about art materials

When I taught art in Kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grades for two years, I had the luxury of a generous budget and was able to buy all the art materials I needed for a basic art curriculum. I didn't wander off into anything fancy; I stuck to the basics and the process of creative art-making. These days, I am retired and subbing in other peoples' classrooms, and I am intrigued (and sorry to say, not in a very good way) about the lack of quality art materials out there for kids to use. When it comes to buying art materials, my philosophy is to always buy the best quality possible. The cost may be initially higher, but the returns are greater: they generally last longer, work better, and produce much better results. I stick pretty much to the basics and stay away from most "specialty" items like glittery watercolor or tapping glue bottles. I follow this philosophy both for classroom art materials and for my own art-making process, because I want kids to feel like artists when they are making art, not to struggle with the materials they are using.

What do I consider basic? And are some brands better than others? Does it really matter what brand you buy?  You bet!  My favorites...

CRAYONS.   Good quality crayons have better color, probably due to the ratio of pigment to wax (I'm not a crayon scientist, so I'm guessing here). Poor quality crayons have more wax and the colors are not as bright, no matter how hard you press. I won't buy anything but Crayola. The reds are bright. The yellows are strong. Many teachers buy cheaper brands and my experience is that the colors are just very bland. And by the way, I want the colors to be named what they are. I came across some crayons in a friend's classroom that had color names like Blueberry Swirl or Grape Soda (I am making those up, but you get the gist), which are very cute and all, but were not even that accurate. Colors have names and don't need to be cutified. I like that Crayola names their blues Indigo, Blue, Cerulean. These are real names that artists use.

CONSTRUCTION PAPER CRAYONS are great to have on hand. They are made for drawing on dark colored construction paper. They have some kind of reflective material in them. Kids love using them! They are made by Crayola, and are wrapped with black paper so they are easily distinguished if they get mixed with regular crayons. For general storage, I like to keep crayons in zip baggies instead of in their boxes. It's easy for kids to find the color they need, and a whole class set will fit in one shoebox-sized plastic tub.

MARKERS:  I like Crayola markers for kids' use. They seem to last a pretty long time and the colors are pretty bright. I always store them with the tips facing down. This way, the ink is always saturating the tip and they stay nice and "juicy" instead of drying out. Laying them down in a tub works, also. For my own use, on charts and for art lessons where I do demonstrations, I use Mr. Sketch. The colors are very vibrant and the chisel point lets me make bolder lines so that the charts are easy to read. I like the smelly ones.

COLORED PENCILS:  Crayola again, although there are other brands that are pretty good, too. I like having a good supply of multiple, basic colors. I generally buy boxes of 12 colors and then dump them all in a plastic tub. They are great for still-life and other observation drawing.

GLUE STICKS:   I only buy UHU. It's firmer than cheaper glue sticks, doesn't clump or squish into a mess, and lasts a lot longer than any other brand I've used. I once put in an order for UHU glue sticks when I was teaching art, and the school secretary substituted a cheaper brand. I was working in three schools at the time, and guess at which school the glue sticks got used up first? These are definitely noticeably more expensive than other brands, but very well worth it in the long run. They have a "screw" top which I like. For some reason, kids seem to smoosh them less. Maybe because they are less smooshable.

WHITE GLUE:  Elmers.  The regular kind. Not the washable kind, the school glue kind, the clear gel kind (oh, that's the worst). Just the regular "Glue-All" kind. What I really really hate is those tapping bottles that drive me crazy when kids are doing collages. I think teachers buy them because they are tired of kids wasting glue, but it's not that hard to teach kids how to use small dots of glue. As for longevity, I always made sure to remind kids to close the stopper and wipe the glue off the tip, and then store the bottles standing up. It's that easy. The bottles will last practically forever.

SCISSORS:  I like "pointy" scissors, even for Kindergartners. They just seem to cut better. They seem more serious.  Fiskars makes a pretty nice pair of scissors for little hands, and they seem to work fine for either hand, so you don't need any special left-handed ones. 

PENCILS:  Dixon Ticonderoga. Nothing else will do. They are great for drawing. They have good, soft erasers. They sharpen well without breaking. They are worth the extra few cents per dozen. They last longer, write smoother, sharpen easier, and erase without smudging. I could write a whole blog post just about pencils. Another time. When the erasers go, as they will, I offer Pink Pearl erasers, not one for each student, but several stored near the pencil sharpener. (Which is a whole other post, but I swear by a good pencil sharpener.)

And last, but definitely not least .....  PAPER!  

I like good quality CONSTRUCTION PAPER, like Tru-Ray, because the paper is smoother and the colors are nice and bright. And by all means.... save all the scraps for collage-making!  It's a good idea to invest in some white DRAWING PAPER.  It comes in reams and is not too expensive. I like having both 9x12 and 12x18 on hand. It can be used when construction paper is not really needed but copy paper or newsprint is too thin. Regular, ordinary COPY PAPER is great for pencil drawing. It's nice and white, relatively inexpensive, and looks great on the wall in a gallery. Under no circumstances would I ever use any kind of newsprint for art lessons. Ever. Not even for sketching. It's just too ugly.

