3rd Grade Art Lessons

Please Note: All images seen below are of my students artwork only. These photos/lessons are not posted in any particular order regarding the flow of my curriculum.

3-D WINTER MUGS

This lesson incorporates 5 of the 7 Elements of Art- (line, shape, color, texture, and form), as well as perspective, and one of the Principles of Art “variety”! 

Read below for more info. on how we created these beauties!!

This was a 4 day art lesson.

Day 1 Students drew 2 different patterns on 9×12” heavy weight tagboard in pencil. A line was created to divide the patterns and create a wall and a table.

They then either traced over their lines or colored in shapes with oil pastels.

On a smaller sheet (9” x 4.5” ) of heavy weight tagboard, they created patterns and designs for their mug and traced with oil pastels.

Day 2– students finished coloring with oil pastels

Day 3– students painted their 2 papers with watercolors, creating an oil pastel resist. They also painted a small piece of tag (3” x 4.5”) for their mug’s handle.

Day 4– Students assembled their pieces together! They first flipped the mug paper over and folded back the ends, creating 2 flaps. Then they glued the flaps down to their background papers as they curved their mug paper creating a three-dimensional mug. They drew the handles by drawing the letter C on the back of the painted 3” x 4.5” papers, cut the C shape out and glued into place. The final touch was adding a small amount of polyester batting to the mug for steam!!

I have a YouTube tutorial on this lesson — just click on “Art Instruction Videos” under the drop down menu to view! 

Complementary Creature Prints

For this fun printmaking lesson, on day 1, students listen to the story Where the Wild Things Are by artist/writer Maurice Sendak for inspiration.

Students then practice drawing and planning at least (3) different ideas for their own made up creature in their sketchbooks. They then enlarge their favorite sketch onto a sheet of 8.5 x11” printer paper making sure to draw their creature big on the paper. I also explain, if they include any letters or numbers that they need to be drawn backwards in order for the image to be printed the correct way. This part can be a bit tricky to understand, so I refer to rubber stamps and stamp pads to help them get why they need to draw letters and numbers backwards, and show them by stamping on a scrap paper.

On day 2, students then transfer their drawing onto a 9×12″ styrofoam sheet. They do this by taping their drawing along only the top of the styrofoam (with a small piece of masking tape, so it flips up and “opens” and “closes”), then trace over all their lines using a dull pencil while pressing firmly into the styrofoam (using a sharpened pencil can poke holes or tear the styrofoam easier). Once complete, drawings are then taken off the styrofoam and students trace over all their lines a second time, to ensure a deep enough impression of their drawing.

On day 3, students then color in their styrofoam sheet using complementary colors with marker. They learned that complementary colors are opposite each other on the color wheel and consist of 1 primary color and 1 secondary color (red & green, blue & orange, and purple & yellow). They also learned that they make an image POP and stand out to the viewer when used next to one another. I tell them to make sure their markers are “juicy”, and if they are drying out to find another one.

Students choose 2 sets of complementary colors. They color the background with one set of complementary colors, then their creature with a second set of complementary colors. (For example, red and green for the background, and blue and orange for their creature). The background can be coloring in with shapes, blocks of color, patters… any way they want as  long as the entire styrofoam sheet is colored in, leaving no white showing.

On days 4-5, students create at least (3) prints of their drawing. I explain they make 3 instead of just 1 because the first one might not come out clear, and that it takes a bit of trial and error.

They do this by wetting a sheet of 9×12″ 80# drawing paper paper with a spray bottle ( I use recycled cleaner spray bottles that I rinse out really good before using) and wipe with a damp sponge to help spread the water evenly into the paper. I explain to kids and demo to not over wet the paper, but also to make sure it’s damp enough to make the marker transfer. Usually 7-8 full sprays will do.

Then they press the colored styrofoam face down onto the dampened paper.They roll a brayer over the entire backside of the Styrofoam with one hand, while holding down another area of the styrofoam with another hand, to transfer the marker. Students need to make sure not to move the styrofoam when doing this step, or it makes the print blurry. The water from the paper soaks up the ink from the marker on the styrofoam and transfers their image, creating a print. They check all four corners and press into any “bald” areas where needed, before lifting the styrofoam off completely.

Students then color their styrofoam again and repeat the steps above, practice creating 3 prints to obtain the clearest image possible.

Learning Goals:

-Students use their imagination to creatively draw their own unique creature

-Learn about the printmaking process/ understand what a print is

-Understand and be able to identify complementary colors

-Learn about the artist/ writer Maurice Sendak

To view my YouTube tutorial on this lesson, click on “Art Instruction Videos” under the drop down menu! 

