Our first graders learned about artist George Rodrigue’s Blue Dog. They had a fabulous time creating their own blue (or green or magenta) dogs and dressing them up in paper collage. The George Rodrigue Foundation website has every resource you could possibly need.  I downloaded the Blue Dog PowerPoint slideshow, and learned the Blue Dog was inspired by Rodrigue’s late dog, Tiffany. The PowerPoint  has lots of  ‘dressed up’ Blue Dog paintings, including a secret agent dog, hula dog and motorcycle dog. Of course the first graders LOVED that! I also showed students the first few minutes of this video from CBS Sunday Morning.

Now on to the art project!

Materials

• white sulphite drawing paper – 12″ x 18″ (or other white paper that is strong enough for painting)
• black crayons
• tempera cakes
• water cups and brushes
• glue sticks
• scissors
• colored construction paper scraps

Day 1: Students watched Blue Dog PowerPoint, then did a directed draw of the blue dog using black crayon. Next they painted the dog in a single solid color using tempera cakes. Amazingly, this took only 40 minutes thanks to the easy-to-handle tempera cakes.

Day 2: Students decorated their dogs using scrap paper and glue stick.   This was a popular and super successful project with easy clean up. I will definitely repeat next year.

Enjoy!

Bonus: FREE Blue Dog app on the iTunes store!

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