Paint It Kids (Guest Post)

Posted on September 22, 2020 by Squarehead Teachers

I am definitely not an artist, so teaching art lessons is not my strength. Add in the complexity of virtual learning, and I was at a total loss. So, I asked my friend (and illustrator), Jessica to explain a little bit about the art studio she works for, in hopes that it might help teachers still bring art into their curriculum amidst the swamp of work caused by COVID-19. Here is what Jessica said…

Paint It! Kids is a small art studio that decided to jump on YouTube and start a channel that has been showing kids cute and fun ways to paint and draw their favorite animals and characters. However, when we realized this school year is something that we have never seen before, Paint it Kids decided that we would upgrade our playlist! Paint It KIDS just released a Elements of Art video series, with more to come. These short animated videos are a great jumping off point in your art lesson. We also have begun production on a new art history series! Our first episode is up on Leonardo da Vinci. We have also begun production for the Principles of Art and Design series. We are releasing new content every week. Feel free to comment on any video for new lessons that you would like to see us create! Links Below:

Full YouTube Channel: Paint It Kids – YouTubewww.youtube.com › channel

Color: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09L6dJS9ZO0

Texture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSQHTx3nOBA

Space: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBZun4ZHWNQ

Value: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Av8ppwR2w7I

Form: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8krIo9GrU-4

Shape: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oREYokz93dk

Line: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3gRs8Q8elg

Spoken/hand drawn videos are for younger kids:

Lines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tzt0V7J65mQ

Shapes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7EEOlSJIjo

Color mixing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cxhwDahbm0

Self portrait: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucwF-3N2uDQ

Our first art history video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bpwmgdZbJw

If your school does not allow YouTube on campus, we do have all our videos ad free, with workbooks with each video for your students to complete with new content every week. Check us out at Paint It Kidswww.paintitkids.tv

Self-Portrait Color Wheel (Collaborative Mural)

Posted on April 9, 2015 by Squarehead Teachers

My friend, Rachel, recently helped coordinate this mind-blowing art project at her school:

I. LOVE. THIS. IDEA.

It incorporates so much good stuff into one project! Collaboration, color wheel discussion, self-portrait and drawing principles, and the list goes on. It’s especially cool to see the improvement kids make in drawing as they get older (there were drawings from all grades in the mural). Although it is a fair amount of work to put together, this art project is definitely something that all the kids (and community members) will love to look at. Finally, the kids who participated can feel a sense of accomplishment knowing that they contributed and that as part of a team, they accomplished something they could never do on their own. Great job, Rachel!

Here’s some information about how you can organize this project.

Download Free Art Books from Famous Museums

Posted on April 7, 2015 by Squarehead Teachers

As teachers, we love finding free resources. So naturally, my heart leaped when I found two articles about hundreds of free art books you can download from the Getty Museum in Los Angeles and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Click here to read the article about the Getty’s books and click here to read about the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s books.

The article also contained links to articles about images being put into the public domain for free use. Hooray for open educational resources! Looking for more openly licensed (free to use!) K-12 content? Click here to check out Open Culture’s section on K-12.

St. Patrick’s Day Pattern Art Project

Posted on March 5, 2015 by Squarehead Teachers

Clover Pattern STICKER

How is it March already!? This blows my mind! Anyway, remember the snowflake and Valentine’s Day pattern art projects I posted recently? Well, I made one more of those, but this time, they’re clovers for St. Patrick’s Day! The basic idea is that you fill in each section with solid color or a pattern. Each one will turn out very different, but still pretty cool! Again, you can let your students make their own from scratch by letting them trace different sized clovers on their own paper instead of using the printable below.

Click here for the free printable PDF: Pattern Party- Clover

Valentine’s Day Pattern Art Project

Posted on February 8, 2015 by Squarehead Teachers

Heart pattern project STICKER

I recently blogged about a DIY Zentangle (patterns) art project I ran into and loved. So I made my own version using snowflake shapes. It was so fun, that I had to make another one… with hearts for Valentine’s Day!

Click here for the free printable PDF: Pattern Party- Hearts

If you have an older grade class and you’re looking for a more complex project, you could use your school’s die-cut machine to cut our a bunch of card-stock hearts of varying sizes. Then let your students create their own version of the printable I made. Just warn them not to create too many sections or too small of sections. This will help ensure that ti doesn’t take them FOREVER to complete it!

Winter Pattern Art Project

Posted on January 23, 2015 by Squarehead Teachers

I recently came across the following picture and I instantly wanted to try making one!

I think it’d be even cooler with holiday themed shapes like hearts, clovers, snowflakes, etc. So I played around on my computer and came up with this. If you teach a lower grade class, maybe have your students color a section with a single color rather than trying to add the complexity of coming up with a pattern for that sections. Feel free to try it and let me know how it goes!

Snowflake Pattern Art STICKER

Click here to view the free printable PDF:Crazy snowflakes

Giveaway Coming This Week!

Posted on December 8, 2014 by Squarehead Teachers

I’ve been working with my friends over at the Roylco Little Fingers, Big Art blog to put together something special for you! This week, I’ll be launching my Christmas giveway with a special prize for one lucky winner! Check back this week for a chance to enter!