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Winter Village Window Painting
Spread joy around your school by painting a simple winter village on the windows! It’s the most wonderful time of the year… window painting season! Or at least that’s what I say! This has been a little tradition I started all the way back my first year teaching in 2008 (😳). For me, painting the windows is such an easy way to spread joy to others. Not only is it incredibly relaxing to do as an artist, but be prepared to hear the “Ooos and Ahhs” as students and staff walk by admiring your window painting. I’ll never forget one of my students coming up to me at the end of the day and saying “Mrs. Edington, I was watching you paint those houses from my classroom and it was the joy of my day” 🥺❤️😭 Are you kidding me?? That right there is our way yall- to give kids the joy in their day! Let’s Get Started! Supplies: White tempera paint (I use Crayola Premier Tempera) Liquid hand soap (to be added to paint) Paintbrushes (soft bristle/ synthetic are best) Winter Village Drawing Guide (available in my TpT store) Adding soap to your paint can help with application and clean up! Add a bit of soap to your paint. This step is totally optional but when I shared these windows on my Instagram, the number one question I received was “WILL IT COME OFF??” Yessss yall- tempera paint is water-based and wipes right off! Sure you will have to spray and wipe a few times but it is far from permanent. Another option is to add a few pumps of soap to your paint and mix it in. This thins out your paint a bit and can make it appear a little more transparent, but when clean up comes around getting the paint off is a sinch! All you need is a straight razor blade and the paint with soap in it scrapes right off! It’s very satisfying if I do say so myself. Gather your brushes. I like using a variety of flat and round brushes of varying sized depending on the area I’m painting and the small details there are. My favorite classroom brushes are the Class Pack from Royal Langnickle (the green handles!) Print your Drawing guide and get started! Ok you guys- confession time. I have been obsessed with doodling cozy homes for years and years- just check my sketchbooks and you’ll see! So after spending the weekend in a quaint little town near us, I decided to capture the charm of the town and bring it to my students and my resources. Taking photos of all of the cute shops and homes in the town, I turned them into step by step drawing for artists of all ages to follow! You can download this guide here! Begin by painting the snow at the bottom of the window (a bumpy line) and then start painting your buildings! The more charm the better- consider adding lights, street lamps, trees, fences, feet prints and more! Whether you’re planning on painting this village in your classroom, around the school or even at home, I know that you and your little ones are sure to love it! Have fun!
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Botanical Plexiglass Painting
Is there anything more satisfying than painting on glass or plastic? I think not! That’s why plexiglass is the perfect surface to keep your students engaged while painting. A few days before my adapted class while chatting with my librarian pals, I noticed an extra standing piece of plexiglass in their storage room that was currently not in use. My brain instantly started spinning thinking of potential ideas of how I could use it in the art room. My students paint and print on small pieces of individually cut plexiglass all the time, so I’m no stranger to how wonderful plexiglass is- but I was so excited to have a large piece that was vertical! Thankfully my fabulous coworkers said I was happy to borrow the plexiglass for class so that’s what I did! Photo of Lucy Tiffney working (Source https://www.sofa.com/inspiration-corner/design-lab-lucy-tiffney/ ) When trying to figure out what it is we were going to paint on the plexiglass, I suddenly remembered artist and designer Lucy Tiffney who I had started following randomly on Instagram a few years back. Lucy is an artist, muralist, and designer with a distinct painterly style of vibrant botanicals and her work is just gorgeous! With our theme this year being the rainforest, I thought that Lucy’s work would be the perfect reference for this project in adapted art. So here’s how we did it! Materials: Plexiglass soft bristle paint brushes (I love Royal Langnickle brushes of all sizes) Tempera paint (if you plan on washing it off) I use Crayola Premier Tempera paint- the fluorescent colors are my favorite! Messy Mats & Smocks Reference images of Lucy’s work and plants 1. Prepare Your Materials and Work Space Prep your paint. Lucy obviously uses many different types of greens and blues, but she also uses different pinks for a pop in her work. So I prepared lidded ice cube trays with colors from Lucy’s palette mixed with a bit of white to make the paint nice and opaque on the glass. Prep the space I prepared the tables by covering them in my large messy mats with the plexiglass in the middle and Lucy’s work on my board as reference 2. Get Them Started Before my students arrived, I painted a few of the leaves/ botanicals around the edges to show them ahead of time what will be going on the surface. This is also a fun way to invite them into the lesson- when they came in and saw this interesting glass on the table with paint on it, they were ready to jump right in! 3. Demo How to Paint the Leaves then Let Them Do Their Thing! On a piece of scrap paper nearby I showed my students how to paint one long line for the stem and then add short lines on each side for the leaves. Some students really grasped the demo and others decided to paint whatever they wanted- and both were completely fine! As long as your students are safe, engaged, and hopefully having fun then that’s a win in my eyes! If the artwork happens to turn out lovely at the end then that’s a bonus! For my teaching adapted art is so much more about the experience for my students than the final product. Students sat on each side of the plexiglass which was really fun for them to see their peers across from them also painting the same surface! 4. Display Your Art! The best part about our plexiglass botanicals was showcasing how beautiful they turned out! Our wonderful librarian suggested we display our work in the windows of the library since we have large bright windows. It turned out to be the perfect space for our display and is enjoyed by every student in the school! Be sure to give plexiglass (or even window painting) a try! Your students are sure to love it!
