Creating this nature-inspired shiny bugs art was a great way to incorporate so many skills and opportunities to learn for my students. This project accompanies the children's book A Beetle Is Shy (Nature Books) by Dianna Hutts Aston.
The artwork in the book is beautiful and the beetles have a shiny element to them. So, we read the book and looked at pictures of beetles.

Using Nature Books in the Art Room

Using nature books in the art room opens so many doors. For this particular lesson, we were able to talk about different types of beetles, their living environments, and even their beetle-like features. We also talked about scale because real beetles wouldn't be as big as the ones we drew.

When using books like these in your room, help your students pay attention to details and leave room for open discussion to help get their creative gears turning. (P.S. Another adorable book that works well with this project is The Beetle Book by Steve Jenkins. The artwork is wonderful in this one as well.)

How to do Shiny Bug Art

Draw the beetle with a pencil.

First, my students drew their beetles on black paper with a pencil. It can be funny at first because kids are always fascinated to realize a pencil will mark on black paper. As I mentioned earlier, these beetles were drawn in a much larger scale than the size of real-life beetles.

I like Ticonderoga pencils the best for use with kids. These aren’t specifically for drawing, but the lead is strong. You’ll definitely get less breakage with these, which means much less sharpening. The type of black paper you use is important. Choose a fadeless paper if possible. Also, take note of the intensity of the black. The best black papers are truly black, not gray. I like this brand and type of card stock black paper. It holds up really well with elementary and middle school students.

Add color.

Then, they added color with oil pastels and traced their lines with a black oil pastel. We used shiny metallic acrylic paints to add shine as the last step. These photos show with and without the shiny paint.

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Why I love this project.

The shiny paint really makes the project! Some art teachers won't let their students use acrylic paints, but I believe in letting students use as many different types of materials as possible. Good classroom management helps with being able to accomplish this. Speaking of which…

Good Classroom Management

I am so passionate about good classroom management making or breaking arts education and arts integration efforts. This is the very essence of making projects like these shiny bugs really engaging and come to life for students. Contributing factors such as building routines, pacing, and using mini-lessons are just a small portion of running a thriving classroom. If you’re interested in tightening up your classroom management and raising the quality of your hands-on lesson, consider taking my Classroom Management for Arts Integration course!

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