I try to squeeze a colour wheel lesson into every term not just because colour theory is to art what phonics is to reading, but also because children simply LOVE to mix colours! It literally never gets old... they can spend an entire class simply mixing colours to see what they come up with and not actually paint a single thing and giving them the freedom to experiment in this way is just a must... so take a look at them as they mix their secondary colours and create an adorable little juggling clown in the process :)
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This week the Picassos looked at one of the elements of art VALUE. Value is the degree of lightness or darkness in a colour or hue. Artists use value to manipulate space (another element of art) because the further away things are the lighter they appear. This phenomenon is called atmospheric perspective... Phew! That's our big art term for the day and it simply means how we see the air around us! We discussed how things appear to fade off into the distance because of dust, humidity or even air pollution. Take a look at them in action and see how they achieved the goal of making the forest look like you can walk further and further into those enchanted trees by varying the value of the colour we used! This term I wanted to get all my students working in unison on one big collaborative piece. I took some time to decide what it should be and I came across a project that was originally done by a graffiti street artist which was a huge presentation of wings with a space in the middle for people to insert themselves and 'take part' in the art piece. I thought this was a lovely concept and it was also a positive theme that could spawn lots of great conversation about the things that motivate or make my kiddos feel good about themselves :) Of course working together also encourages cooperation and the recognition that pooling your efforts can make a huge task seem a lot more manageable and all that good stuff! The picture below is the work of the original Nashville artist which is painted on the side of a building for folks on the street to use for their keepsake snapshots! But of course I couldn't leave it at that... noooooooooo. I tweaked it so there were some of those trusty 'elements of art' concepts that we're always going on about. The element we'll focus on here is VALUE, which basically speaks to the extent of lightness or darkness in a colour or hue. So for our version of these wings each child created a personalized feather by painting a gradation (moving from dark to light) using the colours found on the colour wheel. Then they added lines and pattern on top of that in white for even more pizzazz! Take a look at what we've done so far :) Next week the whole project will come together as all the classes have an opportunity to make a feather and we mount them in the hall! Our wings are finally complete and they are certainly a hit! Can't help but think they kinda look like a Carnival wing/backpack thingy :) Notice that our feathers are laid out in the order of the colour wheel! So now we have a giant colour theory reference right outside our door... a neat side effect of this gorgeous project. Even some of parents had to take a pic with the wings and that's what it's all about! Today we worked a bit of science and math into our art. Our Science Experiment At the start of class we discussed how primary colours mix to form secondary colours and how all colours come from different combinations of these three colours. To demonstrate this we used some paper towels, water and food colouring in cups. Two primary colours (red and blue) were placed in two cups on either end and a third cup was placed in the middle with just water. It took the entire class (we were checking on its progress throughout) but eventually the coloured water travelled up the paper towel and met in the middle and created a new colour... purple! We talked a bit about the sciency (yup I just said sciency lol) part of this experiment... namely why the water moves along the paper towel so they got familiar with terms like absorption, adhesion, capillary action and even gravity (I put the 2 end cups on a height so the liquid would travel a bit faster). We also talked about when this capillary action happens in nature... when plants take water up through their roots and up their stems! Now for the Math part... One important element of art is FORM and this refers to objects that are 3-dimensional, or in other words, not flat. In other disciplines such as math this concept is explained in terms of shapes and solids. Shapes are flat and solids have form or are 3D having length, width and depth. So we reviewed this simple concept by discussing simple shapes and their solid counterparts... for example a circle is a shape and its solid is a sphere, a square is a shape and its solid is a cube, a rectangle is a shape and its solid is a cuboid... etc etc. Then we moved on to how we represent this in art! The Picassos were asked to draw 3 different types of beakers (it is mad science colour mixing after all!) and turn them into solids or 3D