Gorgeous animated short video ‘Dia de los Muertos’ by three college animation majors from Ringling College of Art and Design.
If you are looking for a fun video for Dia de los Muertos, please watch this beautifully animated short film about a little girl who visits the land of the dead, where she learns the true meaning of the Mexican holiday, Dia de los Muertos.
Produced by computer animation students Ashley Graham, Kate Reynolds, and Lindsey St. Pierre at Ringling College of Art and Design as their senior thesis. Student Academy Award Gold Medal winner, 2013!!
We watched the ‘Super Chameleon’ video on YouTube. The kids were amazed to see the chameleon change colors over and over. Then we took a close look at the chameleon books from our school’s media center. Next it was on to a directed draw. I modeled the basic contour of the chameleon’s head, body, tail and legs. Kids started in pencil, then outlined in Sharpie. They were free to use Sharpie to add their own details (stripes, patterns, dots, spikes) based on their reference photos.
Day 2: Color your chameleon
Kids used watercolor pencils dipped in water to color in the chameleons. The watercolor pencils were great for coloring in all the stripes and little spaces. The colors turned out really vibrant! The final step was to paint the background a single color using pan watercolors.
I encouraged everyone to stick to an analogous color scheme for their chameleons. Some kids did, some didn’t, but they all turned out beautiful. After all, a chameleon can be any color.
We tried a similar chameleon project last year using Crayola markers: click here to see more results.
Overall this was a popular, super successful project with minimal prep and clean up. It was my first watercolor pencil project, but it won’t be my last.
It is a great project. On the first day, our students watched a brief video about different kinds of lines. Then they used black marker to make a variety of lines on their papers.
On day 2, the students colored in and around their lines with Crayola markers. We had a few minutes to spare at the end of class, so we did a ‘line hunt’ in the classroom. The kids were delighted to find the horizontal lines everywhere, including the wires of my drying rack and my window blinds!
Here is my kindergarten line movie playlist on YouTube. (note: two of these movies are silent!)
Guess what? I did a little searching and found ALL of Mo Willem’s ‘pigeon’ books read online.
Here is a my resource mix for the project, organized in this nifty Symbaloo grid. Click on any tile to read the books. There’s even a bonus ‘how to draw the pigeon’ guide.
Isn’t technology cool?
Click here to see my pigeon project for first grade.
Enjoy!
p.s. These are not a substitute for a cozy bedtime story! Go get the books for bedtime 🙂
I just finished my Paris-themed art and cooking camp. The kids loved to make these printed Eiffel Towers. The project is inspired by this fabulous post at the Cassie Stephens blog (please check out the post – it has excellent directions!).
We used white craft paint and 1″x2″ pieces of mat board to print our Eiffel Towers. When dry, we added detail with chalk pastels and hand-made stencils. Finally we added pastel fireworks outlined with glue and glitter. Some kids stuck on gummed stars to make the Parisian night sparkle.
The kids loved this brief video of fireworks at the Eiffel Tower.
In my one week Paris-themed art + cooking camp, we made crepes, meringues and madeleines! Click here, here and here to see our other art and food projects (with recipes).
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? Maybe you have the book, maybe you don’t.
