What's Going on in the Classroom: Watercolor Painting Project

I'm soooo glad we have moved back into a two-dimensional media! This quarter students will be exploring painting and some 2-D mixed media as well as printmaking and computer graphics. We've started off with watercolor painting. As we enter the second half of the year, students are really striking out with their own voice and ideas. So for this painting, instead of telling students what their subject matter should be, we are focusing on their composition or how they arrange that subject matter. But before we got into any of that, we practice and played around with different watercolor techniques. Students learned how to do a watercolor wash and some different textures with salt and straws, etc.. then they tried their hand at painting realistically with some fruit as their inspiration.

Now students are beginning their compositions. The chose any subject matter they wanted, however they had to include one distinct focal point. Students had to place that focal point on their paper according to the Rule of Thirds. Then they were required to incorporate a watercolor wash and a texture technique somewhere in their work. Here are a few that are just getting starting. More finished pieces to come!

Printmaking: For all Grades!

As the school year winds down, the challenge for me is to have projects that students can complete by the end of school. With class picnics, parties, field trips, and kids just being absent for whatever reason, it's not always a good idea to start long projects.
One thing that I know we can do in one or two class periods, is printmaking! Specifically in this post I'll show mono printing with 1st grade students and chalk prints with 4th grade students.

For monoprints, I have some plexi glass sheets that I set up with paint into stations for the kids. We either watch a short video or I demo how to create designs using whatever tools we have sitting out. We talk about how to make a monoprint by laying the paper on top of the design and pressing down. We also talk about and the kids make a ghost print right after their first print. This way they usually get at least one successful print! While kids are waiting for their turn at a printmaking station, they can free create, but also should be thinking about what their design is going to be.

Chalk prints are a little different, although I would still label them as a monoprint. For this project, we involve stencils. Not gonna lie, I got this idea from Cassie Stephens, check her out here. Again, I set up stations, but this time, instead of a paint covered plate, it's a shallow tub of water. 

I demo the process to students and then they head back to their seats to put their names on their paper and cut out shapes to be their stencils. We talk briefly about how simple shapes are more successful, but there's always someone who tries letters which have to be done backwards. It's a hot mess!

When students are ready, they come up to a station of water. With scissors, they scrape off a layer of chalk right onto the water. The water holds the chalk on the surface. When they have the color coverage that they want, they lay down the shapes that they cut out and then their piece of paper on top. This part is tricky! They have to just tap the paper lightly with their fingers to pick up the chalk from the surface of the water. They should NOT push the paper down so that it's submerged. After they've tapped all over the paper, they lift it up and viola! A wonderful chalk print!

While kids are waiting for their turn, they can be cutting out new stencils and preparing their paper. 

Two for One: Printmaking and Symmetry!

There is hope that this week will be a full week! Although I heard we're supposed to get lots of snow tomorrow... we shall see. At least it's not as bitter cold as it has been.

For this post, I wanted to share two concepts that are being learned in art class. The first graders are learning about symmetry and the second graders have learned all about printmaking.
We talked a lot about symmetry in first grade, they did several small projects leading up to our final symmetry project which dealt with insects. I can tell you right now, there were mixed reactions to doing a drawing of an insect but in the end, everyone was into it. We talked about insects and the different parts of it. We looked a diagram similar to this one.

Then we talked about how an insect has symmetry. We folded a large paper in half and drew our own insects. Students were told to draw large and fill the page. They were also told that whatever they drew on one side of the paper had to be drawn on the other side of the paper so that the insect would be symmetrical. Then we painted them using tempera cakes, which I have to say are not my favorite.

 

 

Then the second graders learned about printmaking. We spent a whole class talking about what we thought printmaking was and then we watched a video to support our thoughts.(Printmaking Video)

I also did a demo of how to ink a plexi-glass plate and lay down scraps of soft fabric and such to make the print. Technically these were Monoprints, but we did end up pulling two images; a negative and a positive.

The next class we set up stations at tables. Those who were waiting for their turn helped by putting names on prints and running them to the drying rack. I'm gonna warn you right now, the ink dries fast and we definitely had some issues with that. Some of the prints turned out great and some not so much, but the experience was fun for all involved!