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.
.

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!



.

hearts

One of my pet peeves in children's art work is the use of cliches like hearts, rainbows, and suns in the corner, which have a bad habit of appearing in drawings willy-nilly, just because the student is falling back on known shapes rather than exploring new ones. Some will disagree with me, but that's where my thinking is. Anyway, that doesn't mean I dislike hearts, rainbows, or suns... I just want them to be necessary in the art work.

In this activity, the heart is the only subject matter. It is an easy, easy, easy activity that is practically foolproof. It requires no prep; all that's needed is white construction paper (we used 9x12, but a bit smaller would work, too) and crayons. To introduce the activity, I showed an example of a piece of art work by Jim Dines, who has done tons of art with hearts. I had students tell what they noticed and wrote their responses on the board next to the photograph (see photo at the end of this post). After this introduction, we reviewed warm and cool colors and I explained that students would need to draw a very large heart (I demonstrated) and that they would fill the heart with warm or cool colors (their choice) and the background with the opposite palette. I gave a short little demonstration to show how to color to make it look "markerish" .... that was one of the students' observations.... and then sent them off to go to work. I did wander around and show some of the students individually how to put color in smallish patches, but otherwise they were pretty much on their own.

When the color was done, most students outlined the heart with black crayon, then chose a mounting color that was from the same palette as the colors used in the heart. This took most students about an hour to complete, and some of them worked during lunch time. It turned out to the a perfect activity for a rainy, rainy Friday in a second grade classroom!


.

be an artist

One of the first things I do with students is introduce what I call "artist behaviors" -- Look, Think, Choose, Do. When I had my own art classroom, I had reference pictures on the wall:


Now that I'm doing art lessons in other teachers' classrooms, I almost always write the four words on the board before starting an art lesson, no matter what grade level I am working with. If I'm with students I've worked with before, I have them tell me what "the four artist behaviors" are while I write them; if I am with students who are new to me, I quickly introduce them and then refer to them during the lesson. I explain first that artists look everywhere, at everything, to get ideas, and that once they have an idea they look more, very carefully. While they are looking, they start to think about what they want to do. They need to choose materials and tools, and also, if they are painting or drawing, where something is going to go on the paper, how big it will be, what colors they will use, whether it will be realistic or abstract, etc. I emphasize that an artist will always look, think, and choose before they begin to do their art work, and that this helps them to be creative.

Making a big deal about looking and thinking has helped me teach children to slow down, take care with their art work, and make personal choices that may be different from the person sitting next to them or across from them. If I am reading a picture book to introduce the art activity, I make sure they have ample time to look at the illustrations, and I will point out details if they don't find them. If we are using a visual reference, such as photographs or a famous art work, we spend time really looking at the elements of art and think about the artists' choices of color, line, shape, and texture, and the use of space, When they are ready to begin an activity, even if everyone is working on the same thing, I make sure they have choices of color, or materials, or sizes, or background colors, or something that will be theirs, not mine. I always ask them to think first about what they are going to do, picture in their mind where they will start and what they will be using before they start.

And I usually point out that "look, think, choose, do" are good behaviors for ALL school work... and even out of school.... not just for art work!
.

what can you do with a dot?

Here's a lesson/activity I did recently with a second grade class. It includes a read-aloud, some art-history and art appreciation along with creative, mixed-media art-making.

We started out by brainstorming a list of things that have or are circles. The brainstorming session, which took maybe ten minutes, was followed by a read-aloud of the book The Dot by Peter Reynolds. Then we looked at photos of two Kandinsky paintings which are composed almost entirely with dots: Farbstudie and Several Circles. I asked students to comment on these two paintings; they noticed that he had used many colors, that some dots or circles were inside others, and that some were overlapped.

While giving directions, I introduced the term mixed-media, which in this case included any combination of crayons, markers, colored pencils, and collage, and also the terms representational and non-representational. They were given very simple directions: to use mixed-media, and to see what they could do with a dot, either representationally or non-representationally. Then they went to work and I observed.

Some students started large, while others started very small. Some partitioned their papers, and some started with borders. Once they were started and getting involved with their compositions, I invited the students to get up and walk around to take a look at what other people were doing with their dots. I reminded them that getting ideas is ok, but copying is not. Watching the students work on these was a real treat. They loved the activity and everyone was completely concentrating on their own work, including the wiggliest of students. One of the best moments was watching one little boy with a marker in each hand, drawing circles with both hands simultaneously.

The complete lesson is available in my TeachersPayTeachers store. It includes step-by-step directions, a mini-biography about Wassily Kandinsky and a 'draw and write' worksheet for responding to Kandinsky's art and the reading.

This lesson would be great anytime kids need a creative break. It was all successful. Here's what the white board looked like after the introduction:



.

positive-negative designs

These designs are great for introducing positive/negative space. I have done them with second graders and fifth graders, and by far they were much, much easier for the fifth graders, but the second graders held their own with them, too. The hard part for the younger ones was creating the "mirror image" and to be honest, it was a little hard for some fifth graders as well. Of course, a lot of it depended on how careful the students were being.

All that's needed for this activity is 12x12 white construction paper, 6x6 black construction paper, scissors and glue. I like glue sticks better than white glue for this because some pieces are small, but either will work.

Directions are pretty simple. I explain them while modeling the process, making sure to point out to students the importance of making clean cuts, not trimming anything, staying away from the corners, and lining up the edges of the square.

Place the black square in the center of the white paper and mark the corners with a small pencil dot. Pick up the black square and cut a shape into one side. Lay the black square back onto the white paper, lining up the corners with the pencil dots. Take the cut out shape, lay it into its "hole" and then turn it out, like opening a door. Glue it down to create a mirror image, being careful to line up the straight edges to keep the square contour line straight and true. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.... as many times as possible, until there is no cutting space left. Big important rule: Don't cut off any corners! Finally, glue down the black square (which is not longer square), lining up all the pieces. Done!

The samples here were done by fifth graders, one of whom accidently cut into one of his cut out shapes. He asked what to do and I told him to find a creative solution, and he did. :-)
.

torn paper face collages

This lesson focuses on shape, color, and space, and deals with proportion and facial features without the stress of attempting to create a realistic face. Because the shapes are torn, not cut or drawn, the lesson automatically lends itself to what I call "ish-ness" (named after Ish, the wonderful little book by Peter Reynolds). The "rules" for the activity are simple: start with two predominant colors, include all face parts, don't overlap the shapes, and use no scissors or pencils. After listing these on the board, I ask students what they think "predominant" means. If no one gets close, I define it for them as main, as in "two main colors" ... and stress that it doesn't mean that they can't use other colors as well. Just before they start, I ask them to think about whether they want their piece to be symmetrical or asymmetrical, reviewing the meaning of the terms.

Students use a 12x12 sheet of black construction paper for their background, and each table has an assortment of colored construction paper to choose from. As they work, I encourage creatively-used shapes for different facial features, and remind them of the ongoing collage rule of putting glue on the back of the colored pieces, not on the background. I also remind them to tear any straight edges that may have made their way to the piece. Generally with collage work, I don't even get the glue out until after students have torn several shapes and started arranging them on the background. I encourage them to get all their shapes defined first before gluing anything down.

After a walk-around, where students can take their time looking at everyone's art work, I go through the pieces one by one and we identify as a whole group what the two predominant colors are, and whether the piece is symmetrical or asymmetrical. I also point out how lines have been created between the applied shapes, in the negative space.
.