drawing and dreaming with Horace and Melissa.

This week the 3rd graders continued their value unit. The goal of the project was for them to be able to make a character look 3d by using light and dark color values. Last week they used light and dark to create variety, so I wanted them to apply value to a drawing and make it more realistic.

The inspiration for the project comes from illustrations done by Melissa Sweet for the book A Splash of Red: the Life and Art of Horace Pippin. (the link for the book is a great resource for the classroom and has a video biography narrated by a child) 

 

I started the lesson by sharing a photo of Horace and talking about his life and all he overcame to become an artist. I then shared 2 illustrations by Melissa that are from the book. We looked at how she used a little bit of value contrast on Horace's skin and clothes in order to make him seem a little rounder and solid. I read the text to them and we then identified places, animals, and things that we saw in his thoughts above his head. I explained that they would be creating self-portraits- they would draw themselves and things that they enjoy.

 We followed the composition that Melissa did and I walked the kids through drawing their self-portraits. I had various hairstyle examples on the board, so they could have a better idea how to approach that aspect of the drawing. When they added color I emphasized pressing hard for their dark values and soft for their light values.

An hour isn't quite long enough for this lesson. I'll be bringing back classes for 15 minutes each next week, so that everyone can get finished. I wanted the focus to be on value, but the drawing portion of the lesson took a lot longer than I originally planned. That said, I love the individual takes on the self portraits- both physically and what they like to do:)

Always nice to see expressions like this on kids' faces when they get done:)

getting in the pond with Melissa.

The kinders are continuing their value unit this week. The focus image was done by American illustrator Melissa Sweet.  I love the soft touch with color that she displays in many of her illustrations. The 3rd graders are going to be working from an illustration she did for a book about Horace Pippin later this week as well.

We started the lesson by reviewing the vocabulary we used in the Budi Kwan project from last week- value, light, dark, soft, hard, and oil pastels. This project used all those too, but the 2 projects/artworks look a a lot different from each other.

Students identified the things they saw in Melissa's painting. We talked about how the painting is of a frog and it's habitat. (science connection for the win;) I guided them to also recognize that some of the lily pads were dark and some were light and the flower has dark and light pink petals.

The lesson is pretty straightforward-

1.  Draw the flower. Start with an oval and add a couple sets of bump patterns around it for the petals.
2.  Draw the line that separates the ground from the pond. Overlapping!
3.  Draw a few lily pads. Have at least one go off the page. I referenced pac-man for the shape. I also pointed out that the lily pad shape is a big "C" with a "V" cut into it.
4.  Draw the frog. It starts out the same as the lily pads, but you also add an "m" for where the eyes go.
5.  Color the lily pads with greens. Press hard on a couple and light on a couple. Color the petals of the flower. Press soft on the inside and light on the outer ones.
6.  Color the frog. Press hard with yellow and then softly with a green to make it a bit different than the lily pads.
7.  Color the ground softly with brown. Press hard to add a shadow underneath it. Use the side of the oil pastel to color a large area easily.
8.  Color the water of the pond with blue and/or purple.
9.  Write a guided sentence or two about the project. Students can count how many lily pads they have or describe how they made or used light and dark.