Fall Leaves Watercolor Resist

In keeping with the fall season, 1st grade artists looked at leaves and noticed that the green leaves change to red, orange and yellow when it becomes fall. We noticed that these are all warm colors. We began by looking at real leaves, as well as photographs of leaves, that have changed color during the fall. 
We noticed that some leaves had more than one color. 

Students drew several large leaves on their paper, using oil pastels, looking closely at the examples of leaves and drawing them from observation. We practiced close looking and noticed the bumpy edges of many of the leaves and the lines or veins inside. 

Then we painted our leaf drawings using watercolor paint in warm colors -- red, orange and yellow. The oil pastel lines of the leaves show through the watercolor paint, which demonstrates resist, an effect students learned about last year in kindergarten. 

Students also learned about a watercolor technique called wet-on-wet, which means the paper is wet before adding more wet paint on top. Students tried painting the paper with water first and then dropping or painting with watercolor on top, or painting a wash of one color and adding other colors on top. 

The watercolor blooms or spreads because the paper is already wet which creates a blurry effect. Students enjoyed experimenting with this technique, and many found its effect "magical"! We had to bring our artwork to the drying rack very carefully to make sure the paint stayed inside our leaves. 

The following class, we added some lines with white oil pastel to the background and then painted the background with cool colors of watercolor paint. Students experimented with wet-on-wet and also learned about another watercolor technique: using salt sprinkled on top of the wet paint. The salt absorbs the color from the paint, creating a white spot underneath as it dries and making a interesting texture. 

Students enjoyed combining some of the watercolor techniques they learned about during this project. After our artwork had dried, the salt was brushed off and students were excited to see the effects of the salt, as well as the wet-on-wet. Below are examples of our warm and cool color fall leaves:

Beatrix, 1st Grade (Landay)

Brigham, 1st Grade (Massa)

Clara, 1st Grade (Talamas)

Dylan, 1st Grade (Mandile)

Karissa, 1st Grade (Talamas)

Leo, 1st Grade (Massa)

Nathan, 1st Grade (Mandile)

Nora, 1st Grade (Massa)

Parissa, 1st Grade (Talamas)

Roslyn, 1st Grade (Salvucci)

Keegan, 1st Grade (McIsaac)

Amar, 1st Grade (McIsaac)

Nora, 1st Grade (McIsaac)

Sebastian, 1st Grade (Landay)

Radial Symmetry Name Designs

To start off the year, 5th grade artists created designs using their name! To begin, we learned about radial symmetry, which is symmetry around a central point. We actually learned about this concept in 3rd grade when we made our color wheel snowflakes. 

Next, students folded a square piece of paper into triangles before creating a name design, stretching their letters to fit the triangular shaped space. Some students used block or bubble letters and other students wrote their name using lines. The most important part was making the letters stretch to touch the edges of the triangle, since that helps the letters connect together as they are repeated. 

Students then traced over their design with a Sharpie marker and by flipping parts of the paper over each other, were able to trace their original design to repeat it in all the remaining triangles. The large windows in the connector hallway acted as a giant light box! 

After they completed this step, students unfolded their paper to see their radially symmetrical name design repeated all the way around. Students then added color to their design using colored pencil. 

Students used a technique called gradation, which is the visual technique of gradually transitioning from one color to another. Blending is key to this technique. Students also learned about analogous colors, which are three colors that are next to each other on the color wheel. 

Students utilized analogous colors when using gradation to better demonstrate the transition between colors. They also worked hard to cover all of the paper and apply even pressure to their colored pencils to get bright, bold colors. Some examples of our finished radial symmetry name designs are below -- can you see the name of each artist in their design?

Ben S., 5th Grade (Bellis)

Ben T., 5th Grade (Bellis)

Destanie, 5th Grade (Twomey)

Emily, 5th Grade (Twomey)

Evan, 5th Grade (Bellis)

Evey, 5th Grade (Psychoghios)

Gavin, 5th Grade (Twomey)

Holly, 5th Grade (Domermuth Fantasia)

Isaac, 5th Grade (Psychoghios)

Kiera, 5th Grade (Psychoghios)

Kingston, 5th Grade (Domermuth Fantasia)

Lenna, 5th Grade (Bellis)

Mackenzie, 5th Grade (Psychoghios)

Marina, 5th Grade (Psychoghios)

Mia C., 5th Grade (Twomey)

Michael, 5th Grade (Domermuth Fantasia)

Pamela, 5th Grade (Domermuth Fantasia)

Pavlos, 5th Grade (Domermuth Fantasia)

Tatiana, 5th Grade (Psychoghios)

Printed + Painted Cityscapes

We have been continuing our exploration of lines in PK and Kindergarten and connected them together to make shapes. We used paint, but this time we did not use a paintbrush or water cups. Instead, we used a new technique: printing! We learned to make lines and shapes using cardboard. 

First we dipped the cardboard into paint, then pressed it onto our paper and lifted it up to make a mark. Dip, press, lift. We noticed that we could connect the lines to make them into shapes, and make different lines by changing the way we put our marks down on our paper. 

PK and Kindergarten artists created busy cityscapes, with tall skyscrapers, apartment buildings, hotels, stores, cars, and even people. We had a lot of fun coming up with our own cityscapes, using our printed lines and shapes to inspire our imaginations. 

We tried our best to fill up our paper and included the sun, clouds and even helicopters in the sky. Some students chose to create a rainy or stormy day in their city.

The following class, we added color using tempera paint. We thought about how to make our colors bright to fill in our shapes, making sure to get plenty of paint on our paint brush, as well as fill in the background. Take a look at some of our printed and painted cityscapes:

Annie, Kindergarten (Segreve)

Charlotte, Kindergarten (Bolton)

Colby, Kindergarten (Mattson)

Elyse, Kindergarten (Beatty)

Hudson, Kindergarten (Segreve)

Jeremiah, Kindergarten (Bolton)

John, PK (Martignetti)

Leo, Kindergarten (Mattson)

Lia, Kindergarten (Tan)

Matthew, Kindergarten (Beatty)

Nareg, Kindergarten (Blackwood)

Shriya, Kindergarten (Segreve)

Zoha, Kindergarten (Tan)