Color Theory Ice Cream Cones Gr. 1

It is a little early to be thinking ice cream, but with the mild winter we've been having here in Massachusetts, I figured why not look at some lessons for the coming Spring. And I remembered I had this lesson when I saw Art with Mr. E looking for food-themed ideas.


This lesson began when I was teaching summer camp. It was an extended day program where the kids were basically with me for about a half an hour to have some fun making art before going on to swimming or some other camp activity. Since it was summer I wanted them to make something they could relate to -- ice cream cones -- but at the same time learn or demonstrate some art skills -- color mixing!


I would like to try this lesson again with some modifications. I would add texture to the cones using rubbing plates and crayons or art stix. I would have the students use tempera rather than watercolor to paint the color scoops. I would have the background developed by adding clouds or the child's portrait ready to lick the cone. I would keep the cut-out hands holding the cones.


The steps of the revised lesson would be:
Step 1: Create the mixed color paper. Give each student a piece of thick paper to paint the entire paper with the colors of the color wheel using only the primary colors and having to mix the secondary colors. Set these aside. Wash up.
Step 2: Begin creating the background using crayons or other material to draw a large face portrait with the mouth open and the tongue out to lick the cone. Behind the portrait create clouds or some other imagery.
Step 3: Finish the background drawing. Cut out a triangle cone and add texture to it using a rubbing technique and rubbing plates. Trace and cut the children's hands.
Step 4: Using a tracer, trace and cut 6 scoops of ice cream from the painted papers.
Step 5: Assemble all the elements together.

Primarily this lesson acts as a great review of color-mixing for students who have already learned about colors earlier in the year. Do NOT tell the students how to mix colors. The challenge is for them to remember on their own.

Valentine Hearts Inspired By Pollock - Kindergarten

So in honor of Valentine's Day I wanted to come up with some new art lessons that used hearts (especially in groups of three), but in a less traditional sense. Typically when I see Valentine's themed art lessons the hearts are used to create shapes in animals, so I wanted to do hearts, but also incorporate artists or skills, techniques, etc. I also wanted to try out these lessons on actual students and had some volunteers both in private lessons and in classrooms.

The first lesson I will share is this one designed for kindergarten, but suitable for pre-school or first grade with some accommodations for younger learners who may not have developed sufficient skill with scissors yet.
In this lesson the materials used were: construction paper, marbles, tempera paints in primary colors, hear tracers, pencils, scissors and glue.

Step 1: In separate trays (I used the trays from microwave entrees) place the different paint colors and several marbles. Give each student a similar tray with a piece of paper that fits snugly in it (about 3 x 5"). Have students rotate between the three colors. They select one paint covered marble each. drop it on their papers in their trays and roll the marble around. Repeat with each paint color. Then repeat the process again on two more pieces of paper in different colors than the first.

Step 2: While the paint dries read a color-related story or a story about Jackson Pollock (the artist of inspiration). The color-related story I read was White Rabbit's Color Book by Alan Baker. It is a cute story about how the primary colors mix to form secondary colors and how all three combined make the color brown.

Step 3: By the time all students have washed the paint from their hands and listened to the story the painted papers should hopefully be well on their way to being dry. As they continue to dry distribute three more (3 x 5") papers, heart tracers, pencils and scissors. Demonstrate how to fold the paper down the middle, trace half a heart on the fold, cut while folded, and open up to reveal an open heart frame. Provide extra help with proper cutting, especially for younger learners.

Step 4: With the painted papers fully dry, have students glue their three cut-out frames over their three marble paintings. This will hide some of the paintings, but explain that this is okay and what is to be expected. Then mount the three finished framed heart painting on a larger sheet of paper either vertically or horizontally, whichever you prefer.

Here are some samples made by three and four year-old students:

Grade 3 - Tinted Snowmen Paintings

Also while substituting in an art room I had the opportunity to re-introduce a painting lesson that the regular art teacher felt wasn't quite working. He asked me to "see what I could do with it." He didn't need to ask me twice because I love when this happens and I can try my hand at teaching the same project with my own twist to it. I looked at the students work in progress and saw that many of them were having trouble developing the form (roundness) of their snowmen paintings while also dealing with the new concept of painting with tints (white with a little color added). The snowmen were coming out flat looking and either really orange or really blue -- the tinting wasn't the least bit subtle.
As an inspiration point the students had already listened to the book "Snowmen at Night" by Caralyn Buehner. In this book the snowmen are illustrated with beautifully rendered orange and blue tints to give them a round appearance. This was the look we were going for and what I needed to help the students achieve to an extent.

