Lighthouses and Valentine's Sub Plans

Yesterday was such an awesome experience for our fifth graders in art.  We had a special guest, Dr. Boilini, the Dean of Arts and Sciences from SJRCC come and teach the four groups of fifth graders how to paint an acrylic landscape of the St. Augustine Lighthouse on canvas.  It was awesome!  They learned so much about the properties of acrylic paint, techniques like dry brushing, stippling, and 'rolling'.  It was an awesome experience that I am so glad we got to participate in!  I took pictures of all the finished pieces and uploaded them to our Artsonia gallery already.  http://www.artsonia.com/museum/slideshow.asp?exhibit=919366

 My example that I made (the night before in my kitchen) was inspired by Van Gogh's Starry Night (of course!)  I really wanted to emphasize how their brush strokes can create movement and how they should flow horizontally (across) the background- not vertically.  Dr. Boilini brought photos and facts that she shared with the students about the St. Augustine Lighthouse. (which legends say, is haunted oooh ooohh ) I actually watched a Bob Ross video to help me paint the sky!  I love him so much! I also made the Animoto video below to play for students as they worked.  All in all- they did a great job and most of them finished within the 50 minutes. It was like being at a painting party all day!  (<3 my job)

Unfortunately, right after we finished, I had to run to take my youngest son to the doctor because he had a low grade fever, congestion and just all around crumminess.  He was negative for strep and flu but they wanted to send his swabs to the lab to be sure.  So they said NO school for him today.  Which means I had to get a sub and my art room is a MESS!!!  Hope she doesn't mind.

So I put together a quick Valentine's day art lesson for all the classes to do.  Well I wish her best of luck today!  I will be nursing a little sick 3 year old.