Winter scenes in pastels and crayons

The kindergarten and 1st grade have been working on their drawing skills in addition to getting to use pastels in creating these winter scenes. The 1st  grade class was told to draw a box for a window and the draw the winter scene outside the winter. I did one on the board with them suggesting what might be outside the window. They were to draw in crayon then use pastel to paint the picture blending with their fingers and a wet q-tip. The results were wonderful. Of course a trip to the handwash location was in order. The kindergarteners got to draw another snowman with cuing on what might he have: hat, arms, mittens, etc. They then got to add lots of color. Pretty good job on including details and using the whole paper.

2nd grade bat bridge in pastels

All of the classes this month are getting to try out pastels. I had done an example for the afterschool group and decided to use it for this group as well. Last week several of the students helped draw the bridge on regular manila drawing paper. It has enough tooth to work for the chalks and is easy to run through the copier (sometimes) The class studied about bats and we discusses the way bats fly. Some had been downtown to see the bats leave from under the bridge. They used mostly their fingers for blending and q-tips. Great versions of the sky and a chance for us to talk about how reflections work.

Congress street bat bridge in pastel

This was a challenging for the group but as they got into blending the chalk pastels, they found a medium to   really love. It is a bit messy and rushing them to do the drawing and painting in one session elicited some grumbling. We are planning another one after the winter break to keep the momentum up. 

Harvest moon with a tree

This was a very challenging project for the students to take on but gave them a chance to learn a variety of skills and produced a frame-able artwork at the end of the month. 


We began by using circle stencils to draw the moon and outline the area for the moonglow. They then painted in the moon and first area of glow with brushes and had to move into a bit of a new area for them. We created the remaining glow and the background sky using foam stampers made from meat trays and dowels. The students mixed the colors on the tray with the stamper and applied them to the canvas. It was a bit labor intensive and time consuming but produces a great result. At each days end they dried their project. 

 We next added some color splashes of  red, purple, orange and darker yellow to the sky. Some skies were very dark blue, some were much lighter. We left an area in the right lower corner for a hillside to ground the tree.

They had gotten pretty good with the stamping when they switched back to brushes. Some of the trees have more delicate branch tips than others. 

In this paining the student decided to make a wintry hillside with while which suited her idea of the ground and tree.

Pastel chalk drawings challenge K-1

Hands around the world seemed a good way to expose the 1st grade to chalk pastels and give them a bit more complicated project that required group sharing and coordination. I drew the circle in the middle of the page and the Americas onto it. The students had to trace around both of their hands ( or help each other get 2 hands on the page) around the globe. They then were to use colors of different skins on the hands and color the world blue, green and brown. Some got a little tempted but the colors available and the hands must be wearing gloves but they had an interesting time working together. I planned to work on a bit of shading but the enthusiasm in this group runs high and the parent volunteers are few. After they were done I sealed it with cheap hair spray.

The kindergarten class has been studying the seasons so a chalk pastel snow picture seemed to fit well with their lessons. They are also working on more realistic bodies for people with appropriate clothing and such. We started with blue paper to make sure our snow showed up then reviewed the person that would be in the snow scene then added a snowman. They really were excited to have the richer colors to use. We worked a bit on preventing smudging as they worked. I shot only  a few as they were curling from the spray fixative.