Year of the Rooster

It should probably come as no surprise that I read blogs, and enjoy looking at other art teacher blogs to get ideas for my own classroom.  I saw this lesson on Mrs. Knight's Smartest Artists blog and decided it was time for some rooster painting with my sixth graders.  
With all the yucky sickness going around (hello, looking at you, February) I was home feeling awful one day and made a little goal setting sheet tied to the Chinese New Year for my sixth graders.  We spent one class period filling those out and then got to work drawing roosters with pencil.  I actually had the students bring their chromebooks to art so they could find an image of a rooster that they liked, and had them use Google translate to translate one of their goals to Chinese.  Students drew their roosters with only pencil, but they did trace their Chinese writing with permanent marker.  Next we used chalk pastels (I really think I have an allergy to chalk, but that's what obsessive hand washing is for) and cotton swabs for the background.  We used only yellow and red paint the first day, applied with paint brushes and spread with hair picks (which I'd bought years ago for something else that didn't work out):

When students returned to art, we added some blue, then used tiny brushes for details:

This rooster really needs a beak.
Someone remind me to have this student add a beak.
[Side note, this is why we all need assistants or secretaries,
'cause who can remember all of this stuff?!]

These will be displayed during our art show with their Chinese New Year goals worksheet, most likely mounted on black paper, because a little black fancies everything up.