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FOR BEST RESULTS, TREAT STUDENTS LIKE ARTISTS

If you buy the best you can afford, or even go a little over your budget, it will pay in the long run. When the budget is limited (and when isn't it, but I mean seriously limited) and you're tempted to buy cheaper materials, consider buying less units and get higher quality instead. Maybe it's better to have 10 boxes of high quality crayons and have kids share, than to have 20 boxes of poor quality crayons with drab color. Maybe it's better for three students to share a good stick of UHU glue stick than to have each student have their own stick of gooey, messy substandard glue stick. Every student does not always need their own everything.

Treat students like artists, and maybe they will make great art!

Enjoy! Create!

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intersecting math and art

The art lessons I teach are based on the elements of design, and many incorporate math in some way, especially geometry. When I ask students to tell me what they notice in works by Wasily Kandinsky or Pablo Picasso, many of the responses include words like square, triangle, line, acute, obtuse, parallelogram, isosceles, and other math words. Any art lesson that includes the creation, manipulation, and use of different kinds of shapes and lines, whether students are drawing, painting, or making collages, is likely related to math. Here is a review of a few of my favorite art-making activities with math connections:

Geometric People

These figures are created entirely from geometric shapes (mostly rectangles). The lesson includes a discussion about joints, human body proportion, length and width, and the depiction of movement. A great introduction is to look at art by Keith Haring and to do a movement activity that requires students to arrange their bodies in different poses. For this lesson I really encourage students to create their figures to show or imply movement.

Geometric Shape Collage

This works with students of all ages, with directions that change according to the age group. Younger students are asked to use one circle, two lines, three triangles, and four colors; older students use one circle, two lines, three non-congruent triangles, four different quadrilaterals, and five colors. The finished art work can be used as a jump-off point for more math practice, with computation, calculating perimeter or area, or other math practice.

Kandinsky-Inspired Abstract Design

This is adapted from an activity in the book “Drawing With Children” by Mona Brooks. I usually have students look at a Kandinsky print and tell me what they notice. Invariably, math vocabulary bubbles up:  acute angles, triangles, parallel lines, etc. Then I have them draw one thing at a time, starting with three dots anywhere. The drawing directions use tons of math vocabulary (parallel, perpendicular, larger, smaller, etc.) They asked to color it however they choose, leaving part of the composition white. These are always successful, colorful, and interesting!

Cityscapes With Symmetry

This drawing activity connects to mathematics with its focus on symmetry, proportion, and a little work with geometric shapes. Students can be creative while applying their knowledge of symmetry. I like to use construction paper crayons on black paper, but I’ve also used regular crayons on white paper. Sometimes the skyline is glued onto a previously-created watercolor wash. This art lesson is inherently successful; even if mistakes are made in the symmetry, the end results are always beautiful.

Mondrian-Inspired Line Designs

These are all about lines and patterns created with lines. Students simply divide the paper with two horizontal and three vertical lines, creating several quadrilateral spaces, a few of which are filled with line patterns. When finished, the original lines are covered over with construction paper strips to give the whole piece a more dramatic look. Fun, easy, and relaxing!

Artists use math all the time. Sometimes this is in obvious ways with the use of lines, shapes, perspective, and proportion. Sometimes it is more subtle, such as in the use of balance and proportion in an overall composition. I often tell students they are “doing math” as well as “making art" because I want them to understand that math is a useful tool that isn't only something we do in school on a worksheet. Teachers might try incorporating math into art work, then extending the math even further through discussion of students' compositions.

All the art lessons described here... and many others... are available in my store at TeachersPayTeachers. Some are available as individual lessons and most are also available in bundles of three or four related art lessons.

And by the way..... if you think there is no time for art, take a look at Making Time For Art, which is free at my TeachersPayTeachers.com store. It has lots of ideas for integrating art across the curriculum, with math and other subjects as well, and suggestions for buying art materials and creating an art center.

Really.... art is for everyone!

cityscapes on watercolor background

This second grade lesson combines a watercolor wash, drawing with construction paper crayons, symmetry, and a little color theory. In another version, students draw symmetrical cityscapes on black paper, but one day I came across sunset cityscapes at the TeachKidsArt blog which inspired me to combine the two ideas.

First, students use sponges and either warm or cool colors for the washes. They wet the whole paper first with the sponges using clean water, then fill the paper with color, either stroking or blotting the paint. If papers are not wet enough, I am right there with a spritzer bottle. :-). I have them use sponges for the wash because I don't have any large-sized watercolor brushes. The sponges have the additional benefit of adding some interesting texture. The washes are put aside for later (in our case, this is weeks later).

For the cityscape drawing lesson, I first have students observe and discuss several photographs and art examples of cityscapes. Then I ask them to tell me what they know symmetry. The most common responses usually refer to a line, so I use questioning to bring the discussion around to what it means to be symmetrical, and how we know something is symmetrical. I also introduce the word bilateral, explaining that "bi" means "2" and "lateral" means "side" -- this leads students to the idea that bilateral symmetry means that two sides are the same.

