Splashes of Color- My Examples

My examples show two different approaches to this project, you can read more about it by checking out the previous post: Splashes of Color.

Splashes of Color

The SCED class at my 4-6th grade school comes to Art separately.  I really enjoy it because there are only 6-8 students so we have the freedom to try some things that might not work as well with a full-size class.

I ordered some droppers for watered down paint last fall and wanted to try them out.  I have 6 tables in the Art room at that school so I put one color of watered down paint at each table (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet).  I put one student at each table and gave them a straw and a 12x18 inch piece of white paper.  I allowed a few minutes at each table for the students to drop paint on their paper and blow it around with the straw.  I showed the students before they started that they can get different results by how they blow the paint around through the straw.  

Both in this class and in 1st grade when we blew branches for the bird nest lesson, I had to teach students how to just blow air through a straw.  Some had a hard time not spitting through it (gross.)  Guess they never learned how to blow bubbles in their drinks!

After a couple minutes, I had the students take their papers and straws and rotate to another table until they had had a chance to use each color.  Even though I KNOW we have talked about color theory a lot, I still had students who were so excited to discover what happens when paint colors mix!  I tried to stay out of what they were saying until I heard something like "yellow and green make orange!" when I felt I had to step in and point out that lots of colors had just gotten mixed together to create that color.  I think I might try this project again some time and only put out the primary colors.

On the 2nd and 3rd days, I told the students we were going to experiment with adding ink to the paintings.  I had tried out two different approaches on my test.  First, I tried using a skinny sharpie to trace around every little change in color and value.  Next, I tried using the sharpie to trace around the negative space.  I liked the results from both approaches so I showed the students both and they picked one or tried a mixture.  By the third class (2nd with ink,) some of the students were ready to quite even though they weren't finished but boy, some could have worked on it all semester!

This student asked if he could cut it out- I said sure, let's try it!

1st Grade Bird Nests

This is a revised project from last year.  I have a "thing" for bird nests.  I have a few real nests that I have collected after storms and am fascinated by the construction.  In one of the robin nests, you can see the mud and grass, but you can also see that the bird used string and plastic, and lots of "recycled" materials. Birds are pretty resourceful and that was the first reason I wanted to do this project!  

Last year, I had the students draw trees with construction paper crayons on colored paper, create patterned papers to cut eggs from, and glue tinted, shredded newspaper on for the nest.  This year, I changed a few things and I like the results more:

Day 1

1.  Blow thinned brown tempera paint with a straw on white paper to create the branches (like I've seen in so many cherry blossom projects).
2. Roll a peeled blue crayon on it's side to create a sky with a subtle texture.
3. Use green crayons to draw leaves.

Day 2

1. Each student cuts an egg shape out of magazine paper (I pre-cut swatches that had interesting colors, textures, or patterns on them for the students to choose from.)
2. Glue eggs on the paper, slightly above a branch so it won't look like the nest is about to tumble.
3. Glue nest materials on paper covering the bottom of the egg.  

This year the nest materials were made up of newspaper that I sprayed with watered down brown paint and shredded, and small pieces of raffia.  I think the raffia adds more interest.  I tried to talk about composition and scale but this was lost on some students.  I talked about "zooming in" on a branch so the nest would be the right size.  Some just couldn't see the brown paint as a branch and instead used it as a whole tree.  First grade logic. :)