beautiful oops

Our warm up consisted of mark making using five different drawing mediums (copic markers, crayons, charcoal, oil pastels and colored pencils) on paper.  Ideas for mark making (see my notes posted below) were written on the chalkboard.  Students chose one form of mark making to use with each medium, creating a white page full of "random" mediums and marks.

We used the turn your paper, draw over and paint over techniques with our second activity.  Students used one medium (black watercolor crayons) to create an initial drawing of their own choice.  After completing our drawings, we all turned our papers in different directions, trying to "see" how we might transform these initial drawings into something else.  The children chose one color of soft pastel to draw over in addition to white paint, eliminating part of the initial drawing that was no longer necessary.  Some of the students continued to paint, adding color, once the white paint had dried.

Our third activity consisted of ripping up our warm up paper with all of our mark making on it, finding one piece that spoke to us and incorporating it into another collage/drawing.

Our fourth activity was a far stretch from beautiful oops but I knew the students would have so much fun with this (and it did involve folding ?).  

I still heard exclaimations like, "Look! I created a beautiful oops here." while working on their "Roooooooooooaaaaar" pieces.

 Beautiful Oops  written and illustrated by Barney Saltzberg

If you are not familiar with this book, I  highly recommend THIS VIDEO (under one minute thirty seconds)

Some of the students have been begging me for outside time during our Sunday classes in order to use the sidewalk chalk.  We took 15 minutes outside yesterday towards the end of class.  One student spontaneously demonstrated the concept of beautiful oops.  

We'll see some of you for our annual Glamdoll Donuts class on Saturday, December 16 from 1 - 5

or for Watership Down character drawing and story boards, December 17 from 1:30 - 4:30

I still have seats available during the December 26 - 29 winter camp.  Pick and choose days for $65 or choose four days for $200.  The January 2 - 5 winter camp is full.  

So far, in the very short history of winter camps at The Create Everyday Classroom, we have started a tradition where we read what have been noted as the best children's books of the year.  Often we create work inspired by these books.  Here are some examples from previous camps:

student drawing inspired by the book, Flashlight written and illustrated by Lizi Boyd

sea scapes, relief art inspired by the book Float, illustrated by Daniel Miyates

mixed media work inspired by the book Fox's Garden illustrated by Princesse Camcam