Sunflower in Perspective Lesson

Perspective in Art
Medium: Water Colors

Reason for the Lesson: This is a lesson about perspective.  Touching and feeling an object can help students develop a piece of art that represents their own perspective on the object.  This lesson uses water colors so the students will be able to explore the way in which water colors work.  Having them touch and feel the real sunflower allows them to see to see the texture which will help them to understand perspective when it comes to drawing their own sunflowers.

Prep Time: 10 - 15 minutes, more if checking out books at library.

Classroom Time: 1 Hour

Materials: A REAL sunflower, various pictures of sunflowers from artists, Water color paper, water colors, sharpies, pencil, erasers,

Preparation: Collect all materials. Check out books from library that feature sunflowers.  Find a LIVE sunflower for the kids to look at and touch!

Instructions for Leading Lesson
Discuss interesting facts about the Sunflower. Talk about height that a sunflower will grow; discuss number of seeds a flower will produce; Discuss that Native Americans used the seeds to make oil; show  sunflower artwork created by popular artists from the past.

Discuss the shapes found in a sunflower;  circle for the inside, tear drop for the petals, hearts for the leaf, etc.  Discuss the varying color found in sunflowers and how all sunflowers are different from each other. Then we touched on texture and how the area in the middle of the flower has texture because of the seeds.  

Give the class a chance to draw their own sunflower.   Start by drawing a large circle with pencil on the upper part of the paper.  Then draw a smaller circle on the inside that will become the inside of the flower.   Add the petals and talked about how to layer the petals to look like there are several layers. Draw stem and leaves. Instruct to outline pencil markings with the black sharpie.   Add water colors, use lightest color first, yellow then worked through orange to add additional color and dimension.  Add green for the stem and leaves then finally adding blue for the background.

Credit: Art-A-Attack

Art Docent Tips

FOR ALL GRADES

• Check in with Office - Be sure to sign in and wear your name tag
• Maximize Set-up Time - Consider scheduling sessions just after the kids get back from recess, PE, or library; this will allow extra time for set-up 
• Walk into Class Completely Prepared - Pre-mix, pre-sort, pre-cut, pre-prep...be ready to go when you walk into class.  Your time is short and you don't want spend lesson time prepping.
• Try the Project at Home - Gauge how long project will take at home.  Will it meet the time allotted?

Defining the Elements of Art

Color – The perceived wavelength of light reflected by an object.  Color has three properties: hue, value and intensity.

Line - The path of a moving point, a mark made by a tool or instrument across a surface.  Lines can be straight curved or angular and lines can be thick, thin, light, dark, smooth, rough, solid or broken.

Shape – objects that have two dimensions; length and heights. Shapes are made when lines connect and can be geometric, organic or free-form.

Form – objects that have three dimensions; length, width, and depth. Forms are geometric organic or free-form.

Texture – refers to how surfaces of objects look or feel.  Textures can be visual or tactile.

Space- This is the area around below, above and within an object.  Positive space is the space occupied by shapes or forms in two or three dimensional artwork.  Negative space is the unoccupied or empty space over around, below and within shapes or forms in two or three dimensional artwork.

After the Lesson - Communicating

Prepare the Lesson Description to hang with the art on the wall.  This is a great tool for teachers, students and parents to learn about the lesson.

Complete the Lesson Brief then attach it to your Lesson Summary and place it in the Art-A-Baloo Crew (AABC) coordinator's box in the PTO office. Lesson briefs and lesson summary's can be emailed to the AABC Coordinator or Assistant Coordinator.

The AABC Coordinator or Assistant will take a photo of the work in the gallery.    All the information will then be posted on this blog for all to see and share!

Finally, after each lesson one or two pieces of art will be selected to display at Mead High Schools Annual EYE on Art Program. The student will be notified of this decision and we will help in celebrating this achievement.

Easy to Understand Line Exercise

Line Art
Medium: Black pens (sharpies)

Reason For Lesson: To help the students understand that lines come in all forms (i.e., straight, wavey, hatching, circles, etc. and that you can create art using only lines.  This lesson can be taught at any grade level.  The lower the grade level use larger tip writing instruments.  The picture you see here represents a 4th grade lesson. 

