Awesome Little Pencil Sharpener

How could something so small make such a big difference in the art room?

Foray manual pencil sharpener works great on large and small pencils and colored pencils.

I purchased seven of these Foray double-hole sharpeners, one for each of my tables. I used my electric sharpener to sharpen all the new pencils at the beginning of the school year. Guess how many times I have used my electric since? ZERO.

Foray double-hole manual sharpener.

All the kids ages 6 and older use the manual sharpeners! They put a nice sharp tip on our large pencils. They save my time, the students have more independence and the room is a little quieter.

AND they work well on colored pencils, much better than my electric pencil sharpeners.

Foray double-hole pencil sharpeners are available at Office Depot and maybe at an office supply near you.

Do the Mini! Op-Art Line Shading Lesson on a Smaller Scale

do the mini! op art shading

This Bridget Riley-inspired colored pencil op-art line shading lesson is extremely popular. I first saw it on Art With Mr. E., then on Teach Kids Art, and finally a post on Artisan Des Arts with a teaching video (wow!). If you are unfamiliar with this project please start out by visiting these excellent blog posts.

My small contribution to all this awesomeness is …small. Last year I tried this project with 5th grade using 9″x12″ white paper. Well, it took a long time…too long. The full size project took at least 4 classes and many students lost interest.

I decided to try a smaller format. At Mr. E’s suggestion I went down to a 6″x6″ square. SUCCESS! The 4th graders were able to complete the 6″x6″ project in 2-3 40-minute sessions. They were very proud of their artworks.

For detailed instructions, please view the teaching video in the link above. However, for the mini 6″ version of this project, start with 4 dots on the wavy line

Give it a try in any format.

More Bridget Riley op-art resources

Bridget Riley 6 Op Art Shading project

Enjoy!

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