The cityscape is drawn on black construction paper using construction paper crayons (which they love!). I suggest that students first draw a horizontal base line, then start with the center building. They color in doors, windows, and roofs before adding two identical buildings on each side of the center one. They work out from the center two buildings at a time, coloring in all details. When the drawings are complete -- that is, they have drawn as many buildings as will fit -- they cut around the buildings and glue the silhouette onto their own watercolor wash.

After students have a chance to walk around and see everyone else's work, I have them discuss with a partner what they like most about their composition, and explain how they used bilateral symmetry.

self-portraits with landscape backgrounds

This first grade lesson began with group observations of the Mona Lisa. I asked students to look carefully and talk among their group about things they could see in the painting. After a couple of minutes of "talk time" I had students tell me what they could see. I did this with seven different first grade classes over three different days and the lists were pretty much the same, which I expected, although specific language was a little different, such as "it looks like sunset" and "there's light in the sky" and "the sky looks yellow." I charted students' responses and one class's example is shown here. I particularly wanted students to notice all the detail in the landscapes in the background, and was not disappointed. In fact, most groups paid more attention to the background than they did to the portrait itself.

After the discussion and chart-making, we talked about the difference between a portrait and a self-portrait, and I explained that they were going to use construction paper crayons on black paper to draw a self-portrait with a landscape in the background. I did point out to them that they could make these pretty fanciful by using interesting colors for their faces.

The first day I taught this lesson, I found that students were drawing the faces pretty small, so the next two days I provided the rest of the classes with oval templates which they could trace for the face shape if they chose. Most students chose this option and, although I really prefer not to have students trace things they could draw themselves, I also wanted them to have faces large enough to work with and proportionally right for the size of paper. I did whisk away all the pencils as soon as the ovals were traced so that they had to use the crayons for the drawing.

When all students were finished with their drawings, I had them walk around the room to look at everyone's work. We then finished up with a short "analysis" of individual work in which students were asked to tell what they particularly liked about their self-portraits, and then what they particularly liked about others' work.

symmetrical cityscapes

I regularly cruise the Internet looking for new ideas to use with my students. On one of my surfing trips, I found a cityscape idea on the Art Projects for Kids blog (link is in the "on the web" list on the right side of this page). It was done on dark paper with oil pastels. The California 2nd Grade Art Standards say that students should create an artwork with bilateral symmetry, so I decided to have my second grade students draw a symmetrical cityscape. And since I didn't have any oil pastels, and since there had recently been a freeze on ordering new materials, I decided to have them use construction paper crayons on black paper. To prepare, I found several pictures of cityscapes, some photographs and some art work by various artists (thank you, Google image search), which I printed out.

First I had students look at the pictures to identify what they saw and how they were all the same. Then I introduced the term "bilateral symmetry" to them. They had already been doing some work with symmetry in math, but I found that they had a hard time describing what it means to have symmetry. Most who responded referred to a "line down the middle" but were unable to go far beyond that in their definitions so I drew a butterfly and talked about it being the same on both sides. Then we looked at the prefix "bi" which they eventually realized meant "two" when I had them compare the number of wheels on tricycles and bicycles. l didn't spend too much time on this introduction, but I wanted them to understand that they were going to start this drawing in the center and then build out symmetrically on both sides of the center, making sure that each subsequent pair of buildings would be exactly alike. I drew a very quick example, stressing the importance of making them the same size, shape, color, etc. I also showed them one that I had done, and explained that they should not color in the windows, as we wanted them to be created using negative space, which I defined as "the parts you don't color" -- leaving a more detailed explanation for another time.

Before I sent them off to begin their drawings, I pointed out the line along the bottom of the groups of buildings in the pictures. Some of these lines were very clear, like sidewalks in the photographs, or a prominent line in some of the art work, while others were more virtual, like the place where grass meets the bottom of the building in a photograph or where the bottom of the building in a painting or collage simply creates a line. Their instructions were to draw the line first, then draw their first building right in the center, on the line. As they began, I wandered around, giving tips on coloring in one direction, suggesting larger windows next time, and reminding them now and then to be using bilateral symmetry.

I made sure students knew that it was ok for their buildings not to extend across the entire length of the paper, and to take their time. During the last ten minutes of class, I had them do a "turn and talk" activity with a partner, in which they told their partner which part of their drawing they especially liked, which part they might change if they were doing it again, and how they knew they had used bilateral symmetry. Finally, I had them tell their partners what they liked about their partners' drawings.

Because I teach several hundred students each week at three different schools, I can't display everyone's art work, but these were so awesome that I created a "strip" of them in each of my three classrooms, using the work of about fifteen or so students. I love the way they create the look of one long, nighttime cityscape.

This activity was very successful on many levels. Every piece of work produced was original and had its own personality, and the students were very engaged with their drawings. And the best thing of all is that when they finished this art work, most of the students were more clear on the concept of symmetry, and that it's not the line, but what's on each side of the line that counts, and could explain the concept to me or to a partner.