Mrs. Pierce's Polka Dot Spot: October 2013

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

2/3 Fall Birch Trees

Second and third graders learned how to identify and create foreground, middleground, background in artworks and their own art. Students also learned how to identify positive/ negative space. Second and third graders used different width masking tape to make trees on their paper. They paid close attention to placement of trees in foreground, middleground, and background. They created a horizon line and water, this line divides artwork into sky and ground. Students used liquid water colors to paint in landscape around the masking tape. Once paint dried students removed the tape to see a negative space (the tree). Third graders used Sharpie to add horizontal lines for birch tree markings. Lastly, students used black water color paint to create a shadow effect on the trees.

4^th graders learned about abstract art. Artists create abstract art in many different ways, often they create artworks using only lines, shapes, and colors painted in an interesting way.

On the first day of their art project, students were given a paint tray, a large piece of white paper, and listened to many different styles of music, and I just told them to paint. They painted the entire sheet of paper in any way they chose, as long as the entire paper was covered and they used more than one color.
On the second day of their project, we discussed how artists create visual movement in their paintings. Visual movement is how the artist wants the viewer’s eye to travel through the painting. This is done by using line, shapes, colors, patterns, and use of space.
4^th graders created movement in their abstract paintings by outlining all the color changes they originally painted. In each color space, they then created a pattern to keep your eye moving throughout the painting.