Aboriginal Boomerangs

The Aboriginal people are the indigineous people, or first inhabitants, of the continent of Australia and their descendants.  They rich cultural heritage is very interesting and includes some beautiful artwork.  Traditionally, their artwork references stories from their "Dreamtime" as well as many dots, animals, and Aboriginal symbols.

In this art lesson, students first painted an Aboriginal boomerang with watercolors, then they added stamps of Aboriginal symbols.  To finish the composition, students filled their artwork with dots.  The examples above are from two of my second grade students!

Watercolor Magic

At the beginning of every school year, we have a "Back to School" meeting for all of the art teachers in our county at the Birmingham Museum of Art.  Alabama Art Supply always does a raffle to give away free art supplies to the teachers.  Last year, I was lucky enough to win one of the raffle drawings.  What I ended up with was a product called "Watercolor Magic" by Sargent.  I took the watercolor paints back to my classroom, where they sat on a shelf for many months.  Not so magical, huh?

Eventually I taught a lesson that called for watercolors, so I decided to give them a shot.  I soon found, that they were indeed magic.  I had been a bit skeptical because I have tried eveything from the oval watercolor palettes (which end up all a muddy brown once the younger kids get ahold of them and mix them all up) to the more professional grade watercolors out of a tube that are not only expensive, but also take a lot of prep time to mix.  I was also a little skeptical because these watercolors come already in liquid form in a bottle; which made me think that the vivid colors would be diluted and that the magical watercolors would dissapear very quickly in their very own magical act!  Poof!  However, I found them to be very bright and vivid, even after I diluted them further.  They turned what might have turned into muddy messes of art into bright and beautiful artwork!

This year, when I was planning my budget for the artroom, I bought every color I could get my hand on!  They even come in metallics and pearlescent tones.  Check them out!