Santa!

These are some of the Santa portraits my 8th graders finished back in December.  We've studied portraits previously, so this project was a great way to use those skills.  We used tempera paint and practiced shading in color to get the rich red hues. I love how they each have their own personality.  I have some seriously talented 8th graders!

This one is crazy realistic, he looks so distinguished!

 I love the shading in the hat on this one.  It's as if you could touch the soft velvet!  

This one's eyes are so striking!  I love how all of them turned out!

5th grade Value pumpkins

My 5th graders are finishing up these beautiful pumpkins this week.  This lesson was fantastic for teaching value with paint.  Sometimes I feel it's a little overwhelming to learn value not only in color, but particularly in paint!  This project allowed us to break it down into one small section at a time.  We used three shades to add value to each pumpkin.  For example, on the green pumpkin, we used yellow, green, and brown.  Brown was for the shadows and yellow for the highlights.  I could have also used white, but I didn't want to give them too many colors and overwhelm them!  They are turning out great!

Polar bear, polar bear, what do you see?

 

 

 

I see some very TALENTED third graders looking at me!! Third grade has been studying value in art the past couple of weeks.  We discussed lightness and darkness of objects (VALUE) and how to draw and paint objects with shading to create value.  These are not quite finished yet, we still have a little background to work on, but I just couldn't resist posting a few!   

 

 

I showed them how to create texture by brushing the paint in short strokes in one direction, overlapping and blending the paint just enough to make a gradual change from one shade to the next.  It's so tempting to keep painting to smooth out the brush strokes, but then we'd loose that fabulous furry texture!

 

 

 



Shiny and Bright

As fifth grade finishes up their whimsical trees, we began a second project in our discussion of abstract art that goes along with our trees.  We discussed line, shape, and shading to create these beautiful shiny ornaments.

 First they traced an assortment of circles, overlapping them and stacking them from the bottom up.  We added hooks and a highlight to each one...

 Then we discussed hatching and crosshatching as a method of shading with pen and ink, or permanent marker in our case...

Once they've finished tracing all the lines in permanent marker, they will use watercolor to bring them to life!  Choosing two analogous colors, they will paint the darker color on the side that's furthest away from the highlight.

This student stacked hers from the center going out, which creates a different view for the stack of ornaments.  Either way you stack them, these are just beautiful!