First Grade: Clown Fish

 First Grade- Clown Fish

For the second project of the year, all of the classes will be making a glow in the dark sea creature! We will be using glow in the dark paint and neon oil pastels to make our sea creatures come to life. At the end of the year art gallery, we will display all of the glow in the dark sea creatures in our very own Glow Gallery!

(Photo courtesy of Cassie Stephens' blog)

Each grade will do a different sea creature. The first graders will be doing a clown fish. 

Supplies: 

• Rectangular watercolor paper
• Neon/florescent oil pastels
• Black marker
• Pencil
• Florescent watercolor (only a few drops needed for each student)
• Paint trays for watercolors
• Paint brushes
• Water bowls with sponge
• Baby wipes

    Please use the document camera in the classroom to show the step by step instructions. One art volunteer can sit at the desk at the front of the room to demonstrate the steps and guide the students through the project. Here are the instructions for the clown fish & example pictures. These will also be printed out in the classroom for you to follow. 

    Please note that we used regular oil pastels and not neon, so the example picture might look a little different. Try to save a few minutes for at the end of class to turn the lights off in the classroom and turn on the black lights that are in the art closet (or they may already be plugged in around the room). The kids will love getting to see their art projects glow! The squeals of delight will be worth it! ;) 

1. Write student's name and teacher's name on the back of paper.

2. Turn paper over and have it be vertical on their desk. 

3. With your pencil we will make 3 dots with a pencil. One in the center of the page, one in the upper center about one hand from the edge of the paper, and another in the lower center about one hand from the edge of the paper.

4. Now switch to black marker

5. Measure 3-4 fingers to the right side of the center dot and make your first eyeball. Draw one large circle with the smaller circle inside. Do the same on the left side of the dot.

6. From the top middle of each eyeball draw a slightly curved line up to the top center dot to create a point.

7. From the bottom middle of each eyeball draw a curved line to connect at the bottom center dot. (The top lines will come to a point, the bottom lines will connect like a narrow semi circle)

8. Now lets make our fish happy! Draw a smiley face.

9. Now to make the fins-top fin first. To one side of the pointed head draw a small semi circle and make a few lines inside for fin texture.

10. Do the same for the lower fins on each side of the fish

11. Put the black marker away

12. Pick up a green oil pastel

13. Add some seaweed by drawing a wavy line up and coming back down to create a “worm” looking piece of seaweed. Do a few of these on each side and color them in.

14. Using blue neon oil pastel make some bubbles around the top of the fish and color them in

15. Now pick 2 oil pastel colors for your fish. (Most clown fish only have 2 colors). One will be for the stripes and the other will be the main color of the body of your fish. 

16. Use a marker to draw the stripes, leaving room in the middle to color in. This is a signature of a clown fish. Color in the stripes with one of your oil pastels.

17. Now we are going to move on to coloring our clown fish in with oil pastels. Oil pastels are so fun and different to use than crayons. You don't need to push hard with the oil pastels and you also don't need to color the entire thing in so there is no white showing. After you color a little bit, you can blend with your fingers. (Baby wipes need to be passed out during this time so students can wipe their fingers off as they go and change colors). 

18. Switch to watercolor

19. Each student will have a few drops of liquid watercolor in their paint tray. (These need to be prepped before the class starts and then you can pass them out when it comes time to use them). 

20. First step is to get your brush wet with WATER ONLY.

21. Paint that water all around all around one side of the fish where the white paper is still showing.

22. Then dip the paintbrush into the liquid water color and paint it on top of all of the water.

23. Do the same on the other side of the fish, starting with plain water first

24. Using a few different colors for the ocean to create movement and depth.

25. Next if you would like to add neon splatter to your clown fish, take turns taking your painting to the spray station and one of the volunteers will help you spray your picture. The neon yellow stands out the best, but the other colors look great, too! Volunteers please make sure to carefully shake up the spray bottles of paint as the paint tends to settle on the bottom. 

Your clown fish is complete! Great job! 

Kindergarten: Jelly Fish

 Kindergarten - Jellyfish 

For the second project of the year, all of the classes will be making a glow in the dark sea creature! We will be using glow in the dark paint to make our sea creatures come to life. At the end of the year art gallery, we will display all of the glow in the dark sea creatures in our very own Glow Gallery!

(Photo courtesy of Cassie Stephens' blog) 

Each grade will do a different sea creature. Kindergarteners will be making jelly fish! 

Supplies:

• Small white mixed media paper
• Pencil
• Large black paper for background (same paper as messy mats)
• Strips of construction paper
• Glue
• Florescent tempura cakes
• Paintbrush
• Neon oil pastels 
• Water bowls with sponge
• Black lights
• Spray bottles with neon paint

    Please use the document camera in the classroom to show the step by step instructions. One art volunteer can sit at the desk at the front of the room to demonstrate the steps and guide the students through the project. Here are the instructions for the jellyfish & example pictures. These will also be printed out in the classroom for you to follow. 

    

       Try to save a few minutes for at the end of class to turn the lights off in the classroom and turn on the black lights that are in the art closet (or they may already be plugged in around the room). The kids will love getting to see their art projects glow! The squeals of delight will be worth it! ;) 

1. On a small white piece of paper, draw a semi-circle from one side of the paper to the other. 

                                                   

2. Now let's paint the jellyfish! We are using tempura cakes. They work similarly to water color paints. You get your paintbrush wet first and then swirl it around on the tempura cakes. Then paint your paper. The paint is buildable, so if at first the color is not bright enought, get more paint on your paintbrush and add more to the paper. (This picture shows the jellyfish already cut out but we determined it is easier to paint if it is not cut out yet :)). 

3. Now let's set the jellyfish body aside. We will cut it out after it dries. 

4.. Taking a new piece of black paper, write your name and your teachers name on it and turn it over and lay it vertical. 

5. Choose 5-7 strips of neon paper that you will use as the jellyfish tentacles. It will look better if you use an odd number. So 3, 5, 7 would be a good amount of tentacles. (We will glue the tentacles on first, and then glue the body overtop). 

6.  Using your glue, make a thin line of glue from the middle of the paper down to the bottom, then attach one tentacle. 

11. Do the same for all tentacles. 

12. Using good scissor safety, cut the jelly fish body out. Now add glue all over the backside of the jellyfish body, making sure to get some glue at the edges. 

13. Glue the body slightly over the tentacle edges so it looks like the tentacles are coming out of the body. 

14. Next add squiggly lines on top of the strips of neon paper with the oil pastels. This will really make the tentacles glow! 

15. Now it's time to add neon spray at the spray station! 

15. Carry your paper over to the spray station and choose which color of spray you would like your jellyfish to have. The neon yellow is the brightest color, but all of the colors are fun! 

16. Volunteers please carefully shake the spray bottles of paint first as the paint tends to settle at the bottom. Then spritz the paper with watered down paint to create a splatter/bubble effect. 

17. Your jellyfish is complete! :)