Kindergarten Tint and Shade Triangle Trees

Oh, Pinterest, you give me so many ideas.

Source: purlbee.com via Katie on Pinterest

I saw this quilt pinned a couple months ago and right away knew what I would do with the idea. I love how simple and graphic it is and the strong shape. A big part of the Kindergarten math curriculum at my school is learning the 5 basic geometric shapes (circle, square, triangle, rectangle, ellipse) and I like to support that however I can. Last year we did wax-resist pyramid paintings for "triangle" but I wanted to try something wintery this year, and this was an easy 2-3 class period project.

Day 1: Using tempera to paint 4 different greens. 

1. Green right out of the bottle

2. Mixing yellow and blue

3. Green with white added- TINT

4. Green with black added- SHADE

Before painting, students folded their papers hotdog and hamburger style to make a "t" down the middle. Reviewed paintbrush technique but not cleaning since no water is required for this as long as you do the shade last. Just rinse brushes at the end of class!

 Day 2: Make some trees!

We discussed the quilt picture, students identified the shapes, and pointed out the different colors and patterns. I asked the students to tell me what they were looking at a picture of and most said "Christmas trees" (it was December, after all), and I used that opportunity to put in a quick science lesson about evergreen trees. Next, we cut the papers into 4 sections and I showed how to cut triangles. I gave students the choice between drawing triangles first or "drawing with scissors". I tried to get them to cut their first 4 triangles so big that they touched the top AND the bottom of the painted paper then they could use the scraps to make "baby" trees. I had pre-cut, or more like chopped since I definitely didn't measure, some brown pieces for trunks. We covered "just a dot, not a lot" for glue bottle use and they went at it.

*Tip- Save the painted paper scraps for students who missed the painting day.

Day 3: Some students would have had time for this at the end of the 2nd class but I decided to utilize "peer tutoring" and have them help struggling classmates with their gluing instead. In the beginning of the 3rd class, we reviewed different kinds of lines and practiced drawing them in the air with our fingers. I have no actual proof, but I'm convinced that getting the kinesthetic action helps the students remember it better. And it's a little silly and fun. After our practice, the students used construction paper crayons to add patterns to their trees. I told the students about shadows and gave a 30 second demonstration. Most tried to add shadows then added other details in the background. I had a couple students who missed the first 2 classes so they just made construction paper crayon drawings of patterned trees.

Skills/Concepts Learned or Reviewed: Geometric Shapes, Cutting, Gluing, Lines, Patterns, Color Mixing, Tints, Shades, Thinking about Composition

This student said she made a whole forest. 

It may look like this student was just being sloppy by gluing every scrap of paper she could find onto her background, but she had a whole story about how all the trees in her forest fell down. 

I love the letters on this tree!

*I forgot to say earlier that this is doable as a sub plan. I was there for every painting class but was gone for one afternoon of gluing and another afternoon of adding patterns. I was afraid it might turn out too cookie cutter but I think it's ok since nobody traced anything and the students were free to add whatever colors and patterns they wanted on trees they placed wherever they wanted.

3rd Grade Polar Bear in a Snowstorm

I thought I'd give you all a break from my African Art lessons and show you something different that we just finished last week.

I remember when I was in grade school, somebody would hold up a blank piece of paper and exclaim that it was a "polar bear in a snowstorm".  I always thought it would be fun to really make a picture of a polar bear in a snowstorm.

This was a two class period project. First, we talked a little about idioms and the polar bear in a snowstorm saying. Then I used a paint chip to introduce "value" to the students as an Element of Art. I demonstrated painting blue at the top of their paper, white at the bottom, and gradually blending the two to make a tint of blue in the middle. This was really good practice for the students and something they had never really tried before. Most were able to get a pretty smooth transition and while some ended up with stripes, they still created new values. I used blue construction paper for the background so we could use up some of my not-so-high-quality tempera paint and not have to use 5 coats. At the end of the first class, I passed out 9x6 inch white drawing paper and the students started drawing polar bears. I printed off some photos for them to reference and offered to demonstrate drawing a polar bear so the students could follow along if they wanted. Usually when students draw along with me, they are more confident because they can see how I approach drawing. This time it backfired! The students kind of freaked out about it (for lack of a better term). Needless to say, after the first day I didn't demo and just told students to do their best looking at the pictures.

