2nd Grade Contour Watercolors

My elementary kids love painting. (Duh). Liquid tempera is usually the favorite because they like the opacity but the second graders had a good run with watercolors after a mini lesson/refresher in the spring. We talked about contour drawing and reviewed watercolor techniques. Many were inspired to try portraits after I showed them THIS pin but there were a lot of other choices, too. The students either drew directly with sharpie or traced over pencil before adding color with watercolors.

These two students observed some of the artificial flowers in my still life box.

And as always, touches of mixed media were common.

One of my concerns when researching TAB was how to make sure students were getting some breadth when it comes to materials. I really didn't have anything to worry about. If there is one student who does the same thing over and over and avoids trying new things, I just encourage that student to try something different, or make it a requirement if I have to. If I notice that a group is collectively not using a particular medium, all I have to do is a mini lesson showing a cool "something new" and pretty soon everyone wants to try!

3rd Grade Dots

The 3rd grade dots for International Dot Day were inspired by Celebridots (www.celebridots.com). The students planned in pencil, traced with sharpie, and painted with watercolors.

1st Grade African Penguins

If you live in Northeast Kansas, you may have heard about the Topeka Zoo's Penguin Plunge. 6 African penguins are spending the summer in a temporary exhibit (visiting from Omaha) in an effort to educate visitors about penguins, conservation, and all that other good zoo stuff. :) That seemed like a pretty good reason to do a penguin project to me!

We started by learning the American Sign Language signs for "True" and "False" then using our new signs to answer questions about penguins. I read the questions first and saw the students' answers, then we went back through to find out what was really true and false. By signing the words, we added a kinesthetic action and I was able to find out preconceived ideas without shouting! It was so quiet and the students were so excited to answer that I want to (learn and) teach more signs in the future.

Questions

Penguins eat fish. (True)

All penguins live where it is very cold. (False)

Penguins live at the North Pole. (False)

Penguins live in Antarctica. (True)

Penguins live in Africa. (True)

Penguins can fly. (False)

 Next, I showed a short video clip of African penguins swimming and we looked at some photos to discuss the special features of the African penguins. I mainly pointed out the "rainbow" shape on the chest and where the black and white sections connect. The students also noticed that some have "freckles". 

The inspiration for how the penguins would look came from Mary Making's Pop Art Chimps. In her lesson, the students made paintings then drew chimps on top with charcoal. I liked the look but the process wouldn't have worked well with my 1st graders. I printed out reference photos of penguins to put at each table so the students would have choices. I asked them to draw one penguin as big as they could fit it on their paper. Next, they traced all their lines with black crayon then we decided to color in the black areas as well. In the 2nd class period when the tracing and coloring was done, the students used watercolor paint to create shapes and patterns. The black of the penguins showed through in a wax-resist.

*I LOVE the 16 color set of Prang watercolors. The extra 8 are really vibrant and the students like being able to mix more colors.

 

 On Monday I took my mother-in-law and my son to the zoo. The penguins were just sort of hanging out on top of the rocks so they were harder to see than if they had been in the water. We still had fun checking out the other animals. Here is a picture of my MIL and my son by a life size display. (The penguin species on the far right is extinct in case you wondered!)

My 6h grade African-inspired Art lesson was based on kangas, a garment popular in part of Eastern Africa. I read something that compared kangas to t-shirts because they can express lots of different ideas. The kanga information website that seemed the most authentic is Swahili Language and Culture. From my research, I found that the basics to a kanga design are a wide, even border (1), a central design (2), and some sort of saying (3). I showed the students images of kangas from SLC and my favorite is below. Some of the sayings would probably be easier to get the true meaning of if we were part of that culture, though I've read that they can have many different interpretations.

Source: culturemobile.wordpress.com via Katie on Pinterest

After discussing some of the kangas we saw, the students brainstormed idioms that they were familiar with. I was really impressed with how many different idioms they thought of! -I love idioms, so many possibilities for Art and Writing connections! The idea was basically to start with some sort of idiom or other saying, think of a simple illustration that could be drawn to illustrate the saying, and then design a pattern in the border. 

My example at completion of the pencil/Sharpie step.

I planned for the first class to be introduction and drawing and the second class to be painting. Almost all of the students could have used another class period to work on these. Several came in during recess or finished at home using other media. My planning problem? I forgot about the ruler quandary that makes simple tasks take twice as long as you think they should. Even though I showed the students how to just line the edge of the ruler up with the edge of the paper then use the straight edge, there were still major problems! I have written about this before and I still just can't understand what the problem is. It took some students most of the first class just to get the border lines drawn on their paper. But, I was being stubborn and didn't add any time because these are the students I only see for 40 minutes (more like 30 when there is no pass time built into the schedule and we have to clean up at the end) every other week) and the students who said they would rather do more projects and work quicker than fewer projects with more work time. I sent any artwork that was not finished home and I maybe ended up with half of the projects for the grade finished. I'm not sure how successful the visual was, but I think this lesson has potential. If I teach it again, I will probably use different media. I could probably have given the students a template to work on but really, if they don't already know how to use a ruler to make a straight line, someone's gotta make them learn! Anyway, here are some of the finished paintings so take a look!