So, rather than just keep going with the snowmen paintings as they were, I reminded the students that the great thing about paint (tempera in this case) was that once it was dry you could always paint over it to rework something that wasn't quite where you wanted it to be -- such as their snowmen. They all agreed that they needed some more help with the concept of tinting and were happy to paint back over their existing work.

My demonstration snowman

The demonstration I gave focused on the use of wet-in-wet painting techniques, which was the opposite of what they had been using. They had been mixing their tints separately and then applying the paint. I showed them how to start with an all white snowman shape and add just little bits of color at a time using the direction of the brush stroke while blending the tint to create the roundness of the form. They were impressed enough at the result to give their own paintings another try. While there is still room for improvement the comparative results from how they first looked are astounding. Several students were able to get their tints to seem less stark and even to achieve some roundness to the form. Below are a few examples:


Now, since the students reworked their previous attempts, for the most part they did not get beyond making just the snowmen. But I thought it would be nice to leave a completed example for the regular art teacher along with some notes on my ideas for the assignment. I envisioned the snowmen interacting in some way with details added with colored pencil. And the ground would be painted white. While the paint was still wet, I sprinkled iridescent glitter onto it to give it a little sparkle like new fallen snow. I also included in the note that if he tried this assignment with another class, I would do several practice sphere paintings using white and the tinting colors before attempting the snowmen. The students would benefit from the practice and feel a greater sense of accomplishment with the final project if they could "play" with the idea first.

This is the sample I left for the regular art teacher.

Grade 1 - Kandinsky Circles

While subbing in an art room I had the chance to work with a first grade class that was finishing up a lesson on Kandinsky. They had already completed the painted circles (kind of like bull's eye targets at this stage) and were moving on to the addition of oil pastel between the painted circles and filling the squares. Since I encouraged them to take their time using the oil pastel, several did not finish this step. Below is one that did:

Masterpiece Paintings!

These two paintings were made by ten-year old students in my very small Masterpiece Painting class. Since the first session canceled with only one student enrolled, I was thrilled that it ran when that same student and two others signed up for the second round. I only have photos of two of the paintings though, since the third student left camp early before she finished hers.

Saints Self-Portraits Levels 6 - 9

This is the description from the wall label:

Our oldest students took the idea of saints’ portraits to an entirely personal level by recreating their own photographs into portraits of the saints they were representing. They did this by using a variety of materials beginning with collage for their images and adding details with paints, oil pastels, and other materials. Their portraits also included symbolic imagery related to their chosen saints. The frames were constructed from recycled paper towel rolls spray painted gold inspired by the many Byzantine paintings of saints.

Materials used:

• Oak tag paper
• Acrylic paints
• Brushes
• Sand
• Glue
• Glitter
• Oil pastels
• Pencils
• Photographs printed on computer paper
• Sharpies
• Misc. materials
• Gold painted paper towel rolls, cut in pieces

Passion Paintings Levels 3 - 5

Here is the description from the wall label:

Students worked collaboratively to recreate a visual timeline of the Passion of Our Lord. After viewing an animated film and a selection of artworks depicting Christ’s suffering and death, they each selected a part of the passion to depict in paintings of their own. In the process of painting they had to consider such elements as foreground, background and middle ground, texture, color mixing, and visual narrative to create works that were compositionally balanced while also clearly conveying the part they were representing.

Materials used:

• Canvas squares
• White acrylic gesso
• Acrylic paints
• Brushes
• Forks
• Cotton balls
• Black sharpies

Things Are Gettin' Fishy Around Here!

Here are a few fish-themed ideas for lessons.

This first project was a drawing assignment that used fluorescent crayons and watercolor resist. It was a third grade lesson done while substitute teaching. The students had visual references to work from when drawing their own fish and ocean life.

