Winter White Landscape Paintings

Here is one of my all time favourite lessons- I get so excited to see each group's results when I teach this. They come out so varied and so beautiful. It's a lesson that teachers the levels of a landscape (background, middle and foreground) as well as tints (pastels). 

I posted all the steps previously HERE.

This lesson is great for where I live in Canada because it is winter for at least 4 months out of the year and we gets lots of snow! I show the kids how colours in the sky reflect onto the snow- snow is not actually white but it's shadows incorporate the light around it. 

Students find a winter landscape image online to reference- I usually print out the image.  Then they draw it onto large heavy white paper. They paint in all the main areas uses tints of one or two colours. I encourage them to keep it all very pale. Any trees or branches details will be drawn in later using a charcoal pencil. Once dry, they go over all their lines with a charcoal pencil and blend out the line for a soft shaded effect. I will say using a higher quality tempera paint brand really helps with the finished quality of these paintings. 

These are Grade 7 - 9 results:

Planet Hoth from Star Wars!!

 

Underwater Scratch Art using Oil Pastels

Here's a classic art lesson that's been taught by art teachers for decades: diy scratch art.

Grade 4 students drew an underwater scene on cardstock. \they outlined the pencil lines with a thick sharpie. Then they coloured in everything using light coloured oil pastels. The colours need to be light!!

Then cover it with a coat of black tempera and let dry. Use a wooden stylus to scratch out designs all over the picture. These look so cool when finished!!

 

James Goldcrown style Heart Collage

Street artist James Goldcrown was the artist inspiration for the Valentines themed heart collage. 

I found the project idea HERE and just switched up that artist.

Born in West London, Goldcrown is a self-taught artist/photographer now based in Los Angeles. He is most famous for his Bleeding Hearts/Lovewall murals which started showing up everywhere on Instagram back in 2015.  Here's a good article outlining his rise to success with the help of social media.

I showed Grade 4 - 6 a slideshow of his work and a short video of  his working process. Then I demonstrated how to cut the 'line hearts'. I laid out a variety of coloured photocopy paper- in brights, neons and pastels. Students chose any colour combination and could use as many colours as they wanted. 

They folded each sheet of paper into fourths and then cut those apart. 

They folded that square in half (to create a symmetrical heart) and cut a variety of sizes of hearts. 

They chose a background colour and glued all the hearts on in layers. 

 

Kandinsky Watercolour Hearts

Here's a Valentine's take on the famous Kandinsky work "Color Study. Squares with Concentric Circles" from 1913. Kandinsky's most recognizable work, interestingly enough, is not actually a full-fledged picture. This drawing is a small study on how different colour combinations are perceived that the painter used in his creative process as a support material. He felt that color could convey emotion even without showing any particular object or figure.  Color on its own could tell the story of his art.  Kandinsky was one of the first artists who painted purely ABSTRACT works of art, meaning he abandoned any reference to recognizable reality in his work. 

I had Grade 4 students measure out the 3 x 4 grid using a ruler. 

They used 9 x 12" heavy white paper.

Then they created their own heart template by folding a piece of cardstock in half, and cutting out half a heart. They traced this in all the squares in whatever pattern they wanted.

Then they painted them in whatever colours they wanted using either pan watercolours, watercolour pencils, or tempera pucks.

Some completed Grade 4 work- Happy Valentine's Day!