Colorful Apples

Colorful Apples

Medium:  Tempera Paint and oil pastels

Reason for Lesson:  Lesson was designed to create an understanding of mixing colors and warm and cool color.  Also negative space

Prep Time:  20 mins, need to make a paint tray for each child on a paper plate.  A quarter size drop of paint of each of 2 primary colors: red and yellow.  And dime size drop of blue.

Preparation prior to lesson:  Make a template for each child in the shape of an apple, cut it out of cardstock so it is strong.  

Class Time: 1 hour.

Materials: 

• 1-12x18 piece of white construction paper for each student, 
• 1-12x18 piece of blue, purple or green construction paper for the background, 
• a paint tray plate for each student, 
• a water cup for each student, 
• two paper towels for wiping the students brushes, 
• paint brush for each student, 
• tempera paint, red, yellow, and blue, 
• Pencil, 
• Apple template, 
• Brown and black oil pastels, 
• Scissors 

Instructions to Lead Lesson: Have a discussion on how we mix colors and how every color comes from our 3 primary colors. Discuss how we make the color orange.  Next discuss what a warm color is a what a cool color is.  Warm: red, yellow, orange.  Cool, blue, green, purple.  Finally discuss how negative space is the background color.  

Step One: Trace The Apple


Using a pencil trace three apples.  Draw a stem and a couple of leaves.  Next go over all your lines will and oil pastel.  This will help keep the paint in the right spot.

Step Two:  Paint The Apples

Now comes the fun part: painting! I placed the tempera primary colors on a paper plate and had the children paint one apple yellow. They used very little water and cleaned their brushes by sweeping the bristles over the paper towel. Next, they dipped their paintbrush into the red paint and painted the second apple red. Now, without cleaning brush, dip paint brush in yellow paint again and paint 3rd apple. The children will notice right away that the yellow and red on their brush creates orange. If they need more paint, they can add more yellow or red directly to the apple.

After cleaning their brush, they painted the leaves yellow, then dipped paint brush into blue paint and painted directly over yellow leaves. Don’t worry about the stems for now.

Step Three: Color the Stems and Cut out the Apples

With an oil pastel, color the stem in brown.

Step Four:  Glue onto a Cool Color Background.

Credit:  http://www.deepspacesparkle.com/2012/10/15/apple-art-project/