Vincent Van Gogh's Bedroom

High School - Art 1 - Analogous Colors

This is the end point all those value scales were building up to... a reproduction of Vincent Van Gogh's Bedroom at Arles.
The catch is that students could only use the 2 Primary colors picked for their Analogous Chart, along with black and white. Any color variations derived from mixing these initial colors were allowed.

Students were provided with a colored print of the original painting (image on right) and a couple "coloring pages" of the same (below).

After drawing the bedroom on a big 9x18 in. paper, and referring to their Analogous Chart, they did one or two practice run of color scheme with color pencils on the coloring page, to have a better idea of how they wanted this to look.

It took 2 weeks to get to this point and another 3 to complete the painting. This was a really good unit, with a nice progression of difficulty and paint mastery. From the look of the final product, I'd say this was time well spent.

Paper Mache Piggy Banks

High School - Craft

These piggy banks are fun and cute and just plain awesome!

Students took great care in the painting phase, with drawing the design beforehand and then going slowly with detailed painting.

This was the first time I've used flour for the paste, and I can tell you it is a lot easier to deal with, to clean, and to handle than the "paper mache glue" sold in craft stores.

Get regular wheat flour (higher the gluten content the better) and mix with water with a pinch of salt.
Ratio is approximately 1:1.5 flour to water. The salt prevents mold. We mixed the paste in plastic containers with lids. The next day we just had to mix it around a little and it was good to go. It does give a distinct yeast smell to the room! :)


This was a highly successful project that I look forward to doing again next year.