2nd Grade Cityscapes

2nd grade students made cityscapes inspired by Wayne Thiebaud's painting, Apartment Hill, 1980.  (Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art)  You may never have seen this painting before.  I happened upon it when visiting the museum a couple of years ago and thought it was cool and a different subject from Thiebaud's most popular paintings.  I liked the results when I did this project last year so I kept it pretty much the same. 

Day 1: Introduce the artist, discuss the artwork (describe, analyze, interpret, judge), students draw 1-3 buildings with pencil on black construction paper to be traced with bottled glue.  Ask students to leave a "pinky-width" between shapes so the glue does turn into a big blob.

Day 2: Use construction paper crayons to color in all the shapes.

I'm a sucker for construction paper crayons on black paper and the added texture from the glue makes it more interesting.  The kids really enjoy this project too.  If a student missed the first class, I had them draw their lines in shapes with a white crayon then follow the same procedure for adding color as if the white crayon were glue.