In the second class period, the students finished drawing the outline of their polar bears then I demonstrated using blue construction paper crayons to add some shadows to the bear's body. The students cut and glued their polar bears to the background then added shadows on top of the snow. The last step was to add flecks of white paint to make the snow storm. In the first class we tried using toothbrushes to flick the paint and that didn't work very well. Tuesday rolled around and my new plan was to water down the paint and put it in a spray bottle. As long as the students didn't go crazy squirting a bunch of times without looking, it worked well. I also think it could be fun to use the spray bottle for some Abstract Expressionistic paintings some day. 

I hope you'll check out some more examples below. It was pretty entertaining to hear the students make up stories about their artwork and see the different bears.

This was created in one class since the student was sick on the first day. Just gave the blue paper and a white crayon to create value in the background then everything else was the same.

Some students drew quickly and used their scraps to create large polar bear families...

Some got in a hurry to make lots of polar bears and just cut out bubbles...

 Some polar bears were feeling a little blue...

 Some made bears that were really looooooong...

 Some polar bears were leaping so fast that their shadows could not keep up...

 And some had really tall shadows!

We all enjoyed this project (especially making the storm) and as I was hanging the paintings this afternoon, I was already hearing positive comments! The end.

5th Grade Ndebele-Inspired Paintings

My 5th grade African-inspired Art lesson was based on painted houses in South Africa created by the Ndebele tribe. (I had to look up how to pronounce it!) The designs on the houses are so cool- definitely the most inspiring thing I came across when researching Art from Southern Africa. The houses are painted by women in the tribe and usually feature geometric shapes, bright colors, and symmetrical designs.

Source: ndebelevillage.co.za via Katie on Pinterest

I decided that the project would be creating a painting that was inspired by the house paintings. The students were to make a symmetrical design with geometric shapes and then to tie in color theory, they had to mix each secondary color and at least one tint.

Source: academic.evergreen.edu via Katie on Pinterest

THIS was the best resource I found to explain the significance and process of the traditional Ndebele house paintings. The first step in creating the designs is to divide the wall into sections by creating diagonal lines. I let the students use the straight edge of a ruler to make diagonal lines (a big "X") from corner to corner and the rest of their designs were created with black tempera paint directly on the paper. Some acted nervous about not using pencils first but once they got started, everybody just relaxed into the process.

I originally planned for this to take 2 classes (I'm always optimistic) but I had to add a 3rd. The first day was for the introduction and using black tempera paint to plan out the symmetrical geometric design. In the 2nd class, the students were given tempera paint in the primary colors and white. In the 3rd class, the students finished painting with color and then did touchups with more black tempera paint. Several finished early and had time to write artist statements about their projects:

Cole1264 says this about his/her art... I made a painting related to the Ndeble tribe with many colors. I used regular paints and geometric shapes. my art teacher told us to make them and make them imaginative. I learned how to say the name and I learned that mostly women do the painting. I think my painting is colorful and artistic. but, I think I could have used a bit more designs. I think the best part of my painting was the colors and the shapes.

Destiny2778 says this about his/her art...

I made a painting that is inspired by the people of the Ndebele tribe. my painting is a mixture of shapes, colors, and crazy designs, but I wish I didn't make so many shapes, that ws really confusing! Well... thanks for choosing my art to look at! :)

Kaelan34 says this about his/her art...

This is a painting that uses primary colors, secondary colors, and a tint color. People in the Ndebele tribe draw designs on their houses. Then they paint in the designs. Then they have a colorful house. it's pretty much what I did except on paper. This was a fun project.

