Monday, March 26, 2012

winter, meet spring.

This week I wanted to do a follow up warm and cool color lesson with the 2nd graders. I was checking out Geninne's art blog and came across an image that I thought would be a perfect fit.


Geninne makes many paintings and other craft works that feature birds. She has a wonderful sense of color and decorative and spatial line. In this image I saw springtime meeting up with the winter season personified in the two chosen animals.

I decided that the kids would render the bird only in warm colors to contrast against the cool colors used on the polar bear and the background. 

Before starting the hands on lesson we watched a few minutes of Geninne working on one of her paintings. She posts short videos of her work in progress on her blog, so viewers can get a glimpse into her creative process. Well, the kids LOVED that. They oohed and ahhed at every stroke of color she applied.

We drew out our compositions together. We then added value with the cool colors to the polar bear. I emphasized changing the amount of pressure to create light and dark color values. Students added warm colors of their choice to their birds.

The final step was to add white paint to the various parts to add texture, pattern, and detail. 

The kids did a great job and they really enjoyed seeing their winter/spring friends come to life with color.

Thanks for the continued inspiration Geninne!















9 comments:

  1. Love these! Your students did a beautiful job with their shading!

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  2. I love the contrast between warm and cool colors with such an unlikely animal pairing. I've been watching Frozen Planet lately and thinking about how to have kids render polar bears in some creative way. I may borrow this idea for next year. Thanks for sharing:))

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  4. I love the colors. I think I am going to have to do that to but used diffrent colors.

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  5. I L-O-V-E each and every one of these works of art! You guys did a specially beautiful job with the bear's nose :-)

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  6. Wow! These are fantastic! Such a beautiful job! Hugs from Alaska.

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  7. your grade 2's have captured precious expressions on the faces of the bear and bird!

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  8. Really fun! I love Geninne's work and it's the perfect inspiration for the kids!

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  9. I love how each polar bear and bird has its own special personality. What great artists you all are! Geninne inspires a lot of us! :)

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