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Classroom Time: 45 minutes to 1 hour

Materials: 12x18 paper, black sharpie, scratch paper for practice

Preparation: Very little.  Collect paper and sharpies. Decide what the students will be drawing and provide some ideas and samples of some options.  (i.e., turtles, sea lions, fish, etc.)

Instructions for Teaching Class:   
Open a discussion about lines.  Discuss that a line starts at one point and ends at another and it’s not always a straight line. Lines can be jagged, dashed, curvy, thin, bold, swirl and so on. Have the class warm up by making several of these line.   Given the students a sample of a picture with various types of lines.  With a 2x2 frame cut out (located in Art Supply room), have them isolate an area and draw the lines they see.  After the warm-up, give some samples of animal outlines and  ask the students to pick an animal to draw on their paper.  Instruct the students that the animal should to take up the entire area of the 12x18 paper.  Have the students divide the animal into 5-8 different areas.  Within each area instruct them to make different types of lines in each of the divided areas.  In addition to creating many different types of lines encourage them to make areas of dark and light.  

This lesson can be adapted for upper grade levels.  Use a larger point sharpie and large paper (12x18)  for lower level grades (1st, 2nd and 3rd).  Use a finer point sharpie for the upper grades (4th, 5th and 6th) and a 81/2 x 11 paper.

Credit: Part of this lesson were adapted from the Art Attack Program

A Snowman in Perspective

Perspective in Art
Medium: Tempura Paint

Reason for the Lesson:  This lesson discusses that although we see objects in their entirety what if we could only see 'part' of the object or we're looking at the object close up.  What form would our art take if we could only see part of the object?

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Classroom Time: 50 minutes

Materials: Blue construction paper, pencil, sharpie, red, green, white, black, orange tempura paints.

Preparations: collect materials. Do some research on perspective in art.

Instructions for Leading Lesson
Start lesson with a discussion about PERSPECTIVE in art. Ask a student to define perspective. Definition:  'looking at a subject from a different angle or direction'

Using the subject of a snowman, most students (even adults) want to draw the three circles of their snowman and get on with it.  Talk about taking a close up look at a snowman.  Ask the questions: what do you see if your snowman in directly in front of you?  We may not see the bottom part of the snowman but his face would appear very large. How big would his nose be? Would you see his entire body or just part of it?

After discussion, instruct the students to draw the body shape, from the mid-part of the middle circle to the head.  Depending on grade level...show them step-by-step show how to draw the hat, scarf, nose, eyes and buttons.  Pass out tempura paint and shown how to property use the paint brush and other tools to create their ‘close-up’ perspective of the snowman.

The children were quite impressed with their new found knowledge on perspective.  The artwork you see here is a result of this lesson!

Credit: Deep Space Sparkle

Name in the Color

Color Wheel
Medium: Oil Pastel and Water Color

Reason for Lesson: To introduce students to the concept of the color wheel.  This lesson discussed primary and secondary colors.

Prep Time: 15-30 minutes for materials.  May take a little longer to learn and formulate lesson to deliver the color wheel concepts.

Classroom Time: 1 Hour

Materials: Color Wheel to show in class,

Preparation: 'Brush up' on Color Theory! Create a 'sample' to show the students. 

Instructions for Leading the Lesson
Introduce, in a simple format, the concept of the Color Wheel/Color Theory. Discuss that artists can make use of the Color Wheel to develop their artwork.  

Show  a color wheel that consisted of 12 colors.  Yellow at the top, then clock wise; Yellow-orange, Red-orange, Red, Red-violet, Violet, Blue-violet, Blue, Blue-green, Green, and Yellow-green.  We refer to a few of them by more common names, like Purple (for Blue –violet), Turquoise (Blue-green), or Magenta (which is pretty close to red-violet).  Other names like Light or Dark Orange, or even Chartruese (for Yellow-green, are sometimes used by artists as well).

Discuss PRIMARY COLORS  which are the most important colors in the wheel. The only colors are RED, BLUE and YELLOW.  If you’re a painter, you can get any other color you need just by mixing red, blue and yellow paint. 

The PRIMARY COLORS are known as power colors---blue and red are known specifically as power colors (think cars), and yellow is the brightest color on the whole color wheel. 