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Oversized Symmetrical Sugar Skulls (Part 1)
Let's learn about the Mexican holiday, Dia de los Muertos by creating an oversized symmetrical sugar skull in art class! This lesson is hands on, fun and has the perfect books to accompany it!
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Collaborative “I am Human” Display
With Dot Day coming soon (September 15), I thought I would share another collaborative display that my students and I created a few years ago. For this display I decided to take Dot Day in a different direction and combine it with the amazing new book “I Am Human” by Susan Verde and Peter H. Reynolds. If you haven’t read it yet, this is a book all about what it means to show empathy, how we all have the ability as humans to make choices, learn from our mistakes and show kindness and compassion. Each student in our school “made their mark” by painting their self-portrait in the style of Peter Reynolds. This mural was inspired by the cover of the book with all of the small faces behind the main character. Peter Reynolds’ illustration from the book I Am Human, the inspiration for our school mural. I facilitated this mural with the help of my amazing specials team in the gym. I had a large piece of black bulletin paper laid out that was the length of the bulletin board I planned on displaying it on. I then used Crayola Premier tempera (regular & fluorescent) paint mixed with a bit of white paint to make the paint more opaque so that it would stand out on the black paper. I mixed each color of the rainbow, as well as the intermediate colors (red, red-orange, orange, yellow-orange, Yellow, etc..) in several container cups so that multiple students could paint at the same time (probably 3-4 cups of each color) and had them laid out along the side of the black paper in ROYGBIV order. In small groups, I had students come up to the black paper (starting at the top of the paper so they wouldn’t step in wet paint) and carefully paint a simple self portrait illustration similar to the style of Peter Reynolds, but also painted uniquely to represent each child. Once every student in the school had a chance to paint their portrait, I hung our rainbow portrait mural in our hallway with a line from the book that said: “I am Human. One of billions but unique”. My students loved finding their self-portraits and the impact this collaborative piece had in our hallway. If you decide to try a mural like this in your school, be sure to tag me on Instagram so I can see your amazing work!
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Dot Day Rainbow Display
Rainbow Dot Day Display from September 2017 Dot Day is coming! Did you know the beloved children’s book “The Dot” by Peter H. Reynolds has its own day? On September 15th (ish) teachers, children, and creatives all around the world celebrate creativity, courage, and collaboration inspired by The Dot. I have been celebrating Dot Day for at least 7 years now, but about 4 years ago one of my favorite Dot Day displays took off around the internet! This Rainbow Dot Day display has become one of my most re-created student art displays. I get lots of questions regarding my process of this display so I thought I would break down how I teach this magnificent monochromatic rainbow dot day display that your students, staff and community are sure to love. For this lesson, I often change up the materials my students use based on age, prep, or just to have a variety in the look of the dots. In the past I have used any combination of marker, oil pastels, watercolor, tempera cakes, and tempera paint. You can make the choice as to what your students use- don’t let supplies limit you! Use whatever you have available! To begin the lesson I of course read the book, The Dot, and explain that each table will be assigned a color to paint their dot in. The red table uses only shades of red, the orange table only shared of orange and so forth. Step 1: Make a dot Have students trace a circle template (I just used a circular lid) and then had them begin by making a dot in the middle with an oil pastel. Step 2: Draw lines & shapes in one color Next, after we “made our mark” I talk to students about adding lines & shapes. I explain “radial symmetry” (when you repeat a line/mark from one part all the way around in a circle, like a sun or flower- the pattern radiates around. Students fill their dot with radial patterns in monochromatic oil pastels Step 3: Paint overtop After oil pastel has been added, students use watercolor or tempera cakes in the same color to create a wax resist over top of patterns. A wax resist is when the oil pastel does not allow the watery paint to stick it, revealing the bold lines below. I encouraged students to paint or draw beyond their template pencil lines if they wanted to, still staying in a circle. Step 4: Cut out and arrange When dry, have students cut out their dots and store them in their designated color. Once all dots are cut out arrange on a bulletin board or display in rainbow order, overlapping them slightly. 5. Add Vashti! If you aren’t confident free-drawing Vashti (the main character in the dot), you could project her picture onto a piece of large bulletin board paper and trace the lines. I free-drew Vashti here and used a combo of Sharpie and crayon. STUDENT EXAMPLES: For my 4th and 5th grade students, I decided to have them paint their dots only using tempera paint. My absolute favorite tempera paint is Crayola Premier Tempera- in both traditional and fluorescent colors. Having my students begin the same way (with a circle tracer) I also gave my 4th and 5th graders an additional analogous color to the color to they were assigned. For example: the Red table had both reds and oranges at their table. Orange table had oranges and yellows available, so one and so forth. The reason for giving the older students two colors is so that when the dots are all arranged into our rainbow, we have a beautiful natural transition from one color to the next, not an abrupt stop and go between colors. Here are a few examples of my 4th and 5th grade dots. I also allowed them to work on larger paper for dot variety.