forms. These beakers were to hold our 'liquid' for the colour mixing part of our lesson today. So I demonstrated how we use line to create an optical illusion and turn a 2D shape into a form! We then went into colour mixing using a wet on wet technique so they got to see the colours move towards each other on the page and change right before their very eyes! We stuck to primary colours (red, blue and yellow) so they could then mix our secondaries. Next they worked on drawing some gorgeous bubbles using chalk pastels on black paper which serves as the background for our piece. The bubbles also reinforced the form concept because they created mostly spheres using curved lines inside the flat circles... but of course it didn't take long for somebody to say "miss... you know bubbles are all kinds of shapes.. not just round" When our bubbles were drawn in the beakers were cut out and stuck into place. The Doodlebugs mixed secondary colours out of the three primaries today. For some this is a skill they are familiar with and for others it was a new trick, but it was fun for everyone! We also started class off with the 'walking water' experiment to demonstrate how 2 of the primaries mix to create a secondary colour. I didn't go too deep into the science with my Doodlebugs but I did tell them that the same thing happens when roots drink water from soil and the water travels up the stem to the leaves etc. The all got to say capillary action... which came out in all different versions lol but they were constantly checking on how far the colours moved up the paper towel as class went on! The each got their own pallet with the primary colours and mixed their secondary colours all on their own. Then they cut out their ovals and we painted a branch on another piece of paper and they stuck them into place. Of course we also decked our little birdies off with googly eyes and 'real' feathers ;P (Aunty Natalia knows how to pump up the oooh factor lol.) It's a new year and a new term and so I decided why not give these Picassos are running start... or rather a flying one! They all had to imagine themselves as super heroes... a feat that was surprisingly easy for these kiddos... hmmm. But before they got to decide on super powers or design costumes they had to create the background for their super hero selves to land on and survey! This lesson is gigantic in scope because it covers my 'fave' thing to say 'perspective', but it also touches on colour theory, introduces a cool technique called scratch art AND gives the Picassos some exposure to figure drawing. Phew! Up top is a sample of what the finished piece might look like :) So for Part 1 we painted our evening or night sky using watercolours and oil pastels in either a warm or cool colour pallete... oh yeah here's another technique.. wax resist! I suggested we take our inspiration from the huge Starry Night painting in the art room and give our sky a Van Gogh feel. Tuesday kiddos are on top and Saturday Picassos are underneath.. take a peek! Next they got started making the scratch art paper that we will use for our city sky scrapers... because where else is a Super Hero going to perch but up high on top of some buildings :)
What 8 year old doesn't love to doodle? I think the term Zentangle is relatively new because it's pretty similar to what comes naturally to expert doodlers... lol... but I digress... as usual. Today we looked at using repetitive patterns and lines to create balance and beauty. They were tasked to fill an animal of their choosing with a bunch of zentangle patterns.
The finished animals were then cut out and mounted on coloured 'frames'. The colours chosen would have to fit into one of our predefined colour schemes though... we discussed how analogous (colours next to each other on the colour wheel) and complementary (colours opposite to each other on the colour wheel) can make the viewer feel differently about a picture. Take a look at these beauties!
Thursday Picassos tackle the Mexican Cacti... for the original post seehere.
Lot of fantastic original patterns and gorgeous colours :) Take a look! Yet another fun way to practice the colour wheel! This one involves using pre-drawn circles that have been separated into the colour wheel segments and basic directed line drawing :) They painted in the colours on the colour wheel, of course mixing the secondary colours as well. The colour wheel became the clown's tummy and they traced a smaller circle above it for the head, drew in arms and legs etc. The Doodlebugs are great at adding in the details at this point. They drew in facial features, hair, hats, the whole shabang! Then they started putting in coloured squiggles that actually looks a lot like confetti at a circus... They came up with that on their own. Class was down to just these few Doodlebugs today because we had to move to Friday this week because of the power outage. |
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Be a fly on the wall in our art room! Take a look at what we do, how we do it and the smiles that I get to see week after week :) Archives
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