Wednesday, October 5, 2016

Sunflowers in Oil Pastel & Paint


So it's been sunflowers galore this month with many of my classes in school. I go through phases of hating and then LOVING sunflowers. So this year is a loving year, haha!

I had my Grade 2 class create two different artworks using Van Gogh's Sunflowers series as inspiration. For the first one they used oil pastels (took about two- 40 minute classes to complete) and then they tried again using tempera cakes (again, about two- 40 minute periods to complete).

For the oil pastel version, students drew their still life's on large 12 x 18" coloured 
construction paper. 
I used THIS LINK from the Art blog "Teach Kids Art" for some tips and tricks. Thanks, Cheryl!
My younger kids use the Crayola brand oil pastels and they're pretty good- nice and chunky for smaller hands to grip onto. The one thing I don't like about them is that the wrappers come off them really easily.








The following week, students tried their hand again at sunflowers. This time, instead of drawing them in pencil first, they went in straight with a paint brush on 12 x 18" white paper.

I find tempera trays super convenient to use with larger classes. The colours aren't as vibrant as liquid tempera, but they last FOREVER and are easy for the kids to use and share. I teach them how to mix colours on their paper. Four kids share about 2 or 3 trays at each table, with a big ice cream pail of water in the middle. It works pretty good and clean-up is pretty pain free. TIP: spray your tempera cakes with water in the morning before class to get them damp and ready to use!



Some Grade 2 results:




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