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Simple Portrait Back-to-School Bulletin Board
Here is one the many Back-to-school bulletin boards I created inspired by the students at my school! Looking for a great way to fill those empty bulletin boards at the start of the year? Well, huge shout out to @mslevyteachesart and @amyteachesart (their Instagrams linked) for this idea! These awesome teachers used my Simple self-portrait drawing guide to draw larger-than-life children to display on their bulletin boards! When I made my own displays around my school, I actually went ahead and drew illustrations based on real students at my school, and few caught on by saying “Don’t you think that drawing kind of looks like me?” :) Just using white bulletin board paper I sketched out the children in pencil first, then traced the lines using a bingo dauber filled with India ink (a Cassie Stephens hack) After drawing about 25 diverse children I cut them out and arranged them on about 5 different boards around the school. I added a quote to some of them, others just had the children. It should also be noted that the omission of color was an artistic choice based on aesthetics. A great bonus to this display was once I had enough student art to hang, I left two kids as end caps on each board as another way to kind of frame their work. You can see how adorable my second graders’ “The Real Me” lessons look hanging near my illustrations (lesson linked!) Thanks again to two amazing teachers for this idea, my students and staff loved them! To download my Simple Self Portrait Guide that I used in this blog, you can Click Here! Happy Back-To-School season! Above is me “Simple Self Portrait Guide” that I referenced for the bulletin boards. I sketched the kids largely in pencil first then traced in India ink and a chisel tip Sharpie. Here you can see how they add a nice detail around student art! One of the bulletin boards around the school. There were 5 in total!
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10 Eye Catching Teaching Visuals for the Art Room!
1 million years ago (ok, actually 14) when I walked into my first art room there was absolutely nothing in it. Other than tables and chairs, there were no supplies, no white board, no decor. Nada. I had taken a job at a brand new beautiful school which certainly had it’s perks (clean, brand new, not having to inherit a hoarder art teacher’s mess) but also came at the realization that every single thing in the room needed to come from me. Back when I first started teaching there was no Teachers Pay Teachers or really anywhere I could go for classroom decor…. So, I had to make it. Yes, everything! Peep this picture of my classroom and some of the first visuals I made when I first started teaching. This was the year that I made my first “Blabber brush” as I called it, hand drew a color wheel, and created my line direction friends to hang out in the front of my room. Over the course of the next few years, I continued to hand draw nearly everything in my classroom until I began to digitally convert them upon opening my TPT store in 2018. Now, so many years later, I couldn’t be more thrilled with the bright, bold, modern yet kid-friendly art visuals that I have in my room. The best thing about these visuals is not only are they decor, but they are educational tools that my students reference all year long! Double bonus! Here are my absolute favorite eye-catching visuals: The Elements and Principles of Art These Elements and Principles of Art were created in collaboration with my husband who is a super talented graphic designer and can always make my visions a reality when I don’t have the tools myself! We were so PUMPED about these. One of my favorite things about them is they are simplified in the amount of information on the poster, but dynamic in their design to visually illustrate what each element and principle means. I personally don’t prefer text-heavy visuals, I would rather my students see visuals that are short, sweet and relevant to them. 2. The Color Wheel I mentioned earlier that my first year teaching I didn’t even have a color wheel in my art room, so I had to make one myself. So now being able to provide myself and other art teachers with a beautiful, modern color wheel feels like such a huge victory. Not only do I love the appearance of this color wheel but I also love the download comes with smaller color wheels that you can print out, laminate and provide for individual student use. This color wheel and others can be found here. 3. No Drama Llama Ok, I don’t exactly know why… but my students absolutely LOVE this “No Drama Llama”. They think he is the funniest, sassiest little dude and they love referring to him. I originally drew him up as just a funny little classroom expectations reminder but now he’s 100% part of our classroom family! You can download him here. 4. Friendly Reminder Frida In case you can’t tell, I’m really into word bubbles in my art room. I love adding extra personality to my visuals as a way to further connect with my students. I drew up this cute little cartoon Frida Kahlo as a way to remind students of different things around the room. Whether it’s to reminder to get in a straight line, or sanitize your hands on the way out the door. It just seemed like a fun way to gently remind my students vs me blabbering away at them. Frida comes with a few word bubble options as well as a blank template, but I also bought whiteboard contact paper that I cut into a word bubble which makes it super easy to update her when I need to! She can be downloaded here. 5. Art Supply Labels I know these labels don’t really fall under “decor” but they are CRUCIAL in the art room! Not only do I use these supply labels to organize my supply room but I use them for caddy organization for supplies my students use on a daily basis on their tables. These are super helpful to have in the room when there is a substitute, and also great for ESL students or students with special needs who need a picture for visual literacy. I also love using these labels digitally in my presentations to tell students about what supplies they will need for the day’s project. I also have just the clip art available for download here. These labels and clip art was HUGE during remote learning throughout the pandemic. 6. Famous Artists Posters I’m in love, I’m in love and I don’t care who knows it! These are 100% my favorite visuals in the art room. Hands down. Over the years I have had so many different famous artist posters in my classroom but not only were they unappealing to reference (full of tiny text that students would never be able to read from a far distance) but it felt like there was NO diversity in the artists provided. I was so sick of only seeing “dead white guys” being deemed as “famous artists” that I knew we had to make our own if I wanted to see a change in artists being represented. In this Famous Artist Bundle, we currently have 24 artists and growing that represent diverse races, genders, ethnicities, etc. Not to mention that many of these artists are alive and working currently. My number one goal with these visuals was to be able to have my students look at this wall and see someone they could identify with. Not to mention they are bright, colorful, modern and make such a statement when you see them hanging in my room. Plus, the BEST part about these artists is my students automatically turn around to look at the wall every single time I introduce a new project and artist. They use these visuals all the time! You can grab the bundle here or find them separated by volumes 1-4 in my TPT shop. 7. 3 P’s Classroom Expectations This poster is one of my favorites because it’s short, sweet and positive. Laying out clear expectations for my students is really important to me so this poster is one of the first things they see as they enter my room. It’s pretty self explanatory and makes an impact. You can grab it here. 8. Painting Visuals Ok, this actually a 2 in 1. Teaching proper paintbrush care is incredibly important to me so let’s just say I have quite a few visuals that provide "gentle” reminders to my students about my expectations when handling painting supplies. This Paint Brush Care poster was created many many years ago by hand as a way to help my students be more mindful of the care of the bristles of the paintbrushes. I am a big fan of personification so making these brushes kind of come alive was a blast. My students get such a tickle when they compare my slick and smooth bristled paintbrush to the “BAD HAIR DAY” paintbrush. I greatly depend on my “Dip Wipe Swipe” poster when teaching my young students how to paint with watercolors. Nothing would drive me crazier than the * tap tap tapping* of paintbrushes on the rim of the water cup. I wanted to come up with a catchy slogan to remind them to wipe their brush on the lip of the cup vs. tap. You can find both of these visuals in my TPT shop! 9. “Every Child is an Artist” Poster A staple quote and visual in my art room. I have always loved this quote by Picasso so why not make it so all students know that they are each an artist whether they realize it or not. Above you will see a large bulletin board display in my art room but we also created a poster with a similar aesthetic below available for download here. 10. Blabber Brush If you remember from earlier in this post I shared a photo of my original “Blabber Brush”. This was my art teacher solution to monitoring the noise level in the classroom. I have this visual hanging on my front board near my rules and procedures. On each color, I have a small piece of velcro and the corresponding piece on the paintbrush. I then place the paintbrush on the color/ noise level I would like to keep them on while they work. Many times they work on red- but this is not a bad thing at all! This is simply when I need my students to be quietly focused on their own work, or as I also say “how real art studios sound”. This visual has been a life saver and has carried me through over a decade of teaching! To download your own, click here! I hope that these visuals help spark some ideas for you as you set up your art room. If you’re looking to purchase the visuals I shared above you can find them all and much MORE in my Classroom Decor Growing Bundle in my Teachers Pay Teachers shop. Have fun and best of luck this school year!
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8 Tips For Setting Up Your Art Room
Setting up your art room for a new school year can feel overwhelming, but a well-organized space sets the stage for creativity and success! These 8 practical tips will help you create a functional, inspiring, and stress-free environment for both you and your students.
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