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It has been so hard to wait to share this student work! This project has turned into one of my favorites. It's the first time we've tried this, and I already can't wait to do it with next year's third graders! I love when Art can mesh so well with other subjects, like it does through this project.
Third graders have been studying various landforms and bodies of water- islands, peninsulas, mountains, rivers, etc. To support that learning, as well as gain some color-mixing experience, students made paintings inspired by Google EarthView images. These photos are satellite images of the earth's surface, and they are just beautiful! Each student chose a photo and spent about 5 weeks turning it into a painting. I wanted each student to be able to identify the landforms found in their photo, and then to recreate the image as accurately as possible. We spent one whole class period just practicing mixing colors! I also wanted students to truly LOOK at their photo and replicate even the tiniest details and textures. And here are the finished products! They are such close matches that it's hard to tell which is the student painting and which is the photograph! The student work is the top photo, and the image from Google is at the bottom.
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I am SO proud of the work that these first grade artists accomplished this week. This was an inquiry-based activity we did to explore how colors work together. Each student chose a fall leaf photograph and spent time observing all the different shades and hues of colors they could see. For example- a red leaf wasn't just plain red; it could have spots of orangey-red, brownish-red, pinkish-red, light red, and blackish-red.
Students were given magnifying glasses to encourage them to look very closely, and to help get themselves in a scientific state of mind. If the weather had been cooperating, we would have gone outside to gather real leaves, but the photos worked great! Then, each student was given several basic colors of paint. Their task was to mix and blend colors to make an EXACT match for all the colors seen in their leaves. We discussed how the red paint straight from the bottle was probably not the right kind of red. The students were challenged to figure out what other colors to add to get just the right shade. What color of paint would make the color darker? Or lighter? Or duller? As a final step, students were asked to create a name for each of their colors. I have not yet taught much color theory to this group, so I am so very impressed with the close color matches they were able to make. We'll be revisiting color theory concepts later on in the year, but this was a great place to start! Fourth grade artists have recently completed these paintings of our solar system. The main art concept of this project was to understand how light affects the way objects look and then to practice shading a sphere. This concept connects very well to the students' current studies of our solar system. They are learning how the sun's light on the planets as they rotate causes day and night; similarly, light shining on a sphere causes shadows and highlights.
Be sure to notice the shading on these artworks- they turned out very impressive! The students will tell you that getting to splatter-paint the stars in the background was the best part! |
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