I am currently trying to come up with ideas for projects that can be used for an art show for next year. It is kind of tricky because I am not usually a stickler for the “product” of the artwork that students make looking perfect but for an art show there has to be some level of sellability. Also, I usually have my students work on 12×18 paper and for an art show the projects have to be half that size! That being said I wanted to try out a couple of aesthetically pleasing little projects that may or may not be used for the art show next year.

This project is based on this with a couple of tweaks here and there. We began by creating the night sky painted paper background with purples, blues, and black paint. Students used the non-bristle side to carve in the details of the stars and expressive lines.

The next day, 3rd graders used art stix to create texture on construction paper. They used home made texture mats that were created by “drawing” with a hot glue gun on matboard. I made a whole set and they are great!

They cut the paper in half using a wavy or zig-zag line and glued down the pieces into a landscape.

Next, they created texture on 3 smaller pieces of construction paper that would be used to make a woven house with a roof. They cut the papers to make a warp and a weft and wove them together.

Then they tucked the house into the hills/grass and added a roof and details.

I think they came out nice. I’m not sure if they are art-show worthy buuuuuuut we were also a bit rushed because of testing and the fact that there are only a handful of weeks left of school. Either way, great job third graders!