 

Prang vs. Crayola... sort of

I read a post over at Deep Space Sparkle today where Patty discusses her favorite paint supplies for the classroom.  She mentioned that she was looking to try pan watercolors other than Prang.  Last year, one of the teachers at school brought me a whole box full of Art supplies that were left from her classroom.  Included in the box were several trays of Crayola watercolors.  I came up with the brilliant plan of making two watercolor paintings, one with Prang and one with Crayola, so I could compare the results.  What I didn't count on was that I would end up wanting to make paintings with two totally different color schemes!  I ended up with two paintings of birds but other than that, they aren't very similar so my color comparison experiment is a bust.  I think I should just do something simple like a color wheel to compare.  I'll add that to my list of 137 things to do. :)

Here is a wood duck painted with Prang watercolors, below is a rainforest bird (I think some kind of bee eater but I'm having trouble with the identification) painted with Crayola watercolors.

4th Grade Shape Paintings

Last year I had all my 4-6th grade students vote on their favorite projects to help me decide which ones were "keepers".  My 4th grade students voted for Geometric Shape Op Art (click on the link to see last year's projects) and landscape paintings that blended watercolors and had salt sprinkled on it to make bright colors with cool texture.  I wasn't totally satisfied with either project.  The landscape idea came from my cooperating teacher during student teaching and though I changed it a little bit and loved the bright, finished paintings, I thought it was lacking.  The Op Art project was very frustrating and didn't turn out the best even though I felt I had good intentions of covering lots of material- shape, complementary colors, math tie in, etc.  I decided to combine the two projects and I am much happier with it!

I got a list of the geometric shapes that are on the 4th grade math assessment to start.  I printed the shapes off on colored card stock, laminated, and cut so that each table would have a set of tracers.  I also had compasses available to make larger circles.  At the beginning of the first class, we reviewed organic and geometric shapes and the students named the geometric shapes as I held them up in the air.  I explained the first step: trace geometric shapes on your paper to create an interesting composition with overlapping.  The students traced with pencil then traced the pencil with fine point sharpies.  I was looking at the drawings and saw something that would become a problem with the next step- the negative space was one giant shape!  I had the students get rulers and use the straight edge to make 3 or 4 lines at different angles go clear across their paper.

On day 2, I introduced analagous colors.  I showed the students the colors that are next to each other on the color wheel are also next to each other in the watercolor paint trays.  I spent a couple minutes quizzing them to check for understanding.

Iif you are only using analgous colors would you ever use red and green?

If you are using orange, what two colors could you combine with it?

Etc.

I pointed out how new shapes are created when the geometric shapes or lines overlapped.  I told the students that each shape should have two analagous colors in it.  I demonstrated carefully painting in half of a shape and then while the paint was still wet, painting the other half with an analagous color so that they would blend in the middle.  I showed the students how to sprinkle a TINY bit of salt on the wet paint to create a texture.  They always think it's like magic to see the salt soak up the paint.  I suggested that the students skip around their paper instead of painting shapes that were touching for two reasons.  1- That gives the paint a chance to dry so colors don't bleed into other shapes.  2- It's one of my "artist tricks".  If you run out of time and things are balanced, it looks like it's on purpose.  If you run out of time and one half is painted and the other half is empty, it's obvious that you ran out of time!

I was only planning on 2 classes for this project but had to add another one.  Some students achieved a nice balance between the colored and white spaces but most did not and they looked unfinished.  About 2/3 of the students were able to get every shape painted in the 2nd class.  Learned helplessness is a big problem at my school.  We have discussed it as a staff and try things like encouraging the students to see what others are doing bore they ask the teacher for help.  I had lots and lots of students coming up to ask me if two colors were ok to use together after we spent a good amount of time on it.  I didn't want to just say yes or no, I wanted the studnets to figure it out!  I started asking them "Are they next to each other on the color wheel?"  Then they would go look and get to work.

I have one 4th grader who is quite a character. He LOVES Art (last year he asked me every single time he came to class if we were going to do an Art contest!) but is not the best at following directions or using good craftsmanship. Needless to say, he kind of struggled with this project.  I also had a student turn his wet painting totally sideways up in the air to show me.  He learned cause and effect as his paint blurred together and dripped down his paper!



4th Grade Landscapes

4th grade students painted fantasy desert-ish landscapes with watercolor. Sprinkling table salt on wet paint created a really cool texture. I love how colorful the paintings are!