4TH GRADE: WATERCOLOR SHOES

4th grade students learned that many artist's loved to draw shoes. These artist's include Vincent Van Gogh, Roy Lichtenstein and Grant Wood. Student began by doing observational drawings of their own shoes. Watercolors were added in the background by using the wet-on-wet technique and for theri shoes they used the wet-on-dry technique. Fantastic job 4th grade!!

3RD GRADE: WATERCOLOR EXPLORATION

Students were learning all about watercolor through this free exploration lesson. Student were shown the wet-on-wet, wet-on-dry and crayon resist techniques and then were free to paint! After they painted, they looked for cool shapes made by the flowing watercolors. The found shapes were outlined with a thin black Sharpie. The result was some pretty cool abstract art!

5TH GRADE WATERCOLOR

Students began by choosing a photo and sketching it on a piece of manila paper.









             In order to keep the watercolor paper as clean as possible  I had them transfer their sketch to the watercolor paper by blackening in the back of their manila paper.
         

They taped their manila paper with their blackened side
down on the watercolor paper & traced over their sketch, which allowed their sketch to be transferred to the watercolor paper.







Students painted over their sketch with black glue to help outline their subject. This is called a glue resist technique.

  

 

Before beginning the watercolor, students practiced some techniques they could use in their painting:  a wash, wet-on-wet, wet-on-dry, and dry brush.

Students were encouraged to use the  techniques they learned to create different effects. 

                                   Here are some of the finished pieces!
                                                                                           Amazing work!!!

1ST GRADE: WATERCOLOR COLLAGE

I saw this lesson online somewhere and loved how these liquid watercolor paintings looked when finished!

The students started with a piece of rice paper. They tore the rice paper into 5-6 pieces. After they had their pieces, liquid watercolor was painted on each piece. I encouraged them to make each piece look different. They also were careful not to mix colors that would result in muddy, brown colors- they were to create vibrantly colored pieces.

                        What is so cool about the rice paper is that the paper has fibers in it that allow the liquid watercolor to bleed or as the students said "The watercolor grows!" They were amazed by this!

After the watercolor pieces were dry, they picked a background color to glue their pieces to. They overlapped their pieces to create a unified composition.

When all pieces were glued on they added line designs to their picture with black Sharpie.

The last step was to add glitter!!! What 1st grader doesn't love glitter!! It also added a beautiful effect to their awesome artwork!!

2ND GRADE: KLIMT TREE OF LIFE PRINTS

 Students began the lesson looking at and discussing Gustav Klimt's Tree of Life artwork. They talked about the characteristic swirls at the end of the branches and all the patterns on the tree. The process of printmaking was also discussed, which is one of the techniques the students will learn. The 1st step of the lesson was to create a background to print on. Students learned about the wet-on-wet watercolor technique, which is the process of wetting the paper before watercolor is applied. This technique caused the colors to "bleed" onto the paper and into one another creating a beautiful effect. This 12x18 paper would be cut in half so that the students could pull 2 prints.

The next step was to create a sketch of their interpretation of Klimt's tree on manila paper. The manila paper was then taped to a piece of printing foam. The students used a dull pencil and enough pressure to trace over their sketch, which transferred to the foam.

Students then had to re-trace over their drawing on the foam to create a deeper impression in it to ensure that their drawing would print well.

Students worked in groups at the tables to pull prints of their drawing. This process involves inking their foam plate with a roller called a brayer. The ink will only go on the raised surface, not the deep pencil lines that were made. The students had so much fun doing this!!

Next, students took their inked foam plate and their watercolor paper to the opposite side of the table to print their drawing onto the watercolor paper they made. Students had to rub hard on all areas of the foam to make sure that all of the ink transferred.It was so exciting to see all of their smiling faces when they pulled the foam off of to reveal their artwork!!

          This is a photo of the steps of the printing process: sketch, foam & 2 prints.
  

Here are a few example of the finished prints!!

For more information on Gustav Klimt visit: http://www.klimtgallery.org/