Lesson At A Glance

A brief overview of each step. Buttons jump to each section for detailed information.

15 Minutes – Artists’ Choice Dogs

20 Min – Cut and paste. Make snowy ground

25 Min – decorate and paint trees. Paste!

10 Min – View shapes on dogs. Use slideshow.

15 Min – Draw dog using handout

15 Min – Color dog and background

5 Min – Everyone helps

SCROLL & TEACH

LESSONPLAN

Each section is a different color. Read over once and then you can SCROLL & TEACH using any device you like. It’s designed to work best with your phone.

Kneel down so that you are on their level. Bending over emphasizes the differences in your height, while kneeling makes them feel more important. Have tape and marker ready so you can stick some tape on the table by each student and write their name on it as they sit down.

Everyone should take their time with the work and make a finished piece of art. Limiting the paper can also help kids focus on the work. If someone finishes in super-fast time, ask them what more they can do to the existing paper. Ask again several times – unless they appear overly frustrated; then you can allow them to move on to a new work.

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Students will draw a simple snowy landscape background on blue paper using white oil pastel. Then they’ll cut triangle trees out of cover stock that will be drawn on with oil pastels also, but only using lines that will resist watercolor paints. The white lines will look like snow on the trees.

Watercolors will be added in the next step.

Tree Shapes

Each student recieves coverstock to cut three triangle-shaped trees, which they will later paint. Tell students to cut out trees along the lines.

Paper Globe

Hand out both the blue paper circle and the coverstock circle with base. Have students use a white oil pastel to draw snowy ground on the bottom half of the blue paper to start their snowglobe scene.

Then students will use a hand-glue stick to cover the back of the blue circle and paste it onto their globes.

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If you have enough printing rollers at hand, you can use them first for pressing the paper onto the blocks for actual printmaking, and if you have enough, you can also use them to apply the paint or ink to the block instead of using brushes.

It’s helpful to place the paint or ink on a very smooth flat surface such as a mirror tile or glass panel (tape over  the sharp edges really well with duct tape).

Students decorate their trees.

Artists will use their oil pastels to come up with designs and decorations and fill their trees with lines.

Encourage students to use white for snow, but they can use many colors to draw ornaments, string lights and whatever else they decide to adorn their trees with.

Explain that we will paint these after they are all drawn on. The white will magically appear when they add the watercolors to make the trees green.

Painted winter trees

• Once all the trees have gotten their oil pastel designs students set up for watercolor in order to fully color their card stock trees. 
• Pass out paints, water, paper towels, and mixing trays 
• Remember to mix your own colors, and to wipe wash wipe when changing colors

Station 2

• Watercolor trays should be collected as students bring brushes to the sink. This gives the trees time to dry
• Once trees have dried student will arrange their trees on their globes until they find an arrangement they’re happy with
• Then, glue sticks are used to secure the winter trees in their snowy home

Remember to have names on the snow globe before setting it aside to dry.

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Look at the dog slideshow and analyze big shapes and features:

• Head shapes – many dogs have heads that look like a lightbulb from the front and a car from the side.
• Ear shapes – Sometimes these are triangular, when they flop over. Often they’re odd shapes.
• Eye shapes – Dogs have lots of different shapes for the eyes. The lids can flop over and make them more like triangles or even rectangles.
• Nose shapes – these are mostly just round or squarish.
• Fluffy and hard edges – It’s hard to draw fluffy dogs sometimes. It can be easier to color around the fur and leave the fur white, like in the picture with the white dog. You could just color the red parts and make a few small lines for the wavy fur.

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Each student will draw the big shapes of the dog they choose in light marker (yellow or pale pink works great). These shapes are shown in blue on the handout. Some simple details are shown in a darker blue but draw the BIG SHAPES first. Draw all the guidelines using the pale marker. The final art we’re doing will be realistic, and we will redraw the real shapes over the guidelines with MORE detail. For that we’ll be using a strong colored marker that shows up much better.

Guidelines just help us know get the size of things, and where they go. They help us get the Big Shapes to look good.

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Students will now use markers to color in their dog in bright, crazy colors. Everyone loves a colorful dog! Color fully, and color in the background too if you can. If any students finish quickly, they can draw another dog using oil pastels or markers. Make sure names are on these!

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• Empty water containters
• Super-wash brushes if used
• Put art supplies away (sop up runny paint before disposing of palette paper)
• Wipe tables & toss trash
• Remove any smocks (last)
• Check for items on floors and tables

• Try to get photos of your student’s artwork. Find a good spot for quick lighting without highlights or shadows from your hands and device. Ideally in-between two strong lights on each side.

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Print all of your PDFs from the lesson plan and cut any references apart as needed.

STUDENT’S

MATERIALS

• 14″ x 17″ Sketch Paper
• 11″ x 15″ watercolor paper
• 2B Pencil
• 4B pencil
• Ebony pencil
• Black Sharpie
• Markers
• India ink
• Ink dip pen with metal nib (not too sharp a point)
• Soft compressed charcoal sticks (not pencils)
• Canvas pencil (dark gray colored pencil)
• White erasers
• Kneaded erasers
• Acrylic paints
• Oil pastels
• Blender sticks (stumps)
• Sandpaper boards (to clean blenders)
• Paper palette pad, or disposable trays/plates
• 11″ x 14″ Canvas (loose or from real canvas pad)
• Canvas boards (optional)
• Tape – blue painter’s tape
• Brushes – All sizes

Thanksgiving Holidays

Week 13: Have a Dog Day

Students will continue our pet theme. First we’ll make prints using the cat yarn print blocks from last week, and then create dog drawings and paintings. We end the day inventing a fantastic dog house!