amazing job on all aspects of it

The sloth is HUGE, on the biggest sheet of construction paper I could find!

he used the metallic paints well

also out sick quite a lot but another great start

and my sample

In the future I will make sure to have a stockpile of pre-made painted papers for kids to pull from if they are out sick, working really slowly or just need bits of one color. This lesson dragged on a bit longer than I wanted because the kids kept making more and more painted papers.

Illuminated letters 2012 version

For our newest installment of Illuminated letters we went back to paper and maker, colored pencil and or crayon. We viewed my illuminated letter powerpoint that we watch for each version of this lesson. New this year I had kids fill out a little, "about me" survey to help them brainstorm for the lesson. This proved very helpful for me later on when the kids had some artist block.

 These were done by 7th and 8th grade student's many who are repeats to my program.

 I asked each student to choose a letter that applied to them and then use 5-9 images that told the story of who they were.

The kids were to really focus on using their art materials correctly.

 I tried to leave this lesson a bit more open to see what the kids would do with it. Overall I was really happy with the end results.

none of these are really my strongest artists but they all worked hard to do their personal best

New to art this year, I think he has really neat ideas like his paintball splattered letter R

Love this tribute to the new and classic Dr. Who....do you see how she drew herself wearing the classic Dr. Who scarf?

Darn this photo doesn't capture the insane detail of the work this young man does. He blows my mind. Here is a close up picture of the detail doodling he did inside his letter B.

a bit creepy...but there is a maturity in his work that is way beyond what you would expect from a 8th grade boy.
I still need to take a photo of the very best one though done by one of my autistic students who can break out of his intense internal world through his art...I can't wait to share his worth with you.