Saturday, April 10, 2010

Sea Turtle

Another art class example.  I had the kids use watercolor pencils for the turtle spots and the turquoise areas.  They were fascinated with layering blue and green watercolor pencil then adding water to turn it turquoise.  I was very pleased when one second grader came up and asked for the burnt umber pencil.  He remembered from the brown color of the bunny!  That made me feel really good and I let him know.
I had them use a prussian blue wash for the bottom section of their turtle picture and then told them to turn their painting upside down and work on the spots some more.  I got some really funny looks until I explained that this way they wouldn't get their arms in the blue while it was drying.
After the first layer was dry, I had them add a second layer leaving the top with only one.  I love watching their faces going from confused to - Cool!  We had blue everywhere, but it was fun.  On to the next idea!

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Art Class Easter Bunny

The class had such fun with this guy.  They had to paint the bunny first and save the eggs for last.  That was pretty hard for some of the six year olds to do.  They could paint their bunnies any color they wanted.  Most choose the burnt umber and orange that I used, but there were some more daring.  Casey choose green for the ear on the right and spots for the body.  He called it his evil bunny with chicken pox. :)
Each egg was painted seperately a color of the child's own choosing.  I showed them what happened when alcohol was dropped on a damp egg and what happened when salt was added.  I also used crayon resist, showed them how to blend colors by dropping a color on top of the original and what happens when irredescence were added.  Lots of oooos were heard. 
It was very strange when I realized that people walking in the hallways could hear these first and second graders asking for alcohol.