This is my example:

And this second project was one that I did this year with the K/1 age group at the church. There it was linked to the "Fisher's of Men" gospel, but obviously a fish could just be a fish if done in a secular setting. The materials used were: plastic water bottles, Easter basket grass, fun foam, wiggle eyes, and hot glue/glue guns. I provided tracers for the fins and eyes circles.

Here is one of the many fish that I made (student fish will be posted with the art show images in May):

Emotion Paintings Ages 7 & 8

So I've decided to go through some of my images from past lessons that were never posted to the blog.

First up is a lesson I taught on abstract expressionism using emotive colors and mark-making. These paintings were done in acrylic on pieces of canvas paper that I happened to have available. The students were asked to visualize emotions and describe them using artistic elements like color, line, and mark-making.

Many students interpreted excited or happy to have erratic marks (like Pollock). Others related more to colors by mixing muddied colors to express sadness or just using colors that they felt represented happiness.

Here are some examples that the students created:

Cool Color Aliens Grade 2

While I was in for an art teacher at another school, she had a lesson planned for teaching warm and cool colors. The students had already done the warm color component which used shapes to create an abstract design that was painted with warm color tempera paints.

When I was there, they were on the cool color component which still used simple shapes, but used them to make a silly alien in space. Purples, greens and blues were used for this painting project.

Here is the painting that I made with the students that day:

Color Block Quilts Grade 4

This lesson is one that I developed by borrowing ideas from lots of different sources. It is a great lesson because it teaches students about color-mixing (especially mixing neutrals), allows them to work both individually and within a group, introduces some stitching techniques, employs watercolor-resist and deals with complex cutting. This lesson can also be broken apart and used as just an exercise.

To begin students are given a 6" square of watercolor paper and a 1" measuring tool to make the grid lines in white crayon. The white crayon is difficult to see on the white paper, but it does have a different texture so it is possible. Another color could be substituted, but I like the way the white looks in the finished product.

Before distributing the paint, brown and black are removed so that the students have to mix their own chromatic neutrals. Each square in the grid must be a different mixed color -- no straight from the pan colors are allowed. Each student has a personal goal of achieving 36 different mixed colors. Within the table groups (4 students each), the team goal is the most mixed colors in comparison to the other table groups. Each member of the winning team is promised a small prize. The color-mixing takes up an entire class time and then the teacher counts all the colors. The teacher is the final judge on how many colors were achieved.



At the next class, a small hole punch is used to make holes around the border of the color-mixed blocks. Then thin yarn and plastic needles are used to stitch around the edges. Finally snowflakes are cut out by folding copier paper squares and cutting out the shapes. Once students have achieved a successful paper snowflake, that snowflake is used as the tracer for making the felt one that will be used in the finished project. Felt snowflakes are coated in Elmer's glue and glittered before they are mounted over the painted squares.



My vision for the finished display would be to arrange all the blocks together to form a large quilt.

Big Project For Grade 5 Part Two

When the groups finished I introduced a drawing lesson to accompany the painting one.

The drawings were of figures playing in the snow or skating. I had a handout available that broke down figure measurements and I had a few wooden mannequins available as visual aides. Students also acted as visual aides as they stood in front of the class to demonstrate how many heads a person was, etc. The figures were then colored with markers and cut out to be used as part of the school's display board.

Here are some of the drawings:






And here they are as part of the display:

Big Project For Grade 5 Part One

The fifth graders worked on a collaborative project for over four weeks. This project was not my own idea, but it is awesome nonetheless.
To begin six students (one from each table group) were selected by lottery to be the designated tracees. We used an overhead projector to create a life-size silhouette of each student that I traced. Then the outlines were filled in with facial features, clothing details and lots of patterns. The students' drawn figures were supposed to look like they were having a snow-ball fight so when they posed to be traced they tried to keep this in mind. Once all the details were satisfactorily drawn, the groups got to work painting with tempera paints, especially bright fluorescent colors! The finished paintings were cut out by me to be mounted on the schools walls and turned into life-size cardboard cut-out by using refrigerator boxes. The painting part of the project took about three weeks on its own.