Warm & Cool Grid Design

This was a project I found on Artsonia. It reminds me of Paul Klee's Tunisia watercolours. 

This project helps reinforce warm and cool colours. It also makes a good Substitute teacher lesson as it only uses coloured pencils and is fairly straightforward.

Here's how Grade 7/8's made these:

On 8x10 cardstock, kids need to draw an object/shape, etc.- anything as long as it's not too complex. I tell the kids to keep the design off-center for visual interest.

Then, using a ruler, measure out a grid overtop of the drawing - ours are 3cm.



This student drew a very small grid (1cm)- it takes alot longer to colour but looks soooo nice.



Another small grid version in progress...



Then simply decide if you want the object cool or warm colors, then do the opposite for the background. I find I need to remind my students that browns, beiges, greys and black are considered 'neutral' colours, so not to use them. 

We used pencil crayons and I emphasized pressing hard to get nice bright colours.  You could also use markers, or watercolours as well.  I'm going to try this project again with older grades using watercolours.

Ta Da!



press hard!