looking at art with kids

With the idea that I would have students do some "mystery paintings" of faces.... white crayon on white paper with watercolor resist overlay.... I started out by having them compare two works, one by Pablo Picasso and one by Paul Klee. I chose these two works because I intended to have them do a contour drawing of a face and then use color blocks of watercolor over the drawings, and these two works are perfect examples.

We started with my standard question: "What do you notice?" I charted the students' responses, encouraging them to identify whether their "noticing" was of the Picasso, the Klee, or whether it applied to both of the works. I asked students to use the artists' names rather than saying "the one on the left" or pointing and saying "that one" or "the round one" or "the pencil one." Those attributes that applied to both were charted down the center. Since these particular second graders are familiar with Venn Diagrams, they understood right away how to read this finished chart after I added the "boxes" around the lists.

On to the students' art making...

I started with a short demonstration of the "mystery painting" technique, drawing a large face with lots of lines for hair and showing students how I could almost see the drawing if I held the paper up to the light. I added a line pattern in the background for interest, and then modeled painting in blocks of color. I emphasized that I was not following the lines, but letting the drawing come through on its own as I painted.

Then I switched gears and decided to invite them to draw anything they wanted with white crayon on white paper. Together we brainstormed subject matter:  animals, flowers, landscapes, and... of course.... faces.

As they drew, I reminded students to press hard with the crayon and try to use the whole paper, either adding more to their subject matter or perhaps including a pattern in the background for interest. As they were ready, they painted over their drawings. 

These were just plain fun to do. Watercolor resist is a popular art-making activity and really does not need a lot of prep or explanation, but the introduction with these two art works gives an added art-appreciation and art analysis dimension to the lesson.

Looking at these two art works helps the students see how a face can take up a whole page, and to realize that one doesn't need to "follow lines" when painting. It also gives students the opportunity to see and talk about representational abstract art, and to become comfortable with the idea that a face drawing does not need to be absolutely realistic to be successful.

This art-making session ended with students writing about their art work. I gave them the choice of simply telling about their own process, describing how to create a "mystery painting," writing about the difference between Picasso's and Klee's faces, or comparing their own art work to either Picasso's or Klee's. Most students chose to just write about their own process, but two students did write comparisons... one compared his art work to Paul Klee's, and one compared the Picasso and Klee faces.

All in all, a successful lesson, during which a good time was had by all!

drawing on halloween

One day while looking through some images looking for something (I don't remember what), I saw a little orange and black witch profile art piece that got me to thinking. I had a subbing day scheduled the week before Halloween in a second grade class in which the students are particular adventurous, so I figured they would be a good group to try out a new lesson that would require them to use a viewfinder, make preliminary sketches, draw a large version of one of their small sketches, then crop their design, paint it, and frame it. I had visions of bold, black contour drawings with bright orange textured background, and lots of options for cropping.

It's hard to get some kids to draw something bigger than their pinkie, and I wanted them to draw large, and boldly, giving some attention to placement, scale, background, and detail. That's a lot for a second grader, but we went slowly and used pretty much the whole day for the lesson.

We started with a picture walk through the book Look! Look! Look! by Tana Hoban, then I taught them how to make a small viewfinder. I had them look at my face, move the viewfinder closer and further away, look at their own hand, and look around the room in general. This was to give them an opportunity to look at the environment the way an artist does, blocking out unneeded parts and just experimenting with placement in the viewing window.

The next step was generating a list of Halloween nouns, for them to use for ideas for drawing. This was followed by having them fold a piece of scratch paper into fourths and do four different small drawings. They chose one of these to draw bigger on a white paper, using only a black crayon, with instructions not to color anything in because these were contour drawings. I let them know that we would be painting them later.

Next, they made a cropping window and placed it over their drawing to help them choose how to crop their composition. This was kind of like using a giant viewfinder. They drew a pencil line for the cropping lines, then sponge painted inside that square with orange watercolor.

By now it was about one hour before the end of the day. There was just enough time left to cut on the pencil lines to trim the excess off their drawings and mount their "close up" compositions on black paper. And to show off.

After we had a chance to look at everyone's work, I had a few students choose someone else's picture and tell what they liked about it. They were remarkably articulate! "I like the collar." "I like the pattern in the background." "I like the spider web." "I like that it looks scary."

