Sunday, April 21, 2013

Peacock Resources

Amsel, Sheri. “How to Draw Birds.” Peacock Drawing Lesson. Exploring Nature Educational Resource. © 2005 - 2013. April 21, 2013. <http://exploringnature.org/db/detail.php?dbID=46&detID=2884>


How to Draw a Peacock:
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Kindergarten Pendants and Clay Beads

This is a great Kindergarten level clay project...each kid is guaranteed good results!

My only advice is to take the first day slow and in very simple steps. Some kids gets it right away and others take more time...but eventually they'll all have something that's fun.

We start with a large chunk of clay and basically divide that chunk in half.  Leave one chunk alone and roll the other chunk into a ball.

The ball will become the pendant...squish it flat like an oreo and press toys/textures into it. The teacher will write their names on the back of the pendant and poke the hole in the top.

The other chunk of clay will become the beads. I show them how to divide it in half, they echo that step. Then they will divide the two chunks into two more pieces...so basically they'll have 4 chunks of clay. I then show them how to roll those pieces into balls, which will become the beads. They push them onto kabob sticks (carefully!) and they can draw on them with pencils or push more textures into them.

Once they're done they bring their plates to me and they clean up.








Carefully pushing them onto kabobs...I try to get them to get the bead "centered" on the stick so it doesn't fall off. 



I also showed them how to make 'square' beads by pressing them on their clay boards to flatten the edges. 





Here's how I load them into the kiln ...I place the pendant down first, then stack the beads on top. I separate the classes with these long stilts. 


More pictures coming soon of painting the beads and assembling the necklaces.



Day Two: Painting the beads....doing the 'metallic' treatment.

and

Day Three:  Assembling the Necklace...and wearing it home!






Peacock Paintings

I did this project last year with my 2nd graders and I loved it. So here we are again. This is day one of the project...discussing Indian Peacocks, Penhens and Peafowls. We practice drawing a peacock in our Idea Books and then we draw the body and first set of feathers on blue 9x18 paper. We painted the peacock and the metallic feathers. Next class we will make the "eyes of the gods"/concentric circles and we'll paint the base color for our feather on the blue paper. 

This project is inpsired by Patty at DeepSpaceSparkle.com and here's the link to her project for 1st grade: 


Here's some great links for Peacock Info...and a video to show. 


Here's a great video that kids really enjoyed: 

Here's a great photo for the first day...
A male peafowl (a peacock) displaying his tail feathers








Day Two : Painting the eyes of the gods and some background feathers. 








Adding the eyes of the gods....here's a class that has run out of time for this project so on their Day Two I had them draw the eyes of the gods on their paper and paint directly on the blue. The other classes collaged their eyes of the gods from other paper. Both ways work, the collage looks best! 










TCAP Pep Rally Poster

Oh the joys of being an art teacher...getting to make 50 foot signs!