Fundraiser do-over, & texture rubbings

So a few days ago I told you that 14 pieces of kindergarten art for the Original Works fundraiser had to be re-done because they were rejected as being too lumpy. So during my prep period on Friday I pulled the 14 confused K's (out of their nap time) in for 1/2 hour and thought I had in infallable idea. I gave each child a Sharpie to draw a garden of flowers, some crayons to color them in, and some washable watercolors to paint the white spaces. Easy and simple; so I thought. As you can see by the two pieces I have posted above, some turned out great and others - well - let me know if you can find the garden in the one on the right... Oh well. Done and handed in.

Meanwhile - isn't it great when you have a wonderful sub that you trust? My former student teacher from last spring now has a part-time job in another disrict, but she was able to sub for my sick day on Tuesday. Here's some of the texture rubbing pictures done by my 2nd graders that day. It's a project that can easily be completed in one art class, including a motivating activity. I think the kids did really well with this project; it's obvious the sub was clear with her instructions.

Art teacher on overload

I never stay home from school. As a matter of fact I usually stay in school for hours after almost everyone else has left, sharing a bag of popcorn with the 4th grade teacher down the hall when, if we had better time management skills, we should both be home eating dinner.
* * * * * * * * *
Anyhow. Yesterday I felt crummy all day. By the time I left for home (hours after school was over) I had set out complete sub plans for today. And today I took a rare sick day and now, sitting on the couch watching election returns, I feel a lot better and ready to go back tomorrow. And lucky for me, my former student teacher, who now teaches part-time in another district, was able to sub so I am confident that things went well.
* * * * * * * * *
But back to yesterday. I got an email about the fundraiser project. My worries about the kindergarten ladybug project had become real. The company was rejecting the artwork because it was too "rough" (our tissue collage backgrounds got a little out of hand). These kids had been in school for just a week when they did this project - WHAT WAS I THINKING?!!! Anyhow, I got another email later in the day, and it's only 14 kids that have to re-do their artwork. So now I have to find a way, BY THE END OF THE WEEK, to have these each create a fundraiser-worthy piece of art.
* * * * * * * * *

So here's something else that seems to have gotten away from me in my overloaded state: my 5th grade Artistic Licenses. The images above show both sides. I usually copy these on tagboard, and the kids jazz them up with color and sign them, and then I get them laminated. I have some lanyard hooks and key rings and the kids love to attach them to their backpacks, etc. We talk quite a bit about what it means to have "artistic license" or "creative license". Often I use the license when introducing a still life, to make them understand that sometims they will want to make artistic decisions that are not accurate representations of the still life but may be better compositionally, or show better usage of art elements. The kids are so funny. They'll come to art and most will have licenses in their pockets or hung around their necks, and someone will worry "I forgot to bring my license - will I still be able to change things today?" It's sweet to see them take it so seriously. But at the rate I'm going it will be months before I actually get the license copied, and then there's still the laminating part...
*
And then there's the saga of the 6th grade altered books - but that's better left for another night.
*
And of course, there's my lastest favorite addiction, the art teacher blogs. Every blog I read links me to someone new, with something interesting to read and learn, and great ideas, and I'm now following so many blogs it's hard to keep up with you all. But I'll try. But sometimes I get frustrated. Re: altered books - yesterday I was reading a blog and I saw a link on the blog sidebar that had an altered book post, but I wasn't feeling well so I didn't read it. Today I cannot find it, don't remember where I saw it. So if you've seen something interesting on altered books in the past couple of days, please let me know where to look! Thanks!

Finally, the Fundraiser is DONE! Yippee!

Today I packed up all the fundraiser art, labeled, arrows pointing to the top, names in alphabetical order, all done! So glad to have this over for another year!

I don't think I've posted these fundraiser projects previously:

The 2nd graders made bird houses, adapted from a cute lesson found at DeepSpace Sparkle. They're cute, but I feel like it was a throwaway lesson and now I'm glad I'm back to incorporating some real art concepts into my lessons.

The kindergartners made these construction paper ladybugs, so cute on a tissue collage background, but I'm worried the company will reject them. The enthusiastic K's went a little overboard and the tissue collages are totally bumpy!

this may be my favorite fundraiser project

My 3rd graders weren't going to have a lot of time to get this done, so I came up with a quickie project for the fundraiser, "My Home is my Castle". Kids invented castles using Sharpies and no pre-drawing, and then painted with watercolors. Some are still works-in-progress.

Don't you love the "jail place" and "laptop room" in the picture above on the right?

fundraiser again! 1st grade family portraits

It's been a challenge getting these completed. The backgrounds were going to be painted with watercolors, but today's fire prevention assembly really set us back. One class missed art completely, and another was shortened, and the third came right from the assembly and were wound to the max. So we decided to stick to crayons, and even with that change, we're still not done.

My goal was to keep the family portraits fresh and childlike. We haven't done a model-drawing session yet, so it was up to the kids to decide how to draw the people in their families. The results charm me so much that I had to share them even though they aren't all complete.

another fundraiser project

Artwork for our PTSA fundraiser must be something that can be finished quickly, that is colorful, and that can be successful at some level for every child. It's always a challenge to find something that works.

This year's 5th graders are an enthusiastic and engergetic group, but many of them have a challenge focusing on craftsmanship. So we painted colorful skies, and then did an ink silhouette on top of it. They did not all choose trees and moons as subject matter, but these are the ones I managed to snap photos of. There are also underwater scenes, jumping dolphins, downhill skiers and snowboarders, howling wolves, and more, many which I would consider too formulaic if they weren't for the fundraiser. Their mothers will love them and want to buy them, and that's the point here - to help the PTSA raise money.
By the way - I shot this somewhat out-of-focus photo out of a (moving) car window. I wanted to note that, for those who say that the "right way" to draw clouds is to make them white, that these clouds are a peachy-rose and a denim blue-grey. Not a white cloud among 'em.