Viewfinders - How To & How NOT To!!

Last week I had kids make viewfinders to use in creating their mini-abstacts (here). Most 5th graders had no problems with the basic directions. For others, not so easy!!
Here were the steps:

Fold: "hamburger" style (fat), not "hot dog" style (skinny).

 Trace around rectangle which is placed ON THE FOLD. I wanted the viewfinders to have 1-inch square cut-outs. Since I don't have 34 standard rulers and we weren't going to have that much time, I had pre-cut some little 1" X 1/2" rectangles for the kids to use as a quick stencil.

Cut out.

Finished product!!

Now, in all fairness, most students came pretty close to making a viewfinder like the one above.

However, there were these, too:

 This little rectangle was folded in half around the fold.

This student placed the short end of the rectangle on the fold.

You KNOW what happened here, even though we talked about this before starting.

And then there were those that had trouble determining a "skinny" vs "fat" rectangle.

I know that with Valentine's Day creeping up, many teachers will be sighing as they observe similar cutting skills this week. Even though we model, demonstrate, remind students of possible pitfalls, we will still see that some students just need a little more time and practice. So, the word of the week: PATIENCE!!!! Have a fun Valentine's Day!

ps. To all of you on the East coast who may be shoveling out about now, I wish you well. Here in Southern California we are already seeing signs of Spring!!!

Mini-Abstracts

I haven't had kids use viewfinders in YEARS, but a post I saw last November here got me thinking about them again. I tried a few "mini-abstracts" of my own during the Winter Holiday using catalogues I was getting ready to discard. I was immediately hooked for several reasons -- I'll get to those later. First, though, let me show you some 5th grade results:

Love the movement captured in this drawing!!!

This student worked to carefully place color blocks accurately.

What a nice example of shading in the white area!

These were all completed in one class session (about 40 min. working time).

We started this project looking at a small "abstract" photo on the Smartboard, identifying properties (shapes, colors, shading, etc). Students then tried to find where this cropping came from in the larger photo.

I modeled how to make a viewfinder, mark the midpoints on the viewfinder and the 6" square of drawing paper to use as register marks and overlay crayon colors to blend exact hues. As it turned out, that is a whole other article that I'll post later.

You can see how this student shaded his reds with orange and black.

I asked students to choose drawings that were non-representaional. This child turned his drawing sideways to create his abstract. These were actually 2 chicks -- but I love the way they look abstract at this angle. He actually worked very hard to capture shadows and texture that he observed.

I asked students to mount their drawings, first on a color of their choice, and then onto a 9" X 12" piece of black construction paper along with their viewfinder and  magazine selection. Part of my lesson was teaching children about mounting their work leaving black showing on all sides of their mounted work. These kids are often asked to create posters or visual presentations in their regular classrooms, so this is another useful skill for them to have.

Aside from that, why do I like viewfinder exercises so much?? Well, first, I find that the small scale helps to train the eye for larger observational drawings. Second, color matching is an acquired skill that gets better and better with practice (as with anything, I guess!). And, finally, I LOVE how the results provide so many examples for discussion of composition, not to mention pattern, color, repetition, etc., etc........ I think, that if I taught in an upper elementary regular classroom, I would be doing these or variations of these once a month!!!