This turned out to be a pretty successful lesson with a lot going for it. The students were intrigued by the viewfinders, and I was thrilled to see that hardly anyone drew tiny pictures. I think making the preliminary sketches (and modeling that process) helped a lot. If I had wanted to stretch this lesson out even further, I could have had the students do all the measuring for their cropping window mats; I would definitely do that if I were teaching this to an older group. And just to show how great this class is, they put all the painting sponges back into color-coded baggies with no mistakes!

wax resist

This week, I did a wax resist activity with a second-grade class that has done many, many art lessons with me. They know my basic art behavior rules -- look carefully.... think about your work.... choose colors thoughtfully... THEN do the art. I always try to give enough direction without being too detailed, because I want kids to be creative AND end up with something they are proud of, so for this adventure in wax resist I gave them some choices of "what to draw" -- a sun design, landscape, cityscape, or flowers. I showed them a few samples of my own tries, which I took away after they looked at them. The "rules" were to use a light color crayon and only two colors of paint.

I've done wax resist lessons with black crayon, white crayon, colors, whatever. This time, it was light crayons only, with the idea that the paint would be dark. I didn't think to tell them that if they used a yellow crayon, they should not use yellow paint, so some are not as contrasting as they could be. The biggest success of this particular activity was that every student was totally engaged in both their drawings and their painting process. Overall, they had fun

Kids usually like working with wax resist. They seem to think it's like magic that the paint is resisted by the crayon, and they do become very engaged in the process. But I have found that the technique can be tricky. For one thing, students don't always press hard enough with the crayons, so the crayon doesn't come through as it should. They also seem to have a hard time getting enough paint onto the brushes, resulting in a washed-out composition. And, they have a tendency to want to use every color in the watercolor pan, resulting in a kind of mess, especially if they ignore me when I suggest that they not paint on top of paint. When I had my own art classroom, I took all the black and brown paint out of the pans, for just this reason

We did end up with some pretty good results AND I got a few more ideas about how to present the lessons. For one thing, I need to remember to remind them that if the crayon is light, they need to use darker colors of paint, and plenty of it, so that the crayon will come through. And vice-versa.
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more hearts

It's February, so I'm doing hearts with kids. All kinds of hearts. These patterned hearts with watercolor overlay were done with a first grade class, after a discussion about what makes a pattern a pattern. I love asking this question of little kids... it's always such an interesting discussion. Once we get to the idea that a pattern is something that repeats, then I am ready to move on into using patterns in some kind of art activity.

For this activity, I taught the students how to cut a "thumb heart" by folding a small piece of tagboard, making a fist, putting the folded side into the space between the thumb and the fist, and then cutting around the thumb. Sometimes it works. Well, most of the time it works, except when the student puts the folded side out by accident, or when he or she forgets to cut around the thumb and goes off the edge. But no matter, because I always bring hearts for tracing anyway.

Students are given their choice of using their own heart or one of mine. I show them how to trace three or four hearts onto a piece of 6x12 white construction paper, overlapping them, and then I model drawing different line patterns in the spaces with a black crayon. For this part, I choose kids with some kind of pattern on their clothes, and show how to transfer that pattern to paper. Then I show them how to use the watercolors (brush straight up, not smooshed into the paper, with a good amount of water to make a puddle in the paint). Then I send them off to work and help those who need a little assistance.

Cutting around the hearts and mounting them on black paper makes them look even better!



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what if?

What if I just put out a bunch of art materials and don't do a lesson? What if I ask students to think about other art they've done? What if I tell them to do something similar to something they've already done, but to change it somehow or, if they want, to just explore?

One student might draw herself in a garden, surrounded by a rainbow, under a rainy-sunny-starry sky:



Another student might explore lines with watercolor and crayon:



Somebody might do a bird collage:



Somebody else might do a three-dimensional line collage:



Somebody might do a shape rubbing:



Somebody else might draw or trace a series of rectangles and fill them with colorful patterns:



And somebody else might make a collage of the sun:

fall leaf overlay with watercolor

This simple first grade lesson can be used to introduce students to the use of watercolor with a little wax resist. It also can introduce the concept of overlapping and the use of visual movement through the placement of shapes on a page. Students choose from a variety of precut leaf-shaped templates in different sizes for their composition, trace them with a dark colored crayon, and then paint in the resulting spaces with their choice of colors.

