Panda Sketching at Guadalupe Center's Summer Enrichment Program

Marti Koehler asked me to teach a few summer art classes at the Guadalupe Center in Immokalee, so I adjusted my Elementary school Panda Sketching lesson for shorter sessions for younger students.
I was very impressed with the discipline and artistic skill displayed by the 3-5 year old artists. No wonder there is a huge waiting list for this pre-K center.
My sincere thanks to the dedicated teachers and staff for their support with class management and distribution and collection of art supplies last week. Your help was essential for the smooth work flow and efficient resetting of the Performance Arts classroom during the consecutive 30 minute sessions for each student group.
On my last day at the center the regular art room was occupied, so I had the opportunity to visit three of the students' classrooms for their respective art sessions.
The younger kids were told to color and draw on the panda card stock template directly with the Crayola Super Tip markers.
The older students were instructed to first trace the panda template to exercise their eye-hand coordination and then to customize the image to their liking by adding their own background elements.



Budding artists with their finished projects.


Once the students completed their projects, they got a Nakamura paper airplane for their next playtime period.
Also managed to speed sketch a personalized cartoon portrait for most of the students that attended one of the 11 sessions I taught at the center. The positive experience reminded me of how rewarding early childhood education programs can be and to consider them as a possible avenue or component of my future teaching plans.

Penguin and Seal sketching activity for Summer Art Camp

To fit the Antarctica theme of the Summer Art Camp program at Highlands Elementary, I created another Penguin and Seal sketching sheet. Eight different classes of 5 to 7 year old students were provided with markers and colored pencils and were instructed to customize their activity sheets using their creative license. They could draw and color it into a natural scene or use their imagination and add any details and speech balloons to create a fantasy illustration.
Coloring and doodling at summer art camp.

Some happy students with their finished projects.





Some students chose the option of exercising their writing skills turning the sketching page into a comic book panel with some dialog between the penguin and the seal..
This student chose to do the entire drawing herself using the sketching sheet just as a reference starting point.
Fully colored and lettered.Once the initial project was complete, a few students chose to tackle it again using a different approach. This young artist went in a completely different direction and drew a couple of dueling dragons which are always welcomed in any of my sketching classes.

Drawing Cartoon Panda Characters and Sketching page completed with Crayola Super Tips Washable Markers

These are the Cartoon Panda reference sheet and sketching page template that I will be using in the Summer Art Camp in Immokalee this Friday.
The Panda Team sketching pages will be distributed to groups of kinders and second graders. Students will be instructed to create the background and add any additional characters using their imagination. On the board, the instructor will demonstrate basic cartoon figure construction and possible design elements that could be included in the activity sheet like: bamboo grove, castle, temple, pine forest, mountain, pagoda, torii gate, etc.
I believe one of the better values for kids' coloring tools can be found in the 50-pack of Crayola Super Tips Washable Markers. Their fine tips lend themselves well for sketching with the fine point and coloring quickly with their broad side. Noticed that the last batch of sets I got at Target were actually made in Italy.
Finished colored sample. Now go make some more Cartoon Panda Team adventures on some blank sheets of paper or folded mini comic with your trusty markers or other favorite coloring tools.

Panda Sketching Pages - Kids' activity for a rainy afternoon

Inspired by Sachiko Umoto's Illustration School books, I drew this reference sheet for a cartoon Panda featuring a couple of different facial expressions.
Print the Panda template of your choice and and sketch additional Panda friends and/or some typical Eastern paintings' background elements like pagodas, bamboo forests, rivers, mountains, etc.
How about making an entire "Panda Village" behind these two pals? Maybe draw some huts, rice paddies, koi pond, and some more bamboo stalks. A couple of cubs could even be drawn practicing their Wing Chun techniques.This last template should make a nice custom paper for folding origami airplanes that would sport a cute Panda logo on its fuselage.
Bonus activity sheet: Draw the background for this scene set in Antarctica. You could go naturalistic and sketch an entire penguin colony with some seal friends, or even use your imagination and create an Ice Palace with fantasy glacial inhabitants like "Ice Fairies"or "Snow Knights".

List of Direct Links to Activity and Coloring Sheets

Since we have reached well over 300 posts in this blog, I have added a list of direct links to posts featuring activity and coloring sheets samples and templates on the column to the right side of this layout. Hopefully this will make it easier for fellow teachers and parents to find and print art activity sheets for their kids without having to navigate throughout a ton of posts.
Now you can easily find coloring templates, pop-up card template, sheets of Artist Trading Cards (ATCs), and sketching sheets with partial drawings to complete.

Caricature Stand at 2nd annual Mercato Fine Arts Festival and some Free Coloring-sketching activity pages

Spent Saturday drawing manga-style caricatures at the 2nd annual Mercato Fine Arts Festival in North Naples. Drew my fist set of twins on a single page, a colored tiger ninja warrior, a few straight portraits, and a couple of ninja cartoon portraits for Festival volunteers.
Even took a couple of reference shots of this lady bug that visited the caricature station later in the day.
Only managed to scan the caricature I drew of my mom from today's batch of cartoon portraits. So dear guests if you have the time and inclination to send me a scan or picture of your caricatures, I would be happy to add them to this post. Spent the rest of the time at the Festival drawing the following batch of coloring/sketch page templates for next week's classes. Feel free to print as many as you like on 8.5" X 11" paper or card stock to tackle the creative challenges below.
Draw a suitable background and color this Chinese Dragon.
Draw an action scene around this Ninja.
"What is this Zoo Keeper trying to catch with his net?"
"What is this Forest Guardian getting ready for?"
Sketch a castle for this Princess.
Draw an underwater scene around this armored mermaid.
Draw a magical garden filled with other fantasy creatures behind this butterfly fairy.
For this seated Mermaid sketch page: add graceful scales to her tail and draw what is catching her attention on the right side of the page.
For the Unicorn sketch page: add details and texture to the unicorn outline and draw a fantasy background castle at the end of the road.
This Rabbit template could be folded in half and used as a greeting card for Easter and/or Mother's day with some further decorations applied with markers and glitter glue. Naples readers: I will be going back to the Mercato from 10 am to 5 pm on Sunday, so feel free to drop by to say hi or get your live caricature done in a jiffy.