Watercolour Bridge Silhouettes

some of 1/2B's beautiful bridge silhouettes

Lesson Background:

My class have been engaged in a Technology unit for the past few weeks, exploring bridge building principles and the design, make and appraise process.  We have watched videos, looked at photos, had endless discussions and done many experiments to determine why bridges are built in different ways, how to make our own paper bridges strong and stable, and how bridge designs change depending on their purpose.  My class have spent the past week developing PowerPoint presentations about different bridge types and their purposes, so I thought it would be nice to create some artworks showing some of the different bridge types they have been researching.  I found this great lesson idea on the Art with Mr Hall blog- http://artwithmrhall.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/bridge-silhouettes.html, and have made just a few small changes to suit my Year 1/2 students and the resources we had available to us.

Materials (per student):
Written by Xander (Grade 2) and Angela (Grade 1)

·       1 A4 piece of white art paper
·       Pencil and a rubber
·       1 black permanent marker
·       Warm and cool watercolour paint
·       Water
·       A thin and thick paint brush
·       A 30cm ruler
·       Pictures of bridge silhouettes from Google Images

Lesson Steps:
Written by Kayla (Grade 2), Eve (Grade 2) and Agnes (Grade 2)

1.   Position your paper in landscape. 
2.   Grab your pencil and draw a straight line across the paper in the middle or slightly above or below the middle.  This will be your water line.
3.   Look at bridge silhouettes on the Internet  and choose a bridge shape you like.
4.   Carefully copy the bridge shape you like onto your paper using lead pencil.  Make sure you don’t just draw lines- draw rectangle shapes instead.
5.   Outline and colour your bridge with a black permanent marker.
6.   Choose a cool colour for your water background and paint it on.
7.  Choose a warm colour for your sky background and paint it on.
8.  When the water and sky are nearly dry, choose some warm colours then paint some flicks in the sky and choose some cool colours and paint some flicks in the water. 
9.  Go and put your pretty painting on the drying rack.
10.  When it is completely dry, go over your bridge with the black marker to make it stand out and cover any paint flicks that got on the bridge when you did your sky flicks.
11.  Glue the art work on to black backing paper.

Grade 1/2 Student Artworks:

By Angela (Grade 1)

By Annabel (Grade 1)



By Austin (Grade 2)

By Jeff (Grade 2)

By Rohan (Grade 2)

By Tahir (Grade 1)

More 1/2B bridges

By Anna (Grade 1)

By Ella (Grade 2)

By Kayla (Grade 2)

By Eve (Grade 2)

By Amelia (Grade 1)

 

By Callum (Grade 1)

By Nive (Grade 2)

Well done, 1/2B!  You have done a great job on these artworks.  I also want to congratulate Xander, Angela, Agnes, Kayla and Eve, who wrote the lesson materials and steps for this blog post.  I think you learned a lot about the importance of including detail in your procedures.  You have done a super job!  From Mrs Baker