Below is the work of students I have taught at One River School of Art + Design, in Frisco, TX. I also included some of my demonstrations along with their work.
In my 3rd - 5th grade class, we were working on pastel portraits with complementary color schemes.
We did a project on lines of symmetry in my 3rd - 5th grade class. Students were tasked with using creating a mirror image of their name and turning it into a creature. We decided this one looked a little bit like a sting ray!
A student working on her cityscape design for a printmaking project
Here’s the final reveal of the printmaking cityscape project! We used sheets of foam and made indents with mandala tools.
Op Art hearts, courtesy of my K-2 class.
These are a couple of my demos from a character mash-up project I did with students at Maus middle school when I was subbing. I liked this project so much, I introduced it to my 3rd - 5th grade students at One River. I forgot to get pictures of my their work, though! It was really fun.
My teen class wanted to try the printmaking project, so I challenged them to use perspective for theirs.
K-2 learned a lot in this project. They learned how to make an armature, what a bust is, how to slip and score and design their own unique character. Finally, it is time for paint!
This one is from one of my adult students who wanted to learn to paint portraits in oil. We worked on glazing, which is an oil painting technique where you apply the paint in thin layers. Building colors on top of one another creates rich tones and adds depth.
In my K-2 class, we learned how to make mosaics. My students painted two pieces of paper in watercolor. One piece was for the background. On the second piece, they chose a color scheme, and painted 3-4 colors in strips across the paper. Then, they practiced their cutting skills by cutting out mosaic pieces and gluing them to the background.
In my teen class, students were working on realistic landscape drawings in graphite.
This drawing was done in graphite and charcoal by a fourth grader! We worked on value and blending techniques with the tortillon.
Here’s my 3rd- 5th grade group showing off their cityscape printmaking projects! The background is in watercolor.
We were working on monochromatic portraits in my teen class. One of my students decided to do a portrait of Matthew Perry in charcoal. I introduced him to Maas Art (one of my favorite portrait artists) and some of his techniques.
This artwork is from a lesson in perspective from my teen class.
Demos I did as a substitute teacher at Maus Middle School for a still life project.
After learning and practicing line of action, my teen student starts on her final sketch.
This was a really cool project we worked on in 3rd - 5th grade. We did a study of trees and positive and negative space. We took our favorite tree we drew, traced it, and transferred it to watercolor paper. We painted the negative spaces with white gouache. We then painted black India ink over the entire page, let it dry, and rinsed it off. This is the final result! We loved the way these came out!
In summer 2024, One River hosted The T-shirt Project. Every student (and teacher!) was tasked with drawing a uniquely “weird” character inspired by artist Chris Piascik. They all came together on this t-shirt. It was a fun collab project! Mine is the dragon fruit.
I worked an event for One River hosted by Stafford Middle School. We walked the students through creating a unique creature painting in acrylic.
This was one of my demonstrations for a teen class using pastel pencils.
A pop art kitty in marker by a kindergartener!
Another reveal in progress. This was one of our favorite projects this year.
We designed our own stencils in 3rd-5th to make Op Art.
I share my love of pastels with everyone I teach, and I inadvertently created little pastel fanatics, so I came up with this abstract art project for my K-2 class. We used glue to make squiggly outlines, let it dry, and filled in the spaces with pastel. I challenged them not to put the same color next to each other.
Close-up of the abstract pastel project.
The beginnings of a beautiful portrait by one of my very talented teen students. This was a study of color theory.
I taught a fashion illustration camp over the summer. Students designed their own patterns and learned to draw proportions using a croquis.