Show the students that when you mix any two of the primary colors together and you’ll get one of the next three hues: the SECONDARY COLORS . Green, Orange, and Violet fall in between red, blue and yellow, and each one serves as COMPLEMENTARY COLORS to one of the primary colors.

 

COMPLEMENTARY COLORS, when put together, appear brighter or more vivid than when apart.  Each color is enhanced by the closeness of its ‘opposite’.

Characters from the Game of Clue in Color

*Need Art*

Clue Characters and Monocromatic Color
Medium: Tempura Paint

Reason for the Lesson: This is an opportunity to discuss the concept of monochromatic art.  Which is creating art using one color!  By adding either white or black the color values can be changed.  This is a great lesson to use after the color wheel has been introduced.

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Classroom Time: 1 1/2 to 2 hours (can break down into two sessions)

Materials: Clue character game pieces, 11x14 paper, tempura paints in colors of the clue characters and white and black, pencils, fine sharpies,

Preparation: Collect materials. Prepare to discuss monochromatic colors. Investigate how to draw cartoon characters.

Instructions for Leading this Lesson:
Explain to the class that they’ll be drawing cartoon characters from the game ‘Clue’, choosing one of the six characters; Colonel Mustard, Mrs. Peacock, Mr. Green, Ms. White and Miss Scarlet and Professor Plum.   Then using paint, explain they'll be creating a monochromatic painting of each of their characters. 

Step one, instruct the class how to draw their cartoon characters.  Offer a warm up exercise on how to draw cartoon people draw people and facial expressions.

Step two, discuss how to create lighter and darker shades of one color.  Demonstrate in front of the class how to make a color lighter by adding white.  Then demonstrate how to make it darker by adding very, very, very little black.

Then it was the classes turn to begin creating their CLUE characters.  They each selected their character then began drawing.  After that, the fun began with the mixing of colors!  Each student was given their color (for their character) AND white and black paint.  They mixed and mixed until they created the shades they wanted to use.  Then the painting began!

What you see here is a result of this art lesson!

Credit: Art Attack Program

Creating Art Using Your 5 Senses

*Need picture*

Shape and Texture
Medium: Water Color

Reason for Lesson: Not all art is created by using our eyes.  Art is created by using our other senses too!  What if we couldn't see?  Could we create a piece of art by using ONLY our ability to touch with our fingers, smell with our nose or hear with our ears?  Could we create art by using only these three senses? Could we create art by using only one of these senses?   

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Classroom Time: 1 Hour

Materials: two bags filled with3-4 items to touch, something to smell, music, music player, 81/2 x 11 paper, pencil, colored pencils.

Instructions to Lead Lesson: Discuss the idea of creating art using our senses.  Discuss how most ART is created using our sense of SIGHT. Explain how we will be creating art using ONLY SMELL, TOUCH and HEARING. 

You could use the idea of the Ocean or any other idea...BUT don't tell the class you are using the ocean .  They MUST conclude this after they have a chance to experience all the senses.    Bring in a SMELL- use a candle that smells like the ocean, or an air fresher that smells like the ocean. TOUCH:  Fill a bag with items you'd find at the ocean, i.e sea shell, sand, piece of a towel, etc. BUT don't let them look in the bag!  HEARING: Play music that sounds like the ocean. 

For a little bit a fun you could blind fold each student with a strip of fabric!   This would force them to really use their senses.  OR you could turn off the lights during the sensing part!

Other sensing IDEAS: Baking Cookies, Fall (leaves, flowers, etc), etc.

Credit: Art Attack

Split Portrait in Balance

Split Portrait - Asymmetrical
Medium: Color Pencils

Reason for Lesson: This is a perfect lesson for upper grades where using a ruler has already been taught.  Students must understand smaller measurements and how to find equal distance to another point. This is a great lesson if you want to briefly introduce advertising and it's basic concepts. More importantly it's about creating balance from one side of the art to the other side.

Prep Time: 45 minutes to 1 hour

Classroom Time: 1 1/2 hour

Materials: Colored Pencils, pencil, 8 1/2  x 11 paper, ruler, scratch paper, 1/2 of a print advertisement mounted on while drawing paper.

