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"A Faithful Attempt" is designed to showcase a variety of K-12 art lessons, the work of my art students, as well as other art-related topics. Projects shown are my take on other art teacher's lessons, lessons found in books or else designed by myself.
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LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I acknowledge, with deep respect, that I am gathered on Treaty 7 territory. I acknowledge the many First Nations, Métis and Inuit whose footsteps have marked these lands for generations. I recognize the land as an act of reconciliation and gratitude to those whose territory we reside on or are visiting.

Saturday, March 15, 2014

Dinosaur Fossils


This is a fun art project, particularly if you teach a dinosaur unit. It's a simple wax-resist technique which is *supposed* to mimic the look of dinosaur fossils revealed in an archaeological dig.

Grade 3 students started off by looking through books and doing research on laptops to find 
a skeleton image of a dinosaur they wanted to draw. Draw this skeleton on white paper. 
I demonstrated on the board how it's helpful to start with the head, then sketch in the neck/backbone/vertebrae, then onto the hip bone and tail, then finally adding the arms and legs.


Once the drawing is finished, color in all the bones with a white wax crayon or white oil pastel.
Press nice and hard.


I pre-mixed up a large batch of watered down 'dirt' colored tempera paint. 
Basically brown tempera with a touch of black in it. I like to mix up a bunch of different shades of brown so the students' artwork has some variety.
It's super helpful to do a test batch of paint beforehand to figure out how runny or watered-down the paint needs to be. Too thick and it will just cover over the skeleton completely.


Then paint over the dinosaur skeleton. 
Blot off paint from the skeleton with a tissue, if necessary.


Ta da!
















4 comments:

Ch. Stückelberger said...

supercool

Hope Hunter Knight said...

These are great! I usually do clay fossils but I ran out of clay this year before we got to it, so this will be a nice replacement - thanks!

profesora de artes visuales, plástica said...

Muy buena idea!

Miss said...

Thanks everyone!

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