Art Lesson with Older Kids: ATCs and Monkeys

This week, inspired by my own impromptu art session after last week's class, I introduced the older kids to the idea of making their own Artist Trading Cards (aka: ATCs). I've known about ATCs for a few years now, and have recently been surprised how people are just recently discovering the ATC phenomenon. When I was picking up one of the kids for class and told his mom what we were doing today, she said she was excited I was doing ATCs because she'd just read about them and thought it was an awesome idea...and a friend of mine on Facebook just discovered it too. Is there something "new" out there about ATCs for kids or something? I've just kind of figured maybe the only reason I knew about them already was because I'm such an art geek!

I'm still all about watercolors and rubber stamps. They are both such good art mediums for kids when they are so used to just being allowed to use crayons and/or markers. Kids love to paint...I think mostly because paint isn't a common medium they are allowed to use...because paint is messy. Eventually we will get to one of my favorite mediums, acrylic paint... but I'm not confident enough yet to brave those waters with more than one young child. (because paint is messy!) The thing about acrylic is that if you spill, drip, spatter, dribble, drobble, or otherwise get it on something other than your paper/canvas, it does not wash out. Maybe I'll test the waters with tempera paint...since they're washable. Although as an artist, I'm kind of a snob about tempera paint. I don't like it. It doesn't have the same opacity of acrylic. But I digress...

Watercolor is fine for now. No one has complained yet!

I'm always amazed at just how quiet and focused they all get when it's time to do the drawing worksheet.
This week's worksheet was how to draw a monkey.

Ava, the lone girl of the group, always loves to dress up her drawings when she's finished the basic figure. She's all about princesses and dresses and fashion. And she'll give most of her drawings personalities and stories. I didn't get to hear the story about these dressed-up monkeys today.

My "Art Class Rules" on the wall, along with some of my own drawings. (please disregard my awful, awful, outdated wallpaper!)

I actually had Eli for the day today. His mom had an appointment that she would not be back from before art class, so I offered to have her drop him off before her appointment and have him hang out with me for the day so he would not have to miss art (and she would have one less kid to worry about!) This kid really loves art. Almost every Sunday at church, he asks me if we are having art this week. Before class today, he sat down on his own (between Lego building sessions) and decided to copy the monkey drawing I had by the Art Class Rules. I think he did a pretty good job for sight-drawing with no step-by-step instructions!