Preparation: This is partially a lesson on advertising and partially a lesson on measurements using a ruler.  Brush up on using a ruler and finding smaller measurements i.e., 1/4, 1/8 and 1/16 of an inch.    Finding the ads in magazines is the time consuming part of this project.  However, if you make the effort the kids will have fun!  Be sure that the ads are easy to replicate.  Look for straight lines and repetitive features of the ad. Mount half of the ad on a piece of drawing paper. The kids can be instructed in class to 'frame' the right side of the ad.  

Instructions: Discuss advertising and the various ways to advertise.  Touch of radio (air), television, billboards, Internet and print. Show them an example of the art they will be working on.  Explain to the class that they will be replicating the right side of the advertisement. 

1. Instruct students to draw a boarder/frame for the right side of the ad with a pencil.  Using their ruler have them measure where that frame should end and complete the frame.
2. Give each student the right side of the 'cut' ad.  Instruct them to use their colored pencils  to measure distance from the center of the page to the beginning or end of the object in the ad. 
3. Encourage them to be precise as they measure which will them help them recreate the ad so it looks almost identical to the whole ad.  
4. Students will be tempted to 'trace' the right side.  This defeats the purpose of the lesson. 
5. This lesson goes outside the philosophy of art and that there is no right or wrong way to create a piece of art.  This lesson is more about precision and creating and 'exact' replica of art.

Credit: Created by PV Art Docent in 2010

Archeology Finds in Art using Space

Personal Archeology Water Resist
Medium: Oil Pastel and Watercolor

Reason for Lesson: Lesson in watercolors AND a chance for the students to think about their personal intrests, things they've collected, sports they play, etc.

Prep Time: 10-15 minutes

Materials: Oil Pastels, water colors, water containers (for desks), sharpies

Classroom Time: 1 1/2 hours.  This lesson could be broken down into two parts on two days.

Instructions to Lead Lesson:  Have the students share what they know about Archaeology. Ask the students, "If someone went on an Archaeological dig in your back yard 1000 years from today, what would Archeologist find in their backyard that would tell them about you."  Brainstorm with the class ideas of things that they could bury in their backyard to tell future civilizations about themselves. 

Then have them create a drawing using pencils, sharpies, and oil pastels that showed their important items buried underground. After they draw and color their items with oil pastels have them paint over the entire image with watercolor paint. The watercolor paint resisted the oil pastels and gave the image the look and feel of being underground.

Credit:  Deep Space Sparkle

Falling for Foreshortening

Falling for Foreshortening
Medium: Colored Pencils

Reason for Lesson: To discuss the concept of forshortening and how space and size affects the distance of the object.   Objects closest to us appear bigger and those objects that are further from us are smaller.

Prep Time: 10-20 minutes

Classroom Time Needed: 1 1/2 hours

Materials: 12 x 14 White Paper, pencil, eraser, black sharpie, colored pencils, a pair of shoes
Preparation: Research facts on foreshortening, gather visual examples from books of foreshortening,  gather 12x14 white paper and other supplies needed. 

Instructions to Lead the Lesson:
Discuss concept of foreshortening, show pictures of examples you've gathered. Instruct students to take off their shoes.  They will trace their shoes and hands using a pencil.  Then they will draw their body using the concept of foreshortening.  Turning over their shoe they can complete the soles of their shoes and hands and finish by using colored pencils to add color.

Credit:Deep Space Sparkle

Possible Approaches in Presenting the Reproductions

 

