David Shannon Art: Names With Color

Artwork shown above is taken from www.mrsbrownsart.com

Medium: Watercolor and Oil Pastel

Reason for Lesson: To help students understand the use of words and color to express feeling in artwork

Label: 5th grade, David Shannon, Negative Space, Watercolor resist, repeating pattern, color as emotion

Prep Time:  15-30 minutes

Prep Prior to Class: Gather supplies, cut watercolor paper to 8.5x11

Class Time; 1 hour

Materials: 8.5x11 watercolor paper, pencil, watercolors, water cups, paper towel, newspaper, oil pastels

Instructions to Lead Lesson

Step 1: Hand out materials and discuss David Shannon and his artwork.

Step 2: Have the children think of three words that describe their personality and write those words on the back of their watercolor paper.  Next have the Children write colors next to the words that describe themselves.  These will be the colors the children use for their oil pastels,

Step 3: Fold an 8.5x11 sheet of water color paper so that there are 6 squares across and 4 squares down

Step 4: Using block letters have the students write their names in pencil. One letter in each box. Be sure the letters are extending to the top, bottom, and sides of each box.  (You may want to do a tutorial on the board to help the students learn how to draw block letters)

Step 5: Using the 3 oil pastel colors chosen in Step 2 have the students outlines the OUTSIDE of each letter.

Step 6: Color all the space that is NOT a letter with repeating patterns using the three oil pastel colors.  This is the negative space.

Step 7:Once all the negative space is colored choose ONE water color that is a more neutral tone and paint the entire paper. (I colored the first example with Oil Pastels and determined after that water colors would work better:as shown in the examples below).

Step 8: Discuss the concept of negative space and how their names are seen even when they didn't color the letters of their name. Also discuss how their personalities are expressed through their artwork,