Grade 1/2 Experiences at Rosser Elementary
We did a directed drawing lesson on a bat in flight. The students then reproduced their bats onto their construction paper. We had a lesson on outlining, shading, and highlighting areas to show texture (the bat’s fur). Students completed their work with waxed crayons. They added in items that would be seen in the Autumn.
Students were given paint palettes with three colours of paint – red, blue, and yellow. The instructions were to paint any picture they wanted but they needed to show six colours – both primary and secondary colours. To be fair, they mostly made ‘intermediate’ colours as the colours they created were most likely not of equal amounts of primary colours. Most students managed to make secondary colours (orange, green, and violet). Some people discovered what happens when they mix too many colours – they get brown.
On Wednesday we had a lesson, and discussion, on what are the ‘elements’ (foundational parts) of art. These are noted above. Most are fairly obvious such as: colour (those found in the rainbow – red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet 🌈); line (curved, straight, or angular); shape; and form (3-D objects).
Texture is the way something feels, or the way it looks like it feels. Value is the lightness or darkness of a colour by either adding white (to make a tint) or black (to make a shade). A value is also black and white and all the gradients in between. Students learned that black, white, grey, and brown are not true colours.
We used a variety of ‘shading’ waxed crayons, and rubbing tiles or templates, to create these lovely pictures. You should be able to see all the elements of Art, in each picture, with the exception of ‘form’.
We looked at a variety of prints of famous painters’ works.
Camille Pissarro
August Renoir
Paul Cezanne
Claude Monet
Vincent Van Gogh
Henri Matisse
Pablo Picasso
We discussed how the paintings are different and how they are the same. It was noticed, by the children, that while they all have at least one tree in their painting, they are all different versions, techniques, and styles of trees. Students then used waxed and pencil crayons to create their own ‘unique’ pictures. They all needed to include at least one tree … everything else was up to them. Here are the marvellous results:
We have begun the school year by looking at our families and learning about the many varied types of families. We enjoyed “Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge” by Mem Fox. This is a lovely story about a very young boy whose family lives next to a senior’s home. Wilfrid Gordon knows all the people, and is friendly with them all, but his favourite is Miss Nancy Alison Delacourt Cooper because she has four names, too.
One day he hears his parents talking about how Miss Nancy has lost her memory. This sets him on a quest to learn about memories and to help Miss Nancy find hers.
After reading the book we discussed memories and what makes some of them more powerful than others. Here are their responses:
We started with a large piece of white roll paper divided into 24 six by nine inch tiles. These all had mapping coordinates on them – A1 through to D6. Heavy tag board tiles were cut to these measurements. These were temporarily taped together so the grade twos could draw on the basic structures of roadways, parks, and the school site.
Each student then chose their tile as their name was pulled from a box. Two students were then pulled for the extra two tiles. Then the individual work began. Plasticine was used as ground cover – grass, cement, or asphalt for roads. Students chose different structures for their site. When these were all in place, details were added such as trees, stop lights, flagpoles, etc.
Side view photos in three sections for close ups:
And one from the other end …
Five classes came and viewed our work this afternoon.
Well done, everyone!!
Oil pastels, from a directed drawing lesson, add a blue paint wash, touch up with oil pastels and you have a lovely result 🎨
As a wrap up for our plant unit, we got into House groups and worked as a team to cut, sort, and glue pictures of plant based foods into the groups of the parts of the plant that they came from.
It was two chaotic afternoons, but these are the finished results.
The exhibition is ongoing until June 4th. Check the flyer on the email I sent out. The students would love to see their work in a real Art gallery. There are a lot of wonderful pieces from 16 other elementary schools in the main floor gallery. Don’t forget to check out the secondary students’ pieces in the upstairs gallery.
We used oil pastels and recreated an important piece of Monet’s famous garden in Giverny … his Japanese Footbridge. We looked at prints of a variety of his paintings of the bridge (which were painted at different times of the day) to notice the different lighting. We also looked at several of his water lily paintings.
Claude Monet was a leading member in the Impressionism painting movement which developed in France in the late 19th century and which was based on the practise of painting out of doors spontaneously – en plein air 🎨
We then used either green or blue tempera disc paints to do a wash over the whole picture. These lovely art pieces are gracing the bulletin board in the hallway outside of our classroom.