Finish The Picture

For this lesson, students selected a cut out portion of an image from a magazine, glued it onto drawing paper and used what information they had from their cut out, to envision what the rest of the image should look like. I prep this part well in advance- cutting out images from magazines and fun, colorful catalogs. (Anthropologie has Ah-ma-zing imagery that I tend to use a lot of!) I spread them all out on a large table and have groups of 5 or 6 students come up to select an image.

Students then glue down their cut out using a glue stick, on a 9×12″ sheet of drawing paper, making sure to have room around it. They then carefully draw in pencil “finishing ” their picture, to finish the rest of the image. Students had to keep in mind that their drawing needed to make sense, and make sure their drawing connected with their selected cut out. I’ve done this lesson the other way, letting them go crazy and make silly ones, that don’t have to make sense, but I like the challenge of keeping it realistic.

Once their image was complete, students colored in their drawing with colored pencils, or crayons trying to best match the colors in their magazine cut out. Here I talk about color blending and how to overlap colors in order to try to best match colors. Scraps of paper are available in order to test out what colors work best.

This is a challenging lesson, and students did AMAZING work!

 Learning Goals:

-Use their imagination to finish the cut out image in order to complete the picture in a realistic manner

-Develop skills on color blending and color matching

POLAR BEARS – 3RD GRADE

How adorable are these bears?! We used liquid watercolors and salt for the background, then a guided drawing of the polar bear and black oil pastel for shading! Read below students artwork to read how we created them!

DAY 1

On the first day of this 2 day lesson, students painted their background sky for the polar bear.

I put out bowls of turquoise and magenta liquid watercolors and bowls of kosher salt. 3rd graders watched me do a quick painting demo under the doc camera first, reviewing the wet-on-wet painting technique. First applying only water to the top half of their 12×18″ 80# white drawing paper, then adding whichever color paint they want first to the wet areas on their paper. Kids always love seeing how the paint spreads and feathers outward when doing wet-on-wet!

I encouraged students to paint randomly, and let the two colors merge here and there. If they created somewhat of a stripey effect with the two colors, I showed them how to brush on only water between the two stripes to help blend them together and blur the lines a bit more.

They loved watching the variety of lavender and purple hues develop when the turquoise and magenta paint mixed!

Once half the paper was painted and while still wet, students sprinkled salt over that area creating a salt resist technique! 3rd graders remembered this technique when they created the 3D Water lily last year in 2nd grade. Once dry, the salt crystals leave behind white areas that resemble snowflakes in the sky. For our 3D waterlilies project, the salted areas resembled light reflecting off the water background for the waterlily.

Once half of the paper was painted and salted, they wet the other half with just water and repeated painting and adding salt to the remaining half. Working on half the paper first, ensures the area is still wet enough for the salt. If the paper is too dry (the paint has dried up and the paper isn’t wet enough) the salt has nothing to absorb to create the snowflake effect.

Paintings were set aside to dry until the following art class.

Once dry, I brushed off all of the salt on student’s paintings and flattened them under a pile of heavy books.

DAY 2

3rd graders followed along with me while I did a guided drawing of the polar bear on 12×18″ 80# paper. To go to my blog post on this lesson and view my step-by-step photos that show how to draw the bear, type in “Polar bears – 3^rd grade” in the search box HERE.

Once drawn in pencil, I showed students how to add the black oil pastel. First we traced over all our lines with the black oil pastel. Then colored in the eyes and nose except for the small shiny reflective parts, where it remained white.

Then using one finger, smudge the oil pastel, following the direction of the lines drawn for each area, creating shadows within the polar bears fur. The only areas you don’t smudge are in the polar bears eyes, nose and mouth.

Where the curve of the belly is, we drew a few curving lines with oil pastel and smudged a U shape to give him MORE chubby cuteness!

Then draw a straight horizontal line where the curve of the belly is on either side of the polar bear with pencil. This creates the snow the polar bear is standing on.

Once finished smudging, students cut out their bears. Cut following the horizontal line, then cut following the curve of the body of the bear and to the other horizontal line. Now the bear and the snowy ground are cut out as one piece.

Then glue the back with a glue stick, (especially around the edges), then glue onto the painting, lining up both papers edges!

Voila! I LOVE these polar bears so much!

LEARNING GOALS:

Students can create salt resist paintings and understand the technique

Students can utilize the elements of art line, shape, and value to create their polar bears.

This wonderful lesson idea is from @2art.chambers (with a few changes). Thanks LauraLee!

