Palm Tree Island Silhouettes

By Ethan (Grade 1)

Lesson Materials (per child):
-  1 sheet A4 white art paper
-  watercolour paints
-  water
-  paintbrushes

Lesson Steps:
1.  We lightly drew the outline of the ground and palm trees.
2.  We painted a yellow wash over the background and then painted in streaks of red, orange and purple.
3.  When dry, we painted the palm trees and ground with black paint.

Student Artworks:

By Angela X (Grade 1)

By Paige (Grade 2)

By Ella U (Grade 2)

By Annabel (Grade 1)

Some of 1/2B's island artworks above our toucan drawings

Grade 1/2 Iguana Drawings

By Ben (Grade 2)

Lesson Background:
This is another tropical island-themed artwork we did this week, based on our class novel "Nim's Island" by Wendy Orr.  This lesson was taught by the internship student who is currently teaching in our class, Miss Fielding.  I know my class and I all think she did a superb job helping everyone to create these wonderful artworks! 

Lesson Materials (per child):
1 sheet A4 white art paper
Coloured progresso pencils

Lesson Steps:
1.  We looked at photos of iguanas and discussed their colours, patterns and shape.
2.  We drew the iguanas with step-by-step teacher modelling of each small part.  Students were asked to identify what shape each part of the iguana's body was.
3.  Students coloured in their iguanas with progressos, trying not to leave any white gaps.  More-able students were encouraged to incorporate shading and different tones in their colouring.
4.  Students then looked at photos of tropical plants, and drew these into their artworks.
5.  Once the artwork was completely coloured, students outlined all large shapes with black progresso.

Grade 1/2 Artworks:

By Millie (Grade 2)

By Joss (Grade 2)

By Austin (Grade 2)



By Josh (Grade 1)

By Paige (Grade 2)

By Kimo (Grade 1)

By Xander (Grade 2)

By Eve (Grade 2)

 

Grade 1/2 iguana drawings

Grade 1/2 Oil Pastel Toucans

By Kayla (Grade 2)

Lesson Background:
We have started reading Nim's Island by Wendy Orr as our class novel for this term, so I decided to spend a few weeks creating some tropical island art.  This is our first artwork for the term.  I got the idea for this artwork from Donna Hugh's art project for kids: http://www.coycreek.com/animalsoftherainforestartlessonsforchildrenvol5dvd.aspx

Lesson Materials (per child):
1 sheet A4 black card
Oil pastels

Lesson Steps:
1.  We looked at photos and a video of toucans.  We discussed the colours and textures.
2.  We drew the toucans, with me guiding the students step-by-step ( I drew a shape, then the children drew theirs).
3.  Students were encouraged to have 1-4 toucans, in any position they liked.
4.  We looked at photos of tropical plants and flowers.  The students then drew and coloured these in their artworks.
5.  The students outlined the toucans and large plants in black oil pastel.

Grade 1/2 Artworks:



By Eve (Grade 2)

By Angela X (Grade 1)



By Austin (Grade 2)



By Paige (Grade 2)




By Ella U (Grade 2)

By Ben (Grade 2)

By Agnes (Grade 2) 

By Ella B (Grade 1)

By Leo (Grade 1)

By Xander (Grade 2)

By Kimo (Grade 1)

By Annabel (Grade 1)
 



Grade 1/2 Charcoal Self-Portraits

By Angela (Grade 1)

Lesson Materials (per child):

-  1 piece of charcoal
-  1 half of a photocopied A4 photograph of themselves
-  Fixative or hairspray

NOTES:
I photocopied the photos onto art paper.
I used compressed synthetic charcoal- it doesn't break as easily!

Lesson Steps:

1.  We looked at photographs off Google Images and talked about facial symmetry and proportions.  We use our fingers to measure between our eyes and nose, the width of our cheeks, etc.
2.  I showed the students how to hold the charcoal, draw fine lines by using sharp edges, and smudge the charcoal by smearing it on the paper with their fingers.
3.  I modelled how to use their own fingers to make rough measurements and draw facial features in symmetrically.  (E.g. "I can see that this eye is 2 finger spaces wide and 1 finger space high, so I will do the same on the other side of the paper")
4.  The students went back to their desks and drew the outline of their faces and the main facial features.
5.  I then encouraged the students to look closely for fine lines, dimples, shadows, etc and to go back and add them in.
6.  We then talked about how to fill in the background by adding smudged shadows and drawing in missing objects behind themselves in the photo.

Student Artworks:

These artworks were my students' first-ever attempts at using charcoal.  I think they have done extremely well, and I love the way you can see a hint of their gorgeous personalities in their portraits- Well done, guys!

By Kayla (Grade 2)

By Jeff (Grade 2)
 

By Rohan (Grade 2)
 

By Ben (Grade 2)

By Austin (Grade 2)

By Sophia (Grade 2)

My modelled drawing using the delightful Ella's photo

What do you think?
Please feel free to comment... my class love getting positive feedback from people who view their art online!

Fernand Leger Paintings

By Agnes (Year 2)

Lesson Background:
I saw this lesson on Mary Making http://marymaking.blogspot.com.au/2011/01/fernand-leger-minimal-portraits.html a couple of years ago.  I tried it out with a group of Year 3 students with mixed results.  This year I wanted to give the lesson another go, so I changed a few of the elements- I changed the A3 paper to A4 because I found the Year 3 kids had trouble positioning the facial features on such a large piece of paper.  I also decided to use black markers instead of black oil pastel to draw the faces because we had a lot of smudges last time.  I think they have turned out really well this time- Well done, 1/2B!

Lesson Equipment (per child):
Acrylic paint (red, yellow, orange, blue, green)
A medium sized paintbrush
A lead pencil
A rubber
A sheet of A4 art paper
A black permanent marker

Lesson Steps:
1.  We explored the life and art of French artist, Fernand Leger, discussing his use of colour, line and shape.  We also considered how he managed to create strong emotions in his portraits with the use of such simple lines.  (You can purchase the PowerPoint presentation I made for this part of the lesson at my Teachers Pay Teachers store: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Mrs-Baker- just search for the name of the artist)
2.  The children used a lead pencil to lightly draw some shapes in the background of their artwork.
3.  They then painted these shapes using brightly coloured acrylic paint (a mix of primary and secondary colours).
4.  We then left the artworks to dry for a few hours.
5.  Next, I drew some sample faces on the whiteboard and we explored different ways to draw eyes and eyebrows to represent different emotions (e.g. the iris hanging from the top of the eye for a sad face) and how to leave a white patch in each iris to look like light. 
6.  We also looked at different ways to draw noses, lips and hands and discussed how these different styles of drawing contributed to the mood of the artwork.
7.  The children lightly drew their portraits over their coloured backgrounds.  They were allowed to choose whether to draw just the facial features or the head as well.  During our discussions we talked about symmetry in faces and how to use symmetry to check if they had drawn accurately.
8.  The children traced over the portraits with black permanent marker.
9.  The children rubbed out any left over pencil marks and we backed the paintings onto black cardboard.

NOTE:  The first part of the lesson (up until the end of step 3) took about an hour.  Then the children finished it off that same afternoon in another hour block.  My students made 2 portraits each in this time.

Student Artworks:



By Ben (Year 2)

By Serina (Year 2)

By Paige (Year 2)

By Kayla (Year 2)

By Nive (Year 2)

By Ella B (Year 1)

By Jeff (Year 2)

By Angela (Year 1)

By Angie (Year 2)

By Austin (Year 2)

By Ben (Year 2)



1/2B's fabulous artworks