I really loved this project and I think the students enjoyed it just as much as me! I'm calling it a keeper! I think it worked because the inspiration caught their attention and they were able to make personal choices within a structure. You can see more in our Artsonia exhibit.

Klee-Inspired Geometric Shape Fish

My K-3rd grade school started off the year with a "Fish" theme.  The Kindergarten teachers suggested it last spring and we all just kind of went with it!  I planned a fish project for each grade.  Up first is 2nd grade, just because I finished editing their photos first!  Check out the Artsonia exhibit here, and please don't judge me for the colors being really funky, I am finding that editing with Artsonia's website is time saving since I can do it at school but not the most true to life when Auto correct and Brighten are the only ways to adjust color.  But enough about that, read on for my jabbering about the project.

  Paul Klee is an artist that I honestly didn't know very much about before starting this project.  I knew the name and knew that shapes and abstraction were involved in his work but besides seeing some lesson plans based on him, I never gave him very much thought.  I got ahold of some Art for Children books that the library was discarding and one of them was about Paul Klee.  I looked through it and mentally filed away a few ideas.  For the fish project, I showed the students three of his paintings.  

We started by looking at Klee's painting, Castle and Sun, and discussing the shapes which the students were able to identify as geometric.  (I always remind them that geometric shapes are the kind they learn about in Math class and that seems to help them remember.) I explained that they would eventually be making pictures of fish so with that in mind, the background was going to be made of squares and rectangles printed in cool colors to remind us of water.  I used my handy dandy box cutter to cut squares and rectangles out of cardboard.  I didn't worry about using a straight edge or measuring, I wanted a little variety.  The students painted tints of purple, blue, and green on the cardboard and then stamped the shape on their paper, black construction paper.  I think the added white helped the paint show up better.  The little art history lesson, introduction, and printing took the first 40-minute class period.

The best way I found to handle the paint was to put a little tray of each color at each table.  I put it on top of this weird vinyl-y stuff that I have packs and packs of.  It made a pretty good placemat and contained most of the mess.  My tables usually have about 5 students at them so I put two brushes in each paint color.  I asked the students to keep the brushes with one color so I didn't have to worry about water.  The cardboard pieces just stayed on the vinyl stuff when not in use.

During the second class, we looked at two more Klee paintings: Fish Magic and The Golden Fish.  We saw how Paul Klee used geometric shapes to construct his fish.  I actually used a Pinterest board I created about Paul Klee as a way to organize the images I wanted to show the students.  It worked really well.  I just pulled up the board at the beginning of class and it kept track of the "bookmarks" for me.  (The Philadelphia Museum of Art's website was really great because it lets you zoom in to focus on details of the paintings.)  Next, we brainstormed some different geometric shapes and I was going to draw them on the chalkboard for reference when I remembered I didn't have to!  Instead, I projected a poster that I had saved on, you guessed it, Pinterest, and the students could just look at it for ideas!

Source: awesomeartists.com via Katie on Pinterest

Afterwards, each student was given a quarter page black construction paper and asked to draw a fish as big as they could fit on on the page made out of geometric shapes.  Of course I had lots of students tell me they didn't know how so I just reminded them that they were imaginary fish and they could keep it simple like an ellipse and a triangle.  The "I can't"s and "I don't know how"s seem to be a lot worse at the beginning of the school year...

After they finished drawing in pencil, construction paper crayons were used to fill in the shapes then the fish were cut out and glued down on the printed papers.  There ended up being a little extra time in most classes so I let them have the "bonus step" of adding some sand (yes, REAL SAND) to their artwork.  They get so darn excited about sand... and I do a little, too!  Calling it a "bonus step" seemed to be really motivating.

My schedule can end up being a big mess if I don't change some lessons for classes on certain days.  My Tuesday classes hardly ever miss but days off school tend to be scheduled on Mondays and Fridays.  Labor day was obviously on a Monday so my Monday classes had 1 1/2 class periods instead of 2.  They drew their fish at the end of the first day and colored and printed on the second day.  There was no cutting involved.  Here is a result from one of those classes: