Wednesday, June 8, 2011

3-D Circle Painting

For our final project of the year we worked on a variation of Circle Painting.
I first read about Circle Painting on Barbara's blog here. I followed that idea, but added a variation of dimension to our piece. Since our school blocks YouTube I found some other sites with examples of circle painting to share with my group of 4th graders to give them the general idea. Kids worked in teams of 4, each with one color of paint, at separate tables. Each table had a different set of colors.


One child started with a circle or circle pattern in the center of the board. The next child added on with a new color. Once everyone had added one color they could all jump in and paint at the same time growing from the center outward.


I asked them to plan, thinking of color, line, design and general balance of the piece, however, I found that the planning conversation just happened naturally. I loved when I overheard one of the boys saying, "Let's plan this smart!" and then went on with his rather elaborate suggestion.
Children rotated their positions at the table so that their color repeated in different areas. After awhile, I had kids change tables so that they were working on a different piece of art with their new set of colors. It was fun to see them go back to their previous table to see how other kids had added to "their" painting. The teamwork began with the original 4 kids, but then grew to include the others who worked on the same piece. Such a great opportunity to demonstrate cooperation!!!!!!
Before the students started this part of the painting, they cut and painted a 2" tube which they will be gluing onto the finished paintings tomorrow when they are dry. I think that this addition of dimension will add to the basic circle painting. We'll see!! I'll share when it is done.

6 comments:

  1. So colorful and pretty! I love these! My big problem with group art: who gets to keep it? Sometimes I cut them apart and give everyone a piece. What will you do?

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  2. For this one, the kids knew that they were doing it to display in the Auditorium for the beginning of school in the fall, so nobody is going to get it -- they volunteered for this. When I do this next year I think I will use smaller pieces of board that can be displayed by putting them together, but then when they are taken apart each child can have his/her own back.

    I have also seen this same project done on a huge piece of canvas. When dried, the canvas is cut into pieces so each child gets one to take home.

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  3. These are so lovely. I hope you'll post your final results with the 3-D inclusions. It's fun watching this project evolve.
    YouTube is blocked at my school, but I can show videos for educational purposes. Here's the link to the down loader I use...

    http://youtubedownload.altervista.org/

    In case you want it...
    Barb

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  4. The colours are amazing- what type/brand of paint do you use? You pour it into individual plastic cups?

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  5. Miss - Thanks for stopping by my blog. In answer to your question, the kids were using acrylics. I had a different color in each paint cup and they traded tables and eventually traded cups to get a variety of colors on each team's board. It was really a fun project to do!! I posted this response on your blog, too.

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  6. Thanks, Fine Lines- will definitely have to try this project- I do so few 'collaborative' works.

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