First Grade Colorful Fish

I love these colorful painted fish created by my first grade students.  We read the book Fish Eyes by Lois Ehlert.  There are a lot of great fish inspiration in it and the kids love to read it.  To get started I made some drawing pages to help them. There were ideas for body shapes, fins and other fish details.  Students made sketches in pencil first and then black tempera paint on large paper.  We talked about the differences in drawing their fish in pencil and then using a brush.  The next class the kids used colorful tempera to fill in the fish and add any background details.  The following class the background was painted using liquid watercolors.  I love how colorful they are and how creative student were when drawing their fish.  It was also a great project for the kids to use tempera and watercolor paints.  Here are some of the finished pieces.  If you would like to see them all you can visit our online gallery here:  http://www.artsonia.com/museum/gallery.asp?project=1131832

James Rizzi Citiscapes

My son introduced me to this fun artist.  He came home talking about an artist he learned about in art class at his school.  He liked him so much I decided to look him up.  I immediately knew that my kids would love looking at his whimsical city scapes too.  My son's project was done in watercolors but I adapted it to be a mixed media project.  They came out great.  The kids were so into them and added lots of details that made them all so different.  Here are some photos of the finished pieces.  If you would like to see all of them you can visit our online gallery here:  http://www.artsonia.com/museum/gallery.asp?project=1157672