I figured we would kick off fall with our first project focused on gourds. I found some really beautiful ones at the garden store that I couldn't resist. I figured my husband couldn't whine about me spending money yet again on "useless" holiday decor if I told him they were for art class.
That's me, always thinking.
Since it was the first class back after a long summer break, I felt I would start with some warm up exercises. I used this project in all three classes, the Kindergarten through Grade 3, the Grade 4 through Grade 6, and the Tween/Teen class.
During the warm up the children used india ink with brushes on rice paper. These two artworks were a quick drawing focused on finding the lines in the gourd.
Aren't they amazing?! 3 minutes!! When I say quick draws, I do mean quick draws.
Another quick sketch was done in graphite and focused on finding darks and lights and different ideas on interpreting the textures.
Children also created a warm up using their non-dominate hand, using continuous line while not looking at their paper, and what I like to call "Haiku" drawing- getting the picture on the paper using only 5 or 7 brush strokes.
We did this for about 20 minutes.
grade 2
The elementary class then created large ink paintings on watercolor paper for the rest of the class.
grade 1
grade 2
I gave no instruction on choices and decisions they made for their final work other than asking the kids to spend a few minutes going over their warm up pieces and looking at the things they liked and didn't like on the different works. We then discussed how they now had the ability to combine all the things they liked from the different papers into their final artwork.
Aren't the results great?!
After the Tween/Teen class finished their warm ups, I did give them a couple of minutes to add some colored ink to their rice paper drawings before starting their final artworks.
In my opinion, the warm ups are beautiful finished pieces of work.
I then challenged the tween/teen class to create a 4x4 acrylic painting with a limited color palette in just an hour. We discussed how artist are always working within certain parameters and having to make choices and decisions based on those parameters.
My goal with this first class was just to get the students to loosen up and having a time limit forced them to not get in their head too much and keep their paintings loose.
Because we were working with such a limited palette, Naples Yellow, Payne's Grey, and Titanium White, we used Golden Open Acrylic so they would have more time to play with blending before the paint dried.
I also gave them the opportunity to utilize palette knives along with the brushes.
The project was easy to alter so that it was age appropriate and fun for everyone and the results? Well they speak for themselves.
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