Safari

For this lesson, we made animals that you may see on a safari, but we made the animals look hidden. First to start the project I made red glasses with a red film on them which will help us see the animals. Next, I selected an animal to draw. I turned the image of the animal upside down in order to draw it on a sheet of white paper. By having it upside-down it was easier to focus on the lines of the animal. It was easier to start from the bottom of the animal and draw up to the head. I used a sky blue colored pencil to outline the animal- you have to use a cool color to draw it in order for the project to work. Sky blue works the best in order to catch the full effect. After I had the animal drawn out, I used red, yellow, and orange crayons and created a pattern over top the image of the animal. The crayons are warm colors, so they hid the blue outline. I drew lines and circles throughout my paper. By using the warm colors on top of the cool colors, it makes your eyes catch the warm colored pattern instead of the animal in the picture. Once I was finished with my picture, I put my red glasses on, and the image of the animal appeared.


This is a picture of my hidden safari animal. The animal I made was a zebra.

For an extension activity, a teacher could use the hidden drawings to incorporate another subject such as math. The teacher could write up a review game and hand out questions to the students. The answers to the questions could be hidden in the warm colored pictures and posted on a board. The students could work the problems, and once they think they have the correct answer they would put on their glasses to see if what they have is correct. This idea could also be made into a class competition, where you would divide the class up and they would compete to see who gets the correct answer.

Eric Carle Story Collage

For this project, we first watched a video about Eric Carle and the storybooks he creates. After the video, we created a two page story layout. To begin this project, we painted on 12 X 8 sheets of paper different colors and textures in order to create different scenes. Then, we drew images or characters that we wanted our story to be based on, and cut out the pieces. We used these pieces as a guide to trace the characters on to the textured painted paper we did earlier. To finish the project, we glued the textured pieces on to a 12 X 8 sheet of construction paper to create our story layout. Once we had everything placed where we wanted it we then added a sentence about the illustration to make the story look complete.

An extension activity would be to have students read a book for a literature class, and once they have completed the book, they could pick a part of the book and illustrate or retell that part of the story by making a collage like the ones we did based on Eric Carle.

This is a picture of the storybook page I created. It is about Peaches, the duck, and Violet, the lamb.

Tissue Paper Collage

Another project we did when we learned about Vincent Van Gogh was a tissue paper collage. Once again we focused on the painting the "Starry Night." The main objective of this project was to create a background with different swirls and shapes which is similar to Van Gogh's painting style. To begin this project, we picked out a color of construction paper and cut out different shapes out of the tissue paper. We then laid the tissue paper on the construction paper and created our background. Once, we had the tissue paper where we wanted, we used a glue and water mixture and painted the mixture with a brush on top of the tissue paper to make it stick. When you would lay different colors of tissue paper on top of each other, the color underneath would show through the top layer of tissue paper, which created unique colors and designs. Once, the picture was done and it was dry I cut out a city design and glued it to my collage. Then I took oil pastels and created bold lines and swirls in the background of my picture. To put details on the city, I used a silver sharpie marker to make the windows of the buildings.

An extension activity, would be instead of using tissue paper to make the swirls in the background students could use objects such as hard macaroni and yarn to create a sky or any kind of landscape, such as water. Instead, of making a city they could make trees or mountains, and create a picture using different items. By doing it this way, the students would be able to make something they are more familiar with, and they are having fun making an art project with macaroni.

Vincent Van Gogh Fingerpainting Project

To begin this activity, we first went through a powerpoint about Vincent Van Gogh in order to become more familiar with him and his art. The powerpoint discussed his life and had many interesting fact about him, and seen some of his artwork, such as the "Starry Night" painting.  After the discussion, we took a sheet of white paper and taped it down on our desks. Our project was to recreate or make our own version of the "Starry Night" painting. To complete this project, we had to have the swirls in our painting that were similar to what Van Gogh used in his "Starry Night" painting. We also needed to have a foreground, middle ground and a background in the painting. The colors we used were up to us, but we needed to use shades or tints in the painting, and mix the primary and secondary colors to create new colors. After we were done painting, we let the pictures dry and then framed them by using construction paper.

My fingerpainting is shown below. I decided to keep it similar to the "Starry Night" picture because I really liked the coloring Van Gogh used. It was fun to blend the colors together on the paper to get the different shades and tints.

An extension activity for this project would be to discuss different artists and their styles of painting. We could take certain paintings from each artist and compare their unique styles, and discuss how they are similar and different to Van Gogh's way of painting. We could then discuss the different time periods when each artist made their painting, and see if the era had any impact on the artists' style of painting.