Spring Fingerprint Snapdragons

Tints and Shades

Last week our 1st graders created half of their mixed media still life paintings. You can see how they made their vases, table tops and backgrounds here. This week, after discussing how you can see where the sunlight hits part of the blossoms, we broke out the liquid tempera and children got busy with their index fingers.

  I shared Lois Ehlert's, Feathers for Lunch, and we searched for examples of where she used tints in her flowers.

You may notice that I put the white on a separate, disposable plate, as some tables got their paint pretty messed up by the end of the hour.

 I demonstrated how to use JUST ONE FINGER to make the snapdragon blossoms. Children had 5 "color wheel" colors plus white. They dipped into the color first and then into the white before printing. We call this "double dip painting". They started printing at the bottom of each stem and went to its left, then right, left, right, etc. until reaching the top where the blossoms taper off. They went back and added prints or more white (for highlights) as needed. I had newspaper spread under their work, so before switching colors, kids just wiped their finger on it so that their finger was ready to dip into a new color. (This really worked. The paint colors stayed perfectly "clean" all week long!!)

 Probably the hardest part for some was making sure that their stem extended down "into the vase", that is, to the bottom part of the oval depicting the vase's inside. Otherwise the flowers look like they are floating in air. We talked about this in each class.

 These spring blossoms definitely brighten up an otherwise rather bland hallway!!!!! I think we'll keep them there for awhile!!:))