• Write the name of the artist and painting on the board.  Help the children with the pronunciations. You may wish to sometimes have them give the title ideas of their own and then give them the title after the discussion.
• Ask what feeling the colors convey…pleasure, joy, sadness, anger, noise, etc.  And why.
• Relate painting to the senses: rough, smooth, sharp, cold, hot, loud, etc.
• Using the sensual as well as the emotional and intellectual response to things in the painting, relate to their everyday feelings about themselves and people and environment.
• Don’t forget rhythm, color movement, line movement.
• Point out that an idea or feeling is the beginning of the artist’s creation; the artist then develops this idea or felling through the different medias and processes of art.
• Do not overlook the technical aspects of creating a work of art, the media, materials, techniques.  Children want to know ‘how’ things are done.
• Relate the painting to history.
• Relate the painting to characteristics of the particular period in art.
• Discuss the artist’s background and habits, etc.
• If a picture has obvious narrative or dramatic content, discuss this first as it will be most important to the children…but never stop the discussion with more verbal storytelling.  Make it visual.
• In discussing abstract works, you may find helpful the idea of looking for ‘expressive personality: i.e., the idea that paintings, like people, have personalities.
• Do not use questions that are too vague and open; for example, “what do you think of this picture? Is of no help.  Instead, having been told by a child that a particular painting gives them a spooky feeling, a good follow-up might be to ask the group to find all the various factors which create the spookiness.
• Use music or poetry to set a mood that corresponds to your picture.
• Help the children find colors, lines, or shapes that are repeated.
• Always try to bring in a real object that is shown in the picture.  A scarf, hat, lantern, raincoat, bowl, candle, letter, piece of fruit, etc., will often be a great way to introduce a picture.  “The artist for this month has one of these in his/her picture…”
• Sometimes our eyes complete lines that are left unfinished by the artist…give the children an opportunity to ‘find’ these imaginary lines.  Ask them to come forward and show the class.
• Artist use many different kinds of brush strokes to ‘fill in’ area of color.  Help them to see lines that are hurried, detailed, thick, wavy, wide, tiny, precise, etc.
• Challenge the children to continuously look and find new information.

Resource:  Northshore School District

Ideas for Discussing Prints

The children will remember the pictures more if they participate in the discussion each time.  Use these questions as a guide in preparing your presentation.  Don’t ask dead end questions…pose question that open up new avenues of discovery.

  

1.                  Compare art objects.  As you look at these two paintings, do they look the same? What makes them look different?

2.            Is it good to have pictures or statues that look different? Why?

3.            Can you tell us about something in our town, or your yard or school that does not look nice? How does it make you feel when you see something that does not look nice?  What could you and I do to make out town look better?

4.           Here is rock. Is it pleasing to look at? To feel? Is it a work of art? Why? Art most things around us art objects in a way?

5.           Here is a weed.  What do you see in the weed? Does it look strong or weak, friendly or unfriendly? Does it look you or old? What makes it look that way?

6.           Why do businessmen hire artists rather than non artists to design automobiles, billboards, and cereal boxes?

7.           Art beautiful things good for us? Are they always good for us? Do beautiful things always cost a great deal of money?

8.           Here is Gainsborough’s Blue Boy.  Do you believe that this painting affected boys and girls in Gainsborough’s day in the same way that it affects you? Why? Did this boy dress like this everyday? How would he dress today?

9.            Is it worthwhile for people to make art objects that deal with the same subject matter? Why?

10.         Is it worthwhile for one artist to employ the same style as another artist? Why?

11.         In how many different ways can are be valuable to use? Do we use art skills when we select our clothing? Or write our name on a paper?

12.         If two average citizens happen to disagree about the worth of an art object, is it possible to determine if one is more nearly correct than the other?

13.        Why was this color chosen? Do you know that warm colors always attract attention and seem to ‘jump out’ at us?

14.         Did the artist use the ’whole space’ for the picture? Whey did the artist include this object (for this one) in the picture?

15.          Is the main theme of this picture a person, place or thing?

16.        How often did the artist repeat this color? This diagonal line? This brush texture? Did you know that all great pictures have repetition of line, color, or form?

17.         If you could change one thing about this picture, what would it be?

          

Principles of Art: Description

Balance – the principle of organization that refers to arranging elements equally in a work of art.  There are two kinds of balance: Formal (also called symmetrical) and information (also called asymmetrical).

Contrast – a difference in value, color or texture that achieves emphasis or dominance.

Proportion - the comparison of elements one to another in terms of their properties of size, quality , and degree of emphasis.

Pattern – the repetitions of art elements or the combination of elements in an organized manner.

Rhythm – a principle of organization that indicates a type of movement in art or design, reinforced by repeated shapes, lines or color.

Emphasis – a means by which an artist uses contrasting colors, shapes, or value to draw attention to certain areas or objects in a work of art.

Unity – a principle of organization that relates to the sense of oneness or wholeness in a work of art.

Variety – is the principle of design that creates interest in an artwork by stressing the difference or contrast of the elements such as : line, shape, color or texture.

Art Gallery Description for Snowman in Perspective

Medium: Paint

We started our art lesson with a discussion about PERSPECTIVE in art.  One student was able to give a really good definition of the topic.  She said “it is looking at a subject from a different angle or direction.”

