Chalk Pastel Bunnies for Easter

How adorable are these little guys?!? 

I experimented with a new bunny portrait lesson this year.  These bunnies were created by my little Grade 1 and 2 artists.

Created by 6 year old artist!

I love chalk pastels.  They are one of my favourite mediums to work with.  

But be forwarned as they are VERY messy.  

We did this lesson over 3 days as I spent the first day letting them explore the pastels on large sheets of newsprint and then practising how to make our bunny shapes.  We also practised not putting our free hand onto the markings we made on our papers...

The students started with a neck, then made 2 touching circles (like a sideways 8).  They traced over their circles repeatedly, trying to make them both the same size.  Its okay if they aren't right on the first go as you can always add to the shapes and rub away some of the mistakes.  Once the circles were pretty equal they continued tracing their circles a few more times.

Next they added a "hill" on the 8.  Again tracing until they were happy it was fairly centred on the sideways 8.

Next they added the ears.  I had said that they kind of make an M shape, and as you can see some of them took that very literally!! 

Once they were happy with their bunny form they were asked to use ONE finger to blend the chalk as if they were re-drawing the bunny - going in circle motions around the 8, back and forth on the hill, and the ears they were free to colour in the the chalk.  They were to try to drag the chalk into the shapes to fill them as they were tracing.

For the next part we switched to oil pastels.  They made a small upside down triangle in the 'dip' of the top of the sideways 8 and drew a line and upside down Y for the rest of the muzzle.  Eyes were added to the sides of the head and inner ears were coloured.

I got them to paint the backgrounds in liquid water colors to wash away any fingerprints around the bunny heads.

The final touch was to add whiskers with a black sharpie.

Easter Bunny

Here is a cute and simple little art activity my Grade 1/2 class did for Easter.  

We did a directed drawing of these whimsical bunny rabbits on paper trimmed to 7 X 12.  Then we used oil pastels for colour and outlining.  The final step was to paint around the rabbits with water color paints.

Here is the step by step, similar to my Reindeer Portraits step by step:

 Students put their non-drawing hand at the bottom of the paper and draw around their hand (not tracing their hand) to make the head shape.  They put a dot in each of the top corners.  This will help them make their ears nice and long.





 

 Using the dots as guides, student connect the dot to the top of the head making the ears. Next they draw a dot in the center of the face.

From that dot they will make 2 circular shapes beneath it.  Encourage big shapes.  They do not need to be even or symmetrical.

The final step is to add a little bump for the nose, 2 teeth, whiskers that extend outside of the head and the inner ears.









Here are a few more examples from my students:

Salt Dough Squirrels

If you liked my salt dough skunks then I hope you'll like these squirrels too!

My Grade 1s and 2s created these cuties with salt dough and following the same steps as the skunks.  Unfortunately I decided on trying a new recipe that did not work in our favor!  The dough was heavier on the flour - I thought that would make it smoother.  And as the squirrels baked the holes in the backs closed in more than I liked.  We also had a few that cracked!  I'll go back to my old recipe and turn down the oven for extra precaution.

We also only used half of the chenille stem as we did with the skunks.  I should have followed the same procedure as before as the tails could have used a bit more fluff.

This student forgot to make ears so we made some out of brown felt.  I think I like it the best!

For a step by step tutorial visit my Salt Dough Skunks

Making Connections

  

In my grade one class we have been doing a lot of work on making "connections" when reading.  I read them the heartwarming Melanie Watt story Augustine.  In it, a little penguin moves with her family from the South Pole to the North Pole.  She misses her friends and grandparents and is nervous about starting a new school.   All the while Augustine has her art supplies and stuffie named Picasso to help her along.  It touches on familiar themes such as feeling left out and making friends. I thought this was a perfect book as we have been discussing families, changes in our lives, and friendship this term. 

I also love that each page parodies a famous art work with Augustine in mind - a few of my really sharp cookies managed to make one or two connections there!

To do this lesson we drew our sketch of Augustine onto lilac construction paper.  I did give them a tracer template for the head so that they had a good starting point and reference as to how big I wanted the drawing.  They then followed a step by step drawing, following my instructions on how to complete the rest of the body.  Basically, Augustine is shaped much like a snowman, with each lower section slightly bigger than the last.  We then adjusted the midsection to create flippers.  Next we drew the beak and all the other facial features and finally the feet.

We used white pastel to outline our drawings and colour in the face.  Orange and black pastels were also used where needed.  We actually used a grey crayon for the body and not pastel.  We did this for 2 reasons.  First, I only have 5 grey pastels.  Most standard sets of 8 or 12 do not contain grey.  Second, I kind of wanted the lilac paper to show through the grey a bit as Augustines fur is like this in the illustrations.

We then cut out our penguins and glued them to a green sheet of construction paper with a strip of magenta for the floor.  Simple, but super cute.  If I had more time for this lesson I would have added her red backpack and maybe even her suitcase, as seen on the cover of the book.



The one above is one of my favorites!  Why so sad, Augustine??



I love the way this one looks a bit like it is dancing!!!

We also wrote out one of our connections to add to our bulletin board.

Raccoons

My class has been learning about nocturnal animals and last week we focused on raccoons.  I actually lost sleep over this particular project!  I just couldn't decide what approach I was going to take!  I originally thought I would have the kids paint their drawings grey and then do the pastel details on top after the paint was dry.  Then I couldn't decide if I should do just a close-up of the face or a full body.  I had to include that tail though, so it couldn't just be the face.  After googling many different raccoon pictures for some inspiration I came across this idea from Apex Art.  I modified it a bit by doing our drawings right onto brown construction paper and had the kids colour in their details with oil pastels.