I introduce the lesson by talking about how artists get ideas from looking around and also from looking at other peoples' art work. I then show pictures of leaf overlay watercolors by Caroline Duffield, having students look closely at the way the artist has leaf shapes overlapping each other, and how she has painted different areas different colors. I then model tracing leaf shapes with a dark colored crayon, overlapping the shapes and extending at least once beyond the edge of the paper. During the modeling, I talk about different ways to arrange the leaf shapes on the paper, and "think aloud" while I choose where to trace my shapes. I quickly demonstrate painting one or two individual resulting shapes with watercolors, showing how to hold the paintbrush -- like a pencil -- and giving directions for cleanup.

As students are working, I give help where help is needed, especially on the amount of water to use to help the paint flow easily without making a puddle on the paper, and giving advice about not painting over paint, because we are using regular white construction paper, not watercolor paper, and it has a tendency to break up with too much work. As students finish, I have them use crayons to draw and color a variety of leaves on a separate paper, using the templates for reference but not tracing this time. When everyone is finished painting, students do a gallery walk to look at everyone’s work and we talk about what they have observed about other peoples' art work.

leaf observation drawing with watercolor

When doing art lessons, especially drawing lessons, I like to emphasize that artists do four things: look.... think.... choose.... do. This lesson is a great introduction to that four step process because close observation is vital to its success. This drawing lesson begins with a whole-group "picture walk" of about five or six close up photographs of fall leaves,  followed by students observing and discussing the characteristics of a variety of real leaves. If I have time, I chart their observations.

A quick demonstration of drawing a leaf includes "thinking out loud" as I model giving attention to the shape, the direction of the contour, angles and curves, etc. A quick introduction or review of how to care for and use the watercolors completes the introduction.

Before students begin their drawings, they are asked to look carefully at several leaves and think about which leaf they want to draw, how they will place it on the paper, and other aspects of putting together their composition. This reinforces the "look...think...choose....do" process.

While they draw, I might give some tips about placement and/or layering. There is usually a great variety of finished work. Some students may have four or more leaves in their work, while others may have only one. As they paint, I give watercolor technique tips as needed.

When all work is finished and all watercolors and brushes are cleaned up, I like to have students do a "gallery walk" around the room to look carefully at everyone's finished work. I ask them to look for interesting shapes and colors and then we come together and share the observations.

This lesson is a true favorite. It integrates science and art in several ways, not only with the leaves as subject matter but also the act of doing an observation. Adding a related writing component extends it even further!

This lesson is included with another wax-resist autumn leaf art lesson in Art Lessons With Autumn Leaves, one of the art lessons in my TeachersPayTeachers.store. The lesson bundle includes detailed instructions, some leaf templates for tracing (for younger students), drawing tips, a few writing extension ideas, and more.

crayon faces with watercolor overlay

To introduce this lesson to second grade students, I first showed students two art works: Head of Dora Maar by Pablo Picasso and Senecio by Paul Klee. I wanted them to see these two very different treatments of the human face, and used them as references for contour drawing and use of shape and color. I then had them identify the qualities of portraits and self-portraits, then I modeled contour drawing using a black crayon on white paper, starting with an oval for the face shape. I pointed out to the students how hair grows down, not up, and emphasized that i was drawing the hair using only lines, and that nothing would be colored in with the crayons, since they would watercolor over the whole drawing.

Then I did something which really caught the students' attention: I drew the same exact face using a white crayon on white paper, pretending to ignore comments such as, "I can't see it!" and "Oh! I can see it just a little!"

I painted over the white face with watercolors using large blocks of color rather than following any of the contour lines. The students were surprised and excited about the way the white crayon resisted the watercolor paints, allowing the drawing of the face to show through. I explained to students that they would use only lines to draw their own face and then paint over their drawing with watercolor. I invited them to choose whether they would like to use black or white crayon, and talked about the use of the paints, explaining that they would need to use lots of water and avoid painting over painted areas. Since we were only using construction paper, rather than good watercolor paper, I knew it would be very easy for the paints to get muddy.

Most students chose to use black crayon, but a few brave souls opted for the white. The hardest part for many students was using large blocks of color rather than trying to "paint in" the face features or following the contour lines. I did encourage them to paint the background as well as the face itself, and in a few cases showed students how to paint across the lines rather than with the lines of their drawings.

Students enjoyed this activity very much, and they were very successful... and very, very quick! My classes are only an hour, but many students had time to do two self-portraits. I had those students try the second one using black if they had used white on the first, or vice-versa. I gave them time at the end of the hour to walk around to look at everyone else's self-portraits and to talk about other students' work... in positive ways, of course!