Using the subject of a snowman, most students (even adults) want to draw the three circles of their snowman and get on with it.  We talked about taking a close up look at a snowman.  We asked, what do you see if your snowman in directly in front of you?  We may not see the bottom part of the snowman but his face would appear very large. How big would his nose be? Would you see his entire body or just part of it?

After much discussion on the topic, the students were instructed to draw the body shape, from the mid-part of the middle circle to the head.  Step-by-step they were shown how to draw the hat, scarf, nose, eyes and buttons.  Then they were given tempura paint and shown how to property use the paint brush and other tools to create their ‘close-up’ perspective of the snowman.

The children were quite impressed with their new found knowledge on perspective.  The artwork you see here is a result of this lesson!

Getting Started as a Docent Art Teacher

Once your school has decided to incorporate a Art Docent Program, establish guidelines that will keep the program on track and also create the expectations for both the parent docent and the teacher.  Following is some recommendations:

• Meet with Other Class Docents - At our school, docent parents have selected multiple teachers to work with off the full list of teachers grouped together by grade.  Docents may pick just one teacher to work with, but often pick two or three.  If you chose to work in the same grade level, then you may repeat the coursework in all classes you are working in. Decide how you, and the other class docents, would like to work together in a class. Docents can work in teams or individually.  For a successful program, our goal as docents is to provide a lesson once a month. If you work individually you can alternate months between you and another parent docent(s), spending less time in the classroom (if lack of time is a consideration).  However, the team approach gives you more one on one time with the kids and is a lot more fun for everyone involved.

• Meet with your Teacher  - Schedule all lessons through the teacher directly.  Ask about curriculum integration and anything else they may need from you.  Also, discuss the technology available to you.  What kind of projector and materials are needed for display. What supplies do students have that could be useful in determining your project; example, do they all have their own marker and colored pencils?  Determine the best times for the lessons and schedule them.  Scheduling can be tough if you don't be proactive about it. Most teachers will want you to offer to them specific times versus a teacher asking a docent.  Therefore, be proactive by offering a teacher 2 to 3 options for the month that work for you (and your class docent team), and then coordinate calendars.   

IMPORTANT!!!  ONCE YOU KNOW THE DATES, PLEASE PUT THEM ON THE CALENDAR IN THE SUPPLY ROOM SO THERE IS NOT OVERLAP AND RISK OF RUNNING OUT OF SUPPLIES. 

• Prep your Supplies - Get everything ready ahead of your lesson time, so you are ready to distribute to the class when you walk in.  Pre-mix, pre-sort, pre-cut, pre-prep...be ready.  Your time is short and you can not spend any of the lesson time still prepping.  Also, to help save value lesson time, have kids in the classroom to help you pass out materials if you don't have a class docent partner.

• Teaching the Lesson - Find artist's bio, photos and artwork and display them on the screen in the classroom, or print them out and project them.    Once you have your lesson determined, use this general guideline when in the classroom:

1. Distribute supplies to all children in the class.  (Again, have kids in the classroom to help you pass out materials if you don't have a class docent partner)
2. Introduce an artist and show samples of their work.  (5 to 15 minutes).  Use interesting details (like Van Gogh slicing his ear off)
3. Describe the lesson you have for them and how it ties in to the artist
4. Walk them through the project, step by step.  If you are able to, bring in some music, it is a great tool for creating artists.
5. Keep lessons between 1 to 2 hours.  The teacher will tell you how much time you have.
6. As students finish, have them mount their own work on colored paper sized to fit the art and sign it.  Decide with the teacher if the art can be left to dry in a specific area.  If students don't finish before the class is over, decide with the teacher if there is time for the student to finish  their project indendentely later in the day. 
7. Arrange with the teacher (or with other class room 'helpers') to 'hang' the art in the art gallery (hallway outside of the classroom) along with the LESSON DESCRIPTION sheet!  This IS the most important part of the lesson.  As students, teachers and parents walk by the display they can easily reference the lesson and concepts learned. 

•  Retreive all docent supplies - Round up all supplies at the end of the lesson and return them back to the storage area.

• Back-up plan - If you are unable to teach a scheduled lesson, find another docent that could cover for you.  The kids really look forward to these lessons and we certainly don't want to disappoint!