To go to my blog post on this lesson and view my step-by-step photos that show how to draw the bear, type in “Polar bears – 3^rd grade” in the search box HERE.

KINETIC PIRANHA 

This was a fun kinetic art project whose full effect depends on opening the folded paper!

For this lesson, students were introduced to some really cool, various kinetic artwork (and videos) by artist Theo Jansen and Anthony Howe.

I showed them examples of previous students kinetic piranha’s as well as my example piranha’s and how they opened and closed, showing the mouth closed when the paper is folded and the mouth wide open, when the paper is unfolded.

Students each received a piece of 12×18″ thick tagboard that was folded into an accordion fold, held with a paperclip. While closed, students drew their fish in pencil adding detailed complex patterns in the fish’s body and/or fins.

They then opened up the paper entirely so you could see the top and bottom parts of the fish with the paper in the middle blank. They then connected their lines from the fishes mouth from the top drawing to the bottom drawing, stretching it out and drawing the mouth wide open.

Students drew detailed patterns within their fish, then added other details like big sharp teeth,  smaller fish and other imaginative things about to get eaten by their piranha!

Students went over all their lines with a thick black sharpie marker, and on the second and third day of the lesson, students carefully added bright colors with marker.

Third graders LOVED this lesson, and I think they came out great, don’t you?

Thanks Mr. O (http://mrosartroom.blogspot.com/) for this fun lesson idea!

Learning Goals:

– Learn about and have an understanding on kinetic art and create their own kinetic piranha

– Be able to create intricate patterns and show that in their work

– Learn about artists Theo Jansen, Anthony Howe and other artists that create kinetic art

Matisse Inspired Collages

Students in third grade learned about the life and artwork of French artist Henri Matisse.

I read them the story Henri’s Scissors by Jeanette Winter, and showed them a power point of his work throughout the years.

We talked about how Henri Matisse used a lot of bright, bold colors in his work, used simplified shapes to create his art, was one of a few painters in his day who started a new painting style in art called “fauvism” -(stemming from the word fauve, which means “wild beast”!) and how he would create his own personal painted papers for his collages.

They also learned how he would cut right into the painted papers without drawing first, and called his technique “painting with scissors”.

For this Matisse inspired lesson, students created their own “painted papers” by first folding a 12×18″ piece of paper two times, in order to create (4) 6×9″ rectangles. After unfolding the paper, students painted each rectangular section with bright, colorful liquid tempera paint in any way they wanted. Students were encouraged to experiment with color and use different colors within each section.

In the following class, we talked about abstract art, and how it mostly focuses on lines, shapes and colors, and how art doesn’t always have to be a “picture of something”. Students then cut out each rectangle from their painted paper, then cut various free-flowing, organic shapes from each section, cutting straight into their papers, without drawing first, just like Matisse did. In addition, students chose 5 pieces of colored construction paper to cut organic shapes from as well, to add to the pile of cut shapes for their collage.

They then arranged all their cut pieces on a sheet of 12×18″ white tagboard, moving them around on the paper, considering the composition and overlapping at least 5 shapes, before gluing into place.

I really love teaching this lesson.The vivid colors and arrangements of shapes turn out so beautifully and each collage ends up looking so unique!

Learning Goals:

-Learn about the life and artwork of Henri Matisse

-Can identify organic shapes and be able to create them with cut paper

-Can define the term composition

-Understand the term “abstract” and create their own unique abstract artwork

-Demonstrate an understanding of overlapping and show that within their artwork

Day of the Dead Sugar Skull Drawings

Dia de los Muertos (Day of the dead in Spanish )  is a Mexican holiday and festival held from October 31st – November 2nd to remember friends and family members who have died and is celebrated throughout Mexico and by people of Mexican heritage living in the United States.

Day of the Dead is not a sad or depressing time, but a time of happiness and celebration! There are festivals and parades and dancing with colorful costumes, often with people wearing skull-shaped masks or painted masks with face paint -to honor, remember and celebrate the memories of those who have died.

On day 1 -Students traced an image of their chosen skull (that’s been taped to a piece of tagboard covered in tinfoil) using a dull pencil. The traced print out image is then removed, revealing their transferred image on the foil.

On day 2 -They colored in the designs of their skull on the tinfoil with colored sharpies.

This lesson ties in to our next lesson -(studying the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo and creating self-portraits inspired by her work with oil pastels!)

Learning goals: 

(Connection to history) Students learn about Mexican culture and Dios de los Muertos

Students learn new techniques and processes and can successfully transfer an image to tinfoil

Self-Portrait with Personal Symbols

For this lesson, students learned about the artist Frida Kahlo, who is well known for her self-portrait paintings and incorporating symbols into her artwork.

First, third graders practiced drawing their self-portrait while observing themselves in a mirror, in their sketchbooks, focusing on drawing just their head, neck and shoulders large on the paper.

I demonstrated how to draw facial features in correct proportion to the head. The eyes are similar to almond, football, or lemon shapes, the nose (and I focus showing them how to draw the nostrils mainly) is like drawing a “c” shape, an upside down “u”, a “u”, upside down “u” then a backwards “c” shape), and the mouth is like drawing a stretched out letter “m”, a letter “u” underneath in the center connecting to the top edges, then a curved line on the bottom.

Students drew a final version on 12×18″ 80# paper and drew six or more personal symbols around them. I explain how their symbols should reflect their personality. They could connect to things that they enjoy doing, things that are important to them, a favorite memory, favorite foods, things they like in general etc. I explain not to draw the symbols smaller than your closed fist, otherwise it becomes really challenging when trying to color in with oil pastels later on and keeping the details intact.

On days 2-4 of the lesson, students first practiced blending 2 (or more) colors together using oil pastels to create their unique skin color on separate scrap paper, then held it to their face in the mirror. Once they found what colors blended together best matched their skin color, they colored in their skin first, then added color to the rest of their self-portrait and symbols.

As a final step, students chose one color to color in the background, to make their self-portrait and symbols stand out,  filling in the entire paper so no white paper was showing.

Learning Goals:

– Continue to develop color blending skills and learn how to blend their unique skin color using oil pastels

– Learn how to draw facial features using correct facial proportion

– Can define the term symbol, and create them in their work

– Learn about the artist Frida Kahlo and her self-portraits

Other years I taught this lesson using only crayons to color. These also came out wonderfully!

Art Tool Sketchbook Cover 

For every grade level (1st-5th) I have students create a drawing that gets mounted onto a sketchbook for each student to use throughout the year. The sketchbooks stay in my art room in grade level/ classroom bins. Each grade has a different drawing lesson and creates different artwork from other grades.

To create the actual sketchbooks, students folded a sheet of 12×18″ 60# paper in half horizontally, for the cover. Students then staple in 12 sheets of pre-cut 8.5 x11″ paper (donated extra long printer paper -8.5 x 14″- Legal size- that I cut to 8.5 x 11″ ahead of time).  *Any left over cut scraps of white paper are then used for other collages/lessons. Then their drawings get glued onto the cover. 

Great for when kids finish early, plus it keeps all (what usually would be) loose practice drawings all in one contained place. Students use sketchbooks to free draw in once finished with an art lesson (if they finish early), as well as to practice drawing/plan out their ideas, before doing a final version. 

Growing up, I had sketchbooks and diary’s that I would draw in and I think it’s so fun to be able to look back on something like that. My students will have sketchbooks from 1st-5th grade, a new one every year to be able to look back on and see /track their own artistic growth throughout the years! Especially fun when you’re older to dig up all your old sketchbooks from your parents keepsake chest and flip through as an adult! 

So for this particular sketchbook cover drawing lesson, third grade students drew an art room tool multiple times in different perspectives.

For this challenging drawing project, students chose one art room tool and drew it from at least four different viewpoints (looking at it from the front, the back, the side, from above from below, and tilted etc.). I set out multiple objects to choose from ahead of time on a long table (paint bottles, glue bottles, paint foam rollers, hole punchers, staplers, tape dispensers, scissors etc.) They could draw from more than four perspectives if they wanted to, but only from one tool.  Students had the choice to overlap their objects, have some come off the page, and could color them with whatever colors they wanted with markers.

Sketchbooks are used throughout the year to plan out ideas, work on an extension of the current lesson if finished early, to have fun and experiment, and to practice drawing.

Learning Goals:

–  Understand the purpose of an artist’s sketchbook

–  Demonstrate an understanding on how to draw something from different viewpoints

–  Develop observational drawing skills

Sunset Silhouettes

On day 1 for this lesson, students painted a sunset sky with tempera cakes  on 12×18″ paper and let dry until the next class.

On day 2, they drew an outline of either a landscape or cityscape from one edge of the paper to the other, on 12×18″ black construction paper, making sure to draw in one continuous line, or that their lines at least touch one another and connect.

After carefully cutting along their pencil line and cutting out the silhouette of their landscape or cityscape as one piece, they glued their cut out along the bottom of their painting with a glue stick.

Students could then add other cut out details for the sky (like birds, planes, or hot air balloons etc.) to add more objects in silhouette.

Learning Goals:

-Students can explain and identify what a silhouette is and create them in their artwork