Speed Painting

I like to do a speed painting challenge with my intro high school students when we introduce painting to encourage them to mix colors, blend paint, and loosen up! This year I put together a video for the KAEA virtual fall conference to explain and demonstrate the concept.

Here are the "rules"

• Use only primary colors + black and white
• No pencils or drawing before painting
• No washing your brush- blend!
• Fill the entire page
• Move quickly before the paint dries

Here are some of last year's student speed paintings. I always grab a bag of ornamental gourds and sometimes some fruit for observation.

A student works on a speed painting

A student's painting on the left and one of my examples on the right. These were similar gourds but mine had green on the bottom.

I used some deceased butterflies I found as examples in my videos but students were happy to stick with gourds for their challenge. Maybe next year advanced students can do a more challenging subject!

Painting Boot Camp

I did lots of thinking over the summer. LOTS of thinking. I knew I wanted to stick with TAB, but I hadn't ever used the approach with high school students. I was torn until I read about Apex's idea of "boot camp". Brilliant! Students spend time doing activities to get acquainted with new media so they know what they want to use for their choices later on. The first month of school was basically 2D boot camp in my graphics classes. We covered observational drawing, pencil rendering, ink techniques, acrylic, watercolor, colored pencil, mono printing, and collage! Soon, we will do a 3D boot camp and later on, digital media.

Our painting boot camp started with a color mixing challenge. Students were divided into teams, given a sheet with numbered paint sample swatches, tempera paint in primary and neutral colors, and worked together to mix paint to match the colors as close as possible.

The next task was to complete a one day acrylic painting of fruit. I gave the students small pieces of poster board to paint on and did not allow them to draw the fruit ahead of time. I wanted to see how they would do starting directly with paint.

 After acrylic, students completed one day watercolor paintings. I suggested a landscape, but it could have been something else. No reference photos, just see what you can come up with out of your head.

Students were much more comfortable with acrylic than watercolor, so one of my goals for the year is to win some more over to team watercolor!

The next post, some day, when I'm once again caught up on grad work, will cover mono printing and collage boot camps. If you want to see what we're up to in closer to real time, follow @JHArtClass on Instagram!https://instagram.com/jhartclass/

Kindergarten Color Mixing

For my student teacher's first lesson, she wanted to review and explore color mixing with Kindergarten students. She started by reading them the story Mouse Paint, which is always fun.

My student teacher demonstrating proper picture book reading technique. :)

Next, the students got to mix colors by shaking hands! Each student got a dollop of primary colored tempera paint squirted on the palm of their hand and found a friend with a different color. The students made a handprint on paper with their new secondary color and wrote their name on the front with crayon in a later class period.

 After making their handprint, the students finger painted on the tables which we'd covered with big pieces of paper for the rest of class. We squirted other primary colors and let them have fun mixing and experimenting.

 You can imagine how excited the students were- this was a big hit! This lesson is best carried out with at least two adults in the room. I "subbed" for my student teacher when she was sick one day and it was a challenge to be the only one squirting paint and supervising all of the activity.

 Some of the students discovered they could add texture to the paint with their finger tips.

 When the table papers dried, we cut out the blobs of color which were used in a collage lesson with Kindergarten and 1st grade the following week.

Primary Lines

In the second half of the school year my Kinders needed to review lines and primary colors. We had been using the vocabulary, but I realized I probably hadn't been as explicit about it after the first introduction. Sometimes I forget how much repetition the students need when they only have art class once a week (if we don't miss school). This lesson plan is available on The smARTteacher.

On the first day of the project we reviewed lines and the students made a composition using many different kinds. This was also a good time to reinforce paintbrush technique and care. I showed how to make thin and thick lines by turning the brush different directions and talked about trying to go in one diction to make the lines smoother. They sure like to go back and forth to smooth out a line and end up making the lines fuzzier AND thicker.

On the second day when the black paint was dry, the students were given the primary colors and white to mix tints. The students watched the Sesame Street music video by OK Go while I filled paint palettes. 

I've been doing something a little different with a lot of liquid tempera painting projects. Instead of putting out water, which usually ends up getting added to the paint making it less opaque and dirty looking, I ask students to try to use all the paint on their brush before switching colors and then to just wipe on a paper towel before "dipping the tip" into a new selection. It works really well most of the time and saves a lot of headaches.

If a student missed the first day, I let them choose if they wanted to draw lines with sharpie or paint black lines and wait until the following class period to use colors.

On the third day some students decided to add collage elements or do more painting. Many started new projects and kept on going with the liquid tempera and mixing colors. 

 This would be a great beginning of the year project, but it works equally well for review at the end.

Kinder Circles

One of the first projects for my Kindergarten students this year was stamping and painting dots for International Dot Day. We talked about shapes when the students used empty play-doh containers to stamp circles into a composition. Some overlapped, some didn't. Some dragged the containers all over the paper which made it mostly turn black. I didn't encourage this but didn't make them stop. I might have said something like "Oh, you won't have much room to add color next week if you turn your paper all black!" but I was fine with them exploring the tool.

 In the second class, we talked about the primary colors and how they can be mixed to create secondary colors. Each table was give only primary colors and the students were encouraged to try creating new colors. My new painting management technique is to put out a sponge instead of giving out paper towels. Students clean their brushes in the shared water and then blot on the shared sponge. I think this idea came from Choice Without Chaos if I remember correctly! It has worked very well so far, though I still have students asking "What is the sponge for again?" The sponge is a lot more absorbent than the brown paper towels at school.

I used the opportunity to talk about paintbrush care since it was the first exposure to tempera paint for most students. They did a pretty good job for the first time! I asked them to "dip the tip", hold the paintbrush "like a pencil", and mix paint on the paper instead of mixing all the colors together on the tray. I love how the paintings turned out. Some painted inside each circle and some did not. Either way, I think they are beautiful! Some students even added crayon in the next class period. I am WAAAAY behind on this blogging thing! Oh, parenthood. The boys are worth it! :)

Secondary Samba

My 1st grade lesson to prepare students for the Greg Percy Songs in the Key of Art assembly was based on his song the Secondary Samba. The songs is very straight forward- about starting with the primary colors and which primaries are used to mix secondaries. Students at each table mixed primary colored tempera paint to create secondary colors. Next, they painted sections of a paper which they had folded in thirds with each color. This obviously didn't take a whole class period so I think the students had free draw time after they cleaned up. In the second class period, the students cut their colors apart and used their painted paper to make a collage on black paper. After the shapes were glued, students could use oil pastels and/or construction paper crayons to add details.