Dots and Colored Stripes

With International Dot Day coming up this week I thought it might be fun for students to experiment with color and 3 different media choices.

Years ago a parent gave me a large collection of buttons that I still have not exhausted, even though I have used them to start several art projects. I thought they could be the starting dot.

To introduce the stripes, David Shannon's A Bad Case of Stripes provides the perfect springboard to discuss color theory (whatever aspect is appropriate to the grade level, i.e. warm/cool, complementary,  primary/secondary/tertiary, tints/shades, etc.). This book also is about not letting others influence your choices and being true to yourself, also a nice trait to relate to art.

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The project is for each student to start with a 6" X 6" board (or paper) with a button "dot" glued near the center. The student then makes concentric circle stripes around the dot using one of 3 media: watercolor marker painted over with clear water, water soluble wax pastels colored pencils painted over with water, or plain watercolor. Of course, you could use whatever media you like. I chose these because they allowed me to teach primary students how to use a paintbrush correctly with attention to direction of line when using it. Lessons here, and here. I like for kids to experiment to find colors they like to have next to each other.

           Watercolor Marker (Crayola) painted over with water.

             Water soluble Wax Pastels painted over with water.

              Pan Watercolors
              For this version I like to require students to use the lid of 
              their pan to mix new colors to use.

Just imagine a whole bulletin board of these displayed as a collaborative work!!!!  Happy Dot Day everyone (this Friday)!

Math Doubles to Art Doubles

A little while ago 2nd graders were working on learning their doubles math facts (i.e. 4  + 4 = 8, 6 + 6 = 12. etc.) so we decided to make a mini art project to reinforce the facts that they found the hardest for them to remember. We started with building several equations using Unifix Cubes and Pattern Blocks.

Then I read them the book, Two of Everything, to really cement the idea of doubling a number.

In this book there is a magic pot that doubles anything that falls into it. So this was an opportunity to teach kids how to use oil pastels to make a 3-D looking pot using shading techniques. See here for more directions.

Next, students made two sets of matching objects or people to represent their doubles equation. For people they used paint to print the faces and then crayons and Sharpies for the rest of their drawing.

I had them write the addition equation on a red strip and the matching multiplication equation on green ( just to link the concepts).

Here are a few of the finished projects:

Oil Pastel Dots for Dot Day - Art Audition #2

With September just around the corner, it's time to start thinking about International Dot Day to celebrate Peter Reynold's book, The Dot. Each year I get engrossed in thinking about all the wonderful possibilities of tying art lessons to this fabulous little gem of a book, and this year is no exception. You can see previous years' lessons here, and here.

The first idea I am auditioning for this year is this simple (and quick) lesson that will introduce oil pastels and pinch-tearing all at the same time.

The supplies are simple: 9 X 12 construction paper pre-cut into fourths, some oil pastels, and a piece of background paper on which to glue the shapes. Pentel is one of my preferred brands because the pastels are soft and easy for students to use with good results.

The first step is to "pinch tear some dots". I would have kids practice this first using scratch paper. You can see a lesson on this by clicking here.

 

Once students have a few "dots" torn they start coloring areas using either warm or cool colors, using a color wheel as a guide to their thinking and planning.  I like to have them overlap areas of color just a little to see how the colors interact and what new colors appear. Using white to tint some of their colors makes for some nice experimenting, too. You could have students use any color system, not just warm and cool.

I had intended to use just black construction paper, but decided I liked the variety of using lighter colors of paper, too. I also thought about and tested using baby oil and swabs to blend the pastels slightly, but found that that didn't really add value (except, perhaps the lovely clean aroma of the baby oil in a classroom!) to this project. That is one of the advantages of auditioning a lesson first, before using it in the classroom!

The final step is to glue the dots on a background paper (either plain or painted if I want to get a little messier), overlapping edges just slightly.

I am actually thinking about doing this as a collaborative project that will cover a HUGE area, with hundreds of dots!!!

Happy Spring (flowers)!

Spring is such a cheery season for students to try to recreate. We have so many early blossoms in our little beach town that inspiration is around every corner!!

 

And then there was last week when we had gusty winds whipping the palm trees into a frenzy!!

Think I will need to work on a lesson to exemplify the wind, but for those looking for quick (or semi-quick) spring flower lessons, I do have these former flower lessons here,  here , here , here and here!! 
The flowers below take a bit longer, but the lesson can be found here. 

Hope you all are enjoying your Spring Break!

Floating Spheres at MacArthur Park

For the past week the idea of painted spheres has been floating around in my mind -- just like the painted spheres floating at MacArthur Park (link to post) that I posted about a week ago. In thinking about doing a sphere project with kids, I decided to try out some different media.

I almost never have kids do a project that I haven't experimented with first -- unless it is purely a "discovery" experience. Good thing I tried this one out because my first idea was a flop -- which I am happy to share to spare anyone else from having to try it!!

I thought about tracing circles on the back of wrapping paper, then flipping the paper over and making black lines to define shapes (like the spheres in the lake) and shading the sphere to make it look 3 dimensional. To add to the dimensional illusion, kids would glue the spheres overlapping on (and in slits in) painted acetate.

Well . . .  the tracing part went just fine.

 Then things started to go south! Once I turned it over and tried to color with black on the wrapping paper, the slick surface of the paper got in the way and was tough to get really black; shading for depth was a nightmare (see red sphere below). So I decided to try it on the back side of the wrapping paper (below, left). Again, the slick surface made the color look washed out -- and there is almost nothing I dislike more than faded looking color!!! I tried it with oil pastels -- same thing (and I didn't want this to be a painting project, so I didn't get the paints out!).

OK. Then it was on to the acetate -- except I was doing this over Labor Day weekend and couldn't find any acetate at home, so I tried it with plastic wrap, UHG!! I managed to get through the process, but it would be way too hard for little ones as it kept moving all over the place.

I used acrylic for this. Sorry for the blurry focus!

 Once it was dry, I made some slits in it so the spheres could slip in and look like they were submerged a bit. That part was actually OK.

So then I decided to try making the spheres on regular drawing paper and coloring with oil pastels. This worked much better. This would be a good way to have students practice using different color families (primary, secondary, warm/cool).

Warm colors -- solid

Primary colors (plus a surprise pop of secondary)

 I like to show students how Van Gogh used a "surprise pop of a different color (think about his "Irises" with the one white iris in the field of violets) and invite them to "surprise their viewer" by inserting an unexpected color.

This shows primary with a "pop" of secondary.

Finally, I imagined what these spheres would look like if I used painted papers that I always have accumulated in  

Spring. So, of course, I painted some papers to try that out using warm colors.

A few trees in the background . . . hmmmmm . . . maybe.

 Black outlining for the spheres . . . seemed like a good idea at first, but looking at it now, maybe not.

So what did I learn this Labor Day?? 

• I learned that painting spheres is still fun (I always do     some sort of sphere work each year -- see here and here.) 
• I reaffirmed that auditioning art lessons at home is always a good idea before taking them to the classroom. It's good to know what some of the pitfalls might be!!
• Think I'll try painting left-over laminating film for my water feature before springing for buying acetate. That might work better!
• I'm also thinking that this would be a smashing collaborative project, where kids could design spheres and make a GIANT lake collage with them!!

Isn't it fun that we can keep on learning forever??!!!!

Why Doughnut Art??

Well, I could say that the reason for making doughnut art is to practice tinting and shading to create the illusion of depth; 

or I could say it is to reinforce the study of shapes; or I could say it is to experiment with color or different media; or learn about Wayne Thiebaud's art . . .  One could go on and on. 

One could also say that I wanted a good excuse to visit my favorite donut shop in Costa Mesa, California (right next to Newport Beach) and buy a bunch of their cinnamon crumb cake donuts -- YUM!! 

After using these as inspiration for art I would, of course, have to eat them. I actually make the trek to this shop (one hour drive each way) often, just to buy the donuts. I eat a few and then wrap the rest singly and freeze them for when the craving strikes. Seriously, these are JUST THE BEST!!!!

But I am digressing -- back to the ART.

This project starts by having students use a ruler to divide a square paper into fourths. That is a whole lesson in itself for some. (How to start measuring at the end of the ruler - or where the zero would be if we considered the ruler as a number line -, how to hold the ruler in 2 places so it doesn't wobble, how to measure and mark in two places so the lines are equal distances apart, etc).

(For younger students, or to accommodate time constraints, you could have each student draw just one donut instead of four.)

Then, using photos of donuts (or the real thing), kids sketch and shade their 4 donuts. Notice that each donut just about touches the edges so that the donut "fills the space." Sometimes I have students use a little photo icon of a light to remind them where the light source is and where the shadows will be as they are shading. (see here for example: http://kids-finelines.blogspot.com/2010/10/sunny-day-great-shadows.html)

Then comes the color. Instead of using just one media I like to put out crayons, oil pastels, colored pencils and paint so that students can experiment with each. This is a good way to introduce use of materials at the beginning of the year and it is a good way for students to discover for themselves the variations that can be achieved with different media. Oil pastels definitely work best for making the "sprinkles" because of their strong color!

 Once these are done, they can be framed as individual pieces of art . . .

. . . or they can be combined into arrays as collaborative works. I actually like this because it opens up lots of possibilities for integrating with math!!

Here we have 4 X 4 = 16.

And here is 4 X 6 = 24 or 6 X 4 = 24 or "What fraction of the group is Jelly Donuts?" or "If you eat half of this box of donuts, how many are left?"  You get the idea:))

A great Literature Connection for this lesson would be to read Homer Price by Robert McCloskey.

 Just think of all the great math questions one could generate with this illustration!! I can remember hearing this story as a read aloud in, I think, my own 4th grade classroom decades ago!!!

On that note, I think it is time for me to go eat a doughnut or two:))