Wednesday, January 22, 2014

what a big eye you have.

My classroom got a deep cleaning over winter break, so why not dirty it right back up again, right?!

This week the 4th graders are working with pastels for the first time this year. They are applying light and dark techniques that we practiced on the snowpeople project right before break to a different subject... Smaug.






We draw out the contours together and then work through the tinting and shading together, too. As we build the eye and skin I model how to blend to create smooth texture and leave unblended to create a rougher texture. The color choices are up to the kids. We build the skin first and then do the eye, so I remind them that they can use colors that are in harmony with one another or ones that are complementary/opposite of each other.

When I introduce the project I share that the animators of Smaug (there were 12!) focused not only making Smaug look real, but they also devoted a lot of energy into getting his personality to come across.

I wanted the kids to be thinking about this as they worked in class. One of their exit slip questions was to tell us about their dragon- give us information on it emotionally and physically.

There has been a lot of success with this project. It's great to see so many kids creating 3d effects in their work:)












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