These sunflowers came together at the perfect time – right on the Thursday before Spring Break. While the intention behind this lesson was to try a directed drawing leading into painting, the students were creative in thinking of times of the year to use these paintings as gifts to loved ones.
The directed drawing itself came from https://artprojectsforkids.org which is a great beginners look into how to teach, direct, or learn to draw. The step-by-step instructions break the page into quarters, eighths, or sixteenths, which allows students to create a grid for proper placement of pieces. While art can be about artistic expression, to begin that process students can focus on smaller elements such as paint use, placement of objects, line consistency… This was the primary focus of this assignment.
Students used a thick coat of paint over their lines, starting with the background, moving to the leaves, and then the flower, this created a beautiful thick layer of tempera paint. Secondly, after their paintings dried, they outlined their flowers with a fine-tip sharpie.
Two students worked together to paint my example sunflowers for one of their classmates out of the room – heartwarming.
Core Competency: Creative Thinking
Facet: Creating and innovating.
Profile: I can usually make my ideas work within the constraints of a given form, problem, or materials if I keep playing with them.
First Peoples Principles of Learning: Learning involves patience and time.
Big Ideas:
- Artists experiment in a variety of ways to discover new possibilities (4) and perspectives. (5)
Curricular Competency:
- Develop and refine ideas, processes, and technical skills in a variety of art forms to improve the quality of artistic creations (4&5)
Content:
- elements and principles that